The conservatives will have to look at trying to make a buck out of shining shoes or washing windscreens on street corners

Unless you can become pollies and ripoff the taxpayers for a decent salary that's the only career paths left open to you

any increase of battery tech is good for all of us, so these promising developments can only bring that closer for us.
There r so many paths of battery reserch at the moment, if we can keep the momentum up of the last 10 years on battery density and output, it wont take long before batteries will be the main energy source for our needs.

lee wrote on Sep 15^th, 2018 at 10:02pm:


DonDeeHippy wrote on Sep 16^th, 2018 at 7:15am:


A battery that can't retain its charge is a "promising development"?

Sir lastnail wrote on Sep 16^th, 2018 at 1:34pm:



perhaps you missed this -

lee wrote on Sep 15^th, 2018 at 12:37pm:


Sir lastnail wrote on Sep 16^th, 2018 at 1:34pm:



Oh? Now you are inferring something that you do?

1. I don't do lattes.
2. I don't own shares.
3. I don't read the Fin Review.

Ergo there is no imperative for me to check share prices.

Are you really such a failure that you completely misjudge people totally?

Perhaps one day you may enter the real world. (If nanny let's you out.)

Sir lastnail wrote on Sep 16^th, 2018 at 5:45pm:



So tell us more about this "perfect" battery. The one that may not hold charge. The one that may miraculously get more "perfect" with every charge.

That doesn't sound like moving forward. but perhaps you can enlighten us. Merely making claims of improving new technologies doesn't do it.

Must  be so sad to be you.

In my life I have seen many things touted as the next "big thing"; some of them in technology.

The fact is most haven't lived up to the hype.

It is wonderful to believe in new technology. But it has to pass the pub test. It has to eventuate into something meaningful.

Just quoting or posting a youtube about the next "big thing" mindlessly just isn't good enough.

Battery research is going on. And I applaud that. But as I have said many times it is a mature technology. It is extremely doubtful as to whether there will be a "eureka moment". There will however be incremental increases.

The same applies to both solar and wind. Both mature technologies.

lee wrote on Sep 16^th, 2018 at 10:34pm:



  Maybe your eureka moment has never happened for you - doesn't mean it cannot happen.

However this is an interesting discussion and me being an optimist. Believes and has faith in human discovery.

There are some who say that batteries are a conduit for power and not a source - (although they appear to be). Colonel Tom Beardon for one. Maxwell also implied something similar as did Oliver Heaviside - more than 100 years ago.

Some of you smarties may like to comment on this phenomenon . That a magnet magnetized in a fraction of a second can in theory do work for ever. Far in excess of the power taken to magnetize it - this violates the law of conservation of energy. It appears that magnets also may be a conduit as well.

I would appreciate a sensible explanation.

Sir lastnail wrote on Sep 18^th, 2018 at 12:59pm:



Yes. Now how did we survive in the NH without fire in winter. You know when the sun is low or not there for up to 6 months of the year.

Sir lastnail wrote on Sep 18^th, 2018 at 12:59pm:



Please quote my "flawed" arguments.

So one of the flawed arguments would be the standard of dispatchable energy? We shouldn't judge renewables on that? We shouldn't judge wind and solar on intermittency?

So tell us about the environmental damage wind towers don't do. You know digging up trees and vegetation and putting in big lumps of concrete. Concrete that is apparently a source of CO2.

How about footings for solar panels?

BTW - Did you know "green" Germany is still building coal fired power as are other Eu countries.

The origins of baseload power
Firstly, it’s important to know that baseload power is the result of the way the electricity market used to work when coal-fired power stations were its mainstay and cheapest option. ‘Baseload’ did/does not refer to the maximum or even the average output of these power stations, but the minimum they could produce without having to be switched off. If they were cars, ‘baseload’ would be the idle speed, such as when you’re waiting at a traffic light.

Professor Anthony Vassallo holds the Delta Electricity Chair in Sustainable Energy Development at the University of Sydney. He says baseload is that small part of energy generation originally designed to be running continuously.

“When the electricity gird expansion took place from the fifties to the seventies, the big option in Australia was coal-fired power stations which are designed not to be turned off,” he explains.

“They were sized and scaled to meet the lowest point of power demand during the day and ran continuously throughout. The idea was that as the demand rose during the day you could increase the output from those generators, because they wouldn’t be operating at full capacity.”

If these baseload generators did reach full capacity then electricity grid operators brought in extra electricity generation from gas or hydro, or some other source that was more expensive.

Baseload ‘no longer suitable’
The problem was that there usually wasn’t enough load for these huge baseload generators at night, and no generating company wanted to turn them off because it cost too much money and energy to get them running again.

“The baseload, that is the lowest load on the generators, is met at 4 a.m.,” Vassallo continues. “At that time of the day the idea is that the cheap fuel generators, the coal-fired generators, would be ticking over, just meting that minimum demand.

“If the demand dropped even more, some of the big generators would have to turn off, which is very inefficient. So there were schemes like off-peak hot water to provide extra load and use the generator power that was available at that time of night.”

Vassallo says today’s electricity generation technology is so flexible it doesn’t need a ‘baseload’. There is no need to keep huge coal-fired stations ticking over 24/7.

“I don’t think it’s sensible to force this historic generation pyramid of baseload thinking onto the market and say, ‘Look, renewable energy can’t supply this baseload.’ I think the argument is more along the lines that the older design is no longer suitable for newer technologies.”

Sir lastnail wrote on Sep 18^th, 2018 at 4:08pm:



So tell me do they need power at all times at all hospitals? That is a part of baseload power. Baseload power is the amount of power that is needed at any one time. Streetlights? Getting up to see to a kid in the middle of the night? Can renewables guarantee that supply? That is dispatchable power.  Forget about the actual generation method, to what use is that generation to be put.

I can't help it if you can't think for yourself but regurgitate crap.

" “The baseload, that is the lowest load on the generators, is met at 4 a.m.,” Vassallo continues. “At that time of the day the idea is that the cheap fuel generators, the coal-fired generators, would be ticking over, just meting that minimum demand." "

That minimum demand is baseload power for that time.

"Vassallo says today’s electricity generation technology is so flexible it doesn’t need a ‘baseload’. There is no need to keep huge coal-fired stations ticking over 24/7."

So at night when the wind don't blow?

Or perhaps you have a different definition of what baseload power would consist.  Feel free to enlighten us.

Sir lastnail wrote on Sep 18^th, 2018 at 5:08pm:



So obtuse.

If the wind is blowing in Western Australia it won't help eastern Australia. You have heard of transmission losses? No grid?

If the wind is blowing fitfully in Victoria it won't help NSW. You do understand there needs to be constant wind.

You did read about the wind "stilling"? What ramifications would you see from that?

lee wrote on Sep 15^th, 2018 at 10:02pm:


DonDeeHippy wrote on Sep 16^th, 2018 at 7:15am:


A battery that can't retain its charge is a "promising development"?

Must  be so sad to be you.

In my life I have seen many things touted as the next "big thing"; some of them in technology.



It is wonderful to believe in new technology. But it has to pass the pub test. It has to eventuate into something meaningful.

Just quoting or posting a youtube about the next "big thing" mindlessly just isn't good enough.

Battery research is going on. And I applaud that. But as I have said many times it is a mature technology. It is extremely doubtful as to whether there will be a "eureka moment". There will however be incremental increases.

The same applies to both solar and wind. Both mature technologies.

Distributed renewable power generation across the country will work but you actually have to do it instead of making pissweak excuses not to do anything which is what you libbos are good at doing.

You lot stand for a useless party with no policy ambition except to sell everything off instead of running it properly.

Aboriginal land rights Cheesy LOL Doesn't seem to effect the conservatives when they want to mine for sh.t then the land rights go out the door Cheesy LOL

The thing about wind farns and solar PV arrays is that you are not actually wrecking the land. It can be dismantled anytime and put back the way it was.

The libbos stock standard policy to change is NO..NO..NO..NO..NO..NO..NO..NO..NO !

Give us the costs on your privatization racket ? How much are those scammers costing us for no additional benefit ?

You conservatives seem to think it's good policy to throw good money after bad at do-nothing people instead of actually putting the money into energy infrastructure.

You bang on about cheaper energy prices. Well the way to that is to build as much renewable energy capacity and even give some aborigines jobs along the way.