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Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

bloomberg.com

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Re: Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

#121

Post by defrost »

panick21_ wrote: post #110
dsffghfghfghfgh wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Edited my original comment to include processing plants]. There is a secondary stage of processing after extraction which is highly toxic, that is the polluting part. Have a look at the huge tailings dams they set up to hold the toxic waste. These things just kick the can down the road for future generations. They also probably leak into groundwater. Lucky you don't have to drink that water.

Non of the processing plants are in Africa. So I have no idea what you are talking about. There is like 1 lithium mine in Africa and I'm not even sure it produces lithium for batteries. As far as I now not a single lithium refinement facility is in Africa. The waste majority of lithium comes from Australia, China or South America. If you look at industry statistics, 90% of lithium refinement is done in China. Lithium…

For some sound figures, see the 25 years of lithium production graphic here [1] Australia is responsible for twice the seperated end product as Chile which itself produces twice that of China (2021).

Half of Australias 55.4 ktonnes of production (REO) comes from Mt Weld ( 240,000 tonnes per annum of ore to produce up to 66,000 tonnes per annum of concentrate containing 26,500 tonnes of REO ) [2].

Mt Weld Australia ships its concentrate to the world’s largest single rare earths processing plant in Malaysia[3].

These figures rather undercut the assertion that:

> If you look at industry statistics, 90% of lithium refinement is done in China.

Can you link to the "industry statistics" that you are quoting? Thankyou.

[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/01/chart-countries-produ...

[2] https://lynasrareearths.com/about-us/locations/mt-weld-weste...

[3] https://lynasrareearths.com/

Re: Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

#122

Post by snovv_crash »

megablast wrote: post #109
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, its because in a higher tax braket you pay more tax its the sane in britain - if you earn $200,000 income-tax-free means 50% off, but if you earn $20,000. it means like 5% off Also in Uk id you want to buy a e car, you get a grant of a few grand, if you want an e motorbike you get like $300, and if you want an ebike, the most wco friwndly option, you fuck right off

> and if you want an ebike, the most wco friwndly option, you fuck right off The most eco friendly option is still a bike. Not an ebike.

Depends. If you ride a lot, ebikes are actually more eco-friendly, because electricity is more carbon friendly to produce than the extra calories you'd eat.

Re: Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

#123

Post by jillesvangurp »

andrewstuart wrote: post #54

Yeah but Australia also happily digging vast quantities of coal out of the ground and selling it to India and China and elsewhere, utterly dwarfing any local cutbacks in usage. A land of opportunity (for the OzzieGarchs) and hypocrisy (for the politicians).

It's a short term effect though. Basically, in the Australian market, coal stopped being competitive. And as you rightly point out that's under political circumstances that were very pro-coal and in a market where lithium batteries were still expensive and scarce. Despite this, those became a viable and popular solution. And by now a proven solution as well.

That's an economical effect that will be replicated elsewhere as well and as it happens, coal demand will suffer. In much of Europe and the US, coal stopped being a growth market about a decade ago. Many plants have already closed and few are expected to survive the next decade.

However, both India and China have am insatiable demand for power. They don't buy coal because it is cheap but because it is the only capacity available to them at a large enough scale. It's a stop gap solution. Of course especially China is working hard to address that supply issue. Ramping up production capacity is going to take time. Demand currently outstrips global production capacity by quite a big margin. But they are already market leaders and working hard to extend the lead.

Tesla just announced opening a new 40 GW megapack factory in China. That will double their output. But it's nowhere near enough. It seems they are one of the few companies able to operate at this scale. For now. That's not going to last of course. It's like printing money almost. They got in early and are benefiting from that right now. But it's inevitable that others will catch up.

Re: Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

#124

Post by nivenkos »

GenerWork wrote: post #76
rippercushions wrote: post #32

Australia also has a remarkable tax incentive that lets you buy EVs basically tax free (fringe benefits tax exemption for novated leases, in bureaucratese). Basically, instead of paying $70k for a Tesla post-tax, you can get it deducted directly from your paycheck for around $45k pretax. The exact math depends on your income, and perversely enough the subsidy increases the more you earn and the higher your taxes, but…

> the subsidy increases the more you earn and the higher your taxes What's the name of this law called that does this? Seems like quite the oversight.

It's not really a subsidy, just you don't pay income tax on it as salary sacrifice.

Ideally there's be no income tax or VAT at all, and we'd tax wealth/land/property instead so this would be a non-issue.

Re: Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

#125

Post by hytdstd »

snovv_crash wrote: post #122
megablast wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and if you want an ebike, the most wco friwndly option, you fuck right off The most eco friendly option is still a bike. Not an ebike.

Depends. If you ride a lot, ebikes are actually more eco-friendly, because electricity is more carbon friendly to produce than the extra calories you'd eat.

There's an interesting blog post about this topic: https://keith.seas.harvard.edu/blog/climate-impacts-biking-v...

Re: Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

#126

Post by samus »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #11
bittumenEntity wrote: post #9

The fact that in the opening hook the author mistook the state of South Australia for a province just me doubt even more how close to reality this is.

province - an administrative district or division of a country Is that not close enough to how states in Australia work that you can accept the mistake and move on?

The word "state" usually implies a part of a federated country. "Province" is more often used for administrative circuits of a country with a centralized government.

Re: Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

#128

Post by mjevans »

snovv_crash wrote: post #122
megablast wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and if you want an ebike, the most wco friwndly option, you fuck right off The most eco friendly option is still a bike. Not an ebike.

Depends. If you ride a lot, ebikes are actually more eco-friendly, because electricity is more carbon friendly to produce than the extra calories you'd eat.

Your theory is worth discussing.

While in an absolute instant sense energy use might win for the machine, you probably forgot to factor in the lifetime cost of the production of the machine's components. I do not blame you as such a task seems exhaustively daunting, and we only ignore it for the people because who would be heartless enough to think that way? (probably insurance agents, lawyers, and such...)

There are also pros and cons to the different elements. Exercise on a bike might have a hard to measure benefit compared to an e-bike. On the other hand adoption pressures and increased hygiene needs are more positive and negative side effects.

Re: Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

#129

Post by theshrike79 »

uejfiweun wrote: post #13
rainsford wrote: post #5

The graph partway down is pretty interesting. In terms of grid battery capacity that's in the works, Australia is second only to China (albeit a fairly distant second). They're even beating the US in 3rd place, which also highlights how much we're slacking in this space. If Australia is successful here, I wonder if it will spur more investment in places like the US. China is probably not a good bellwether since they…

Probably a dumb question, but would mass-batterification leave our society extremely vulnerable to EMP?

Very few pieces of our current tech are immune to EMPs, the only cars that would work are old diesels pretty much.

Re: Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

#130

Post by deeviant »

bblpeter wrote: post #127

Quitting coal mining in exchange for lithium mining? That’s like saying an addict is healthy because he quit heroin in exchange for being hooked on fentanyl.

It's actually like quitting heron for pot. Coal is vastly more damaging.
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