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Australia’s Darling River is running dry

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Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#131

Post by jandrese »

erentz wrote: post #128
jandrese wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically power is exported by smelting aluminum from bauxite. A big advantage of doing it this way is you can run the smelters only when there is an overproduction of power to help even out demand on the grid.

I thought you could only shut down an aluminium smelter for a couple of hours. It’s essential they keep the pots (?) hot constantly or they get ruined and the plant is then offline hundreds of millions to repair. If this is correct then solar would be a terrible power source for smelting. Good power sources: hydro, geothermal. Which is why we see smelters in places with hydro and geothermal. Australia should go nucle…

You can design the plant to handle intermittent power. It's a bit more expensive, but you're getting the savings from using cheaper power.

https://www.metalbulletin.com/events/download.ashx/document/...

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#132

Post by michaelscott »

jefftk wrote: post #120
DrJones1098 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying subject a fundamental basic need for human life and existence to capitalism? That's an absolutely terrifying proposition.

Do you think it's a problem that food is priced?

If I disagree with the price of a potato, I can buy rice. Food is price elastic in so far as I have options in what food to buy for what purpose. That said, indeed in my country and a number of others there are certain food stuffs which may not be legally taxed via VAT as they are considered necessary for daily survival.

Water is completely price inelastic economically. There is no alternative to it and it is essential to the persistence of life. Should it be priced? If it requires labour or other external factors that bear cost, sure. Should its price be tweaked as an economic lever? Even if that worked (it wouldn't for something inelastic like water anyway) I would still say no.

Using water's price as a disincentive can only possibly work in non-essential use cases, which doesn't seem to be the case in this Australian example.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#133

Post by Gibbon1 »

imglorp wrote: post #95
jandrese wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically power is exported by smelting aluminum from bauxite. A big advantage of doing it this way is you can run the smelters only when there is an overproduction of power to help even out demand on the grid.

I wonder if a concentrated solar power tower heating a crucible of ore would be more efficient than inefficiencies from PV, transmission, conversion, storage etc.

I think we're getting close to the point where mirrors cost more than solar panels.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#134

Post by Gibbon1 »

roenxi wrote: post #63
Gatsky wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many people in the current government that believe in climate change. The real problem is that the government has surmised (correctly, it would seem) that climate change isn’t an issue that will win an election. That and the fact that pricing carbon was the opposition party’s policy...

> That and the fact that pricing carbon was the opposition party’s policy... It is somewhat complicated by the fact the the Labor party was tarred by introducing a climate tax after promising not to. They had a minority government due to some political shenanigans and had to form a loose coalition with the Greens for an electoral cycle. The Greens managed to negotiate in a carbon tax that was not well received. Labor…

Granted from a political and economic standpoint imposing consumer carbon taxes is stupid and inane.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#135

Post by fit2rule »

moomin wrote: post #67

Australia has a serious problem with water, and it would have a serious problem even without climate change. The water in the Darling, and in any river, can be extracted free of charge if your land includes the river. This produces permanent drought conditions in a country that exports oranges. Australia has limited water resources and laws that treat it as unlimited. It will be incredibly hard to square that circle.…

I know, right? The crazy thing is, the Great Artesian Basin.

The problem with water in Australia, is the politics. Australians have one of the most heinous political systems around, yet seem adequately comfortable with their lot.

I mean, its the nation that sat by and watched the Great Barrier Reef die. Care of the land has not been a priority in Australia for about 200 years...

(Not trolling, Aussies! She'll be right mates!)

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#136

Post by vkou »

gonational wrote: post #90
vkou wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please provide reproduced, peer-reviewed sources for these extraordinary claims. While you're at it, please explain, with reproduced, peer-reviewed sources why you think the greenhouse effect, which directly ties CO2 to warming doesn't exist.

1. I added a link to the gp - I'll also provide you with these as food for thought: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39054778 https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2013/oc... 2. Please provide any evidence that I made claims that the greehouse effect doesn't exist.

> 2. Please provide any evidence that I made claims that the greehouse effect doesn't exist.

Okay, so it does exist - that's great! We're ~1.3C above the pre-industrial average today.

Which part of this 1.3C came from the greenhouse effect, which part of it comes from a collection of odd one-off factors, and which part of it came from the magical IPCC-ignored radiation spectrum that has nothing to do with the greenhouse effect?

Please, provide numbers. Not hand-waving - but numbers.

Also, since it does exist - how much warming would the greenhouse effect be expected to contribute when we hit 500 ppm carbon? 650 ppm?

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#137

Post by nickthemagicman »

jefftk wrote: post #120
DrJones1098 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying subject a fundamental basic need for human life and existence to capitalism? That's an absolutely terrifying proposition.

Do you think it's a problem that food is priced?

You can literally grow food in your backyard. It's a renewable resource. You can't `create water` in your backyard. Freshwater is effectively a non-renewable resource. So the supply is limited but the demand is infinite, which makes capitalistic rules not apply. So if you attempted to apply capitalism, you would get horrible exploitative results.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#138

Post by nickthemagicman »

michaelscott wrote: post #132
jefftk wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it's a problem that food is priced?

If I disagree with the price of a potato, I can buy rice. Food is price elastic in so far as I have options in what food to buy for what purpose. That said, indeed in my country and a number of others there are certain food stuffs which may not be legally taxed via VAT as they are considered necessary for daily survival. Water is completely price inelastic economically. There is no alternative to it and it is essenti…

This exactly.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#139

Post by supercow12 »

gonational wrote: post #125
supercow12 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IPCC report is massive with every single thing painstakenly cited, sourced and explained. For example: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_TS_FI... >"Solar forcing is the only known natural forcing acting to warm the climate over the 1951–2010 period but it has increased much less than WMGHG forcing, and the observed pattern of long-term tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling is not con…

I’m afraid your comment completely ignores the only point I made in my comment... TSI stands for total solar irradiance. This is the EMR spectrum I’m referring to. If you continue to read the report from the IPCC, you will notice there is no mention of energetic particle precipitation (EPP), or any particle forcing of any kind. So yes, the IPCC report is extraordinarily thorough and exactly perfect in everything that…

It indeed doesn't mention EPP.

Is there any proof that EPP is significant?

What about the other parts of the report?

For example:

>"It is extremely likely that human activities caused more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010. This assessment is supported by robust evidence from multiple studies using different methods. In particular, the temperature trend attributable to all anthropogenic forcings combined can be more closely constrained in multi-signal detection and attribution analyses. "

In order for climate change to be primarily driven by EPP or particle forcing instead of anthroprogenic forcing, it would have to be the case that either:

A. Somehow, anthroprogenic forcing is much less than the multiple avenues of evidence show. Here:

https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapt...

https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/07/WGI_AR5.Chap...

https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_TS_FI...

https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapt...

or

B. There is something unknown that offsets the impact of anthroprogenic forcing, but would not have offset the impact of particle forcing in the absence of anthroprogenic forcing.

In the absence of evidence, it is a big claim to make that either of these things are the case.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#140

Post by nshepperd »

michaelscott wrote: post #132
jefftk wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it's a problem that food is priced?

If I disagree with the price of a potato, I can buy rice. Food is price elastic in so far as I have options in what food to buy for what purpose. That said, indeed in my country and a number of others there are certain food stuffs which may not be legally taxed via VAT as they are considered necessary for daily survival. Water is completely price inelastic economically. There is no alternative to it and it is essenti…

Demand for drinking water is inelastic. That's a tiny fraction of a fraction of usage. The majority of fresh water is used for farming, as coolants, solvents, reagents in industrial processes. These uses certainly do have alternatives, whether switching to alternative crops, developing more efficient manufacturing methods, building desalination plants. If that happened there would be more water available for essential use cases like drinking.
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