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Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

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171–180 of 257 posts

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

#171

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…

In Austria we have much the same but luxury car limit has been 40k since like 2 decades. Which is an utter joke in 2023 because you can buy like 3 EVs under 40k list price.

We do? Isn't this only a thing for corporate vehicles?

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

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can politically thank The Greens for no nuclear power plants in Australia (apart from Lucas Heights, medical). Ironically, their 100% outright, non negotiable no nuclear policy has pushed heavy carbon emitting coal power plants for the last 30 years until the recent policy shift of winding them down in lieu of solar.

Is this true? Greens sometimes have influence in balance of power, but ultimatly they are a smaller party with limited influence or policy making decisions. Logically that view seems to look at one side of the position only, if they had the power to stop nuclear you'd have to think they also have the power to significantly reduce/replace coal, which hasn't been the case. Generally doesn't seem fair statement to me bu…

It is not true; the main impediment to nuclear in Australia has been some combination of the Australian Labor party and the people who vote for them. They've been staunchly anti-nuclear for a long time.

"Labor will ... [p]rohibit the establishment of nuclear power plants and all other stages of the nuclear fuel cycle in Australia;" [0]

[0] https://www.alp.org.au/2021nationalplatform

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

#173
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rosatom builds faster than South Korea, which takes 9 years to build a reactor [0]. For example, the reactor in Belarus was built in 8 years[1]. The first reactor at the Akkuyu site in Turkey is going to be built in 6 years [2]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea... [2] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Major-c…

> the reactor in Belarus was built in 8 years That’s slower than average [1]. Striking, considering how much where you build influences timelines as much as who’s building. (I doubt Minsk subjects Rosatom to community input, labor requirements or environmental reviews.) [1] https://hannahritchie.substack.com/p/nuclear-construction-ti...

Yes, lots of the reactors are built by China which takes 5-6 years to do the job. All other countries take more time.

"community input, ... environmental reviews"

It all happens before the start of construction, doesn't it?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea...

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

#174

https://opennem.org.au/energy/sa1/ is the one-stop-shop for current energy situation in Australia. Anecdotal: SA was pushing towards clean energy notably before the battery came in, but in turn, had a very unstable grid, and the things like energy trading et al. were tied up in international ownership iirc (needing authorization to do a large energy trade required someone from France giving approval, timezones didn't…

Really great visualization. Seems to disprove the title of the article to me though. Battery has a .1% grid contribution (point 1 percent, not one percent). Coal is a massive 62% of power generation in Australia! Seems improbable to me that the major driver of reducing 60+% electricity contribution is something producing .1%. Seems more like Australia is "quitting coal in records" purely because it's using so much of…

A very small capacitor can stabilize a much larger supply. I totally believe that .1% fast response source and drain could have a stabilizing effect that is measurable.

For example: a battery that large could easily absorb a voltage spike that would cause a grid fault or brownout. Those tend to cascade and not having them immediately has a large effect on grid stability.

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

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Batteries are not in danger from an EMP. Sensitive electronic components are in danger. https://www.agilesurvival.com/emp-effect-batteries/

I think they meant 'batteries as a system', not the individual cells and grid tied batteries have a very large amount of electronics to charge, discharge and protect the batteries.

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

#177
post #115
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a link to this tax incentive? When did it come in?

Here it is from the ATO: https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Fringe-benefits-tax/Types-of... It came into effect a few months ago, but was back dated to 1 July 2022.

I think the original comment is misleading. As far as I can tell you need your employer to buy the EV for you; and then they don't have to pay Fringe Benefits Tax on it. This might benefit people who get a "company car" but I don't know of anyone who has gotten a fringe benefit as large as a car from their employer before. I don't doubt it happens but I doubt it helps anyone except employees and employers who could comfortably afford the tax to begin with. I'm not a tax expert so I could be completely misunderstanding this though.

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

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you making that comparison? Do you mean an ebike ridden 2,000 km for errands and 8,000 km for fun; vs. the 2,000 km for the bike, for errands, but no biking for fun? That is, are you implying that the ebike is a lot more fun than a regular bike? Or are you comparing 10,000 km on an ebike; vs. a bike ridden 2,00 km and some other personal vehicle used for 8,000 km? That is, are you implying that a human-powere…

I think they mean that you could end up using an ebike in situations where normally you’d use a car or some other form of transportation.

What confuses me is the leadup is about getting an ebike, vs. an ecar or emotorbike. Not about getting both a(n e)bike AND some other more ecologically damaging form of transport.

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

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Austria we have much the same but luxury car limit has been 40k since like 2 decades. Which is an utter joke in 2023 because you can buy like 3 EVs under 40k list price.

We do? Isn't this only a thing for corporate vehicles?

Yes sorry but the company can very favorably provide the vehicle to employees without the employee getting taxed on the benefit at all. If you look at the new car market at relevant price points most potential buyers (self employed and people with generous salaries) have access to the scheme.

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

#180
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10k km a year on a bike means riding it for more than an hour every workday. Not a lot of people willing to do that, i think. If that were truly the breakeven distance (i know you didn't really say that) ebikes would be screwed in terms of ecological impact.

That’s half an hour to work, half an hour back. Not outlandish, if you compare normal commutes.

Assuming 250 work days (50 weeks * 5 days), that's 40km/day.

I don't think most people bike at 40km/hour.

Across a year, that averages to 27.4 km per day, biking each and every day.

If done in an hour, that's rather faster than my average biking speed of about 16 kph.

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