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Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

bloomberg.com

191–200 of 257 posts

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

#191
post #187
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they ain't paying tax for fuel, roads have to be fixed for something...

Fuel excises do not get allocated directly to some kind of "road budget", they go into general revene. Almost all of it can be accounted for in corresponding fuel tax credits, three quarters of which go to mining companies. From memory the difference in 2019 census was like 100mil, so 7.8billion came in from fuel excise, 7.7billion went back out in fuel tax credits. In essence, everyone pays for federal roads, road u…

> “Fuel taxes are a trivial component to infrastructure upkeep, is my understanding.”

If that’s true, Australia needs to think about raising its fuel/vehicle taxes!

In the UK, the opposite is true: direct fuel and vehicle taxes raise 3-4X more revenue than is spent on roads annually[1]

[1] In 2021/22, £11.8 billion was spent on UK local and national roads, vs £28 billion raised from fuel duty and £7.1 billion from vehicle excise duty.

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

#192

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…

I can just imagine that getting a reliable power grid without batteries would mean you would have to supply extra power at all times to account for any shortfall. Now you just have to provide power until some natural gas generators can spool up.

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

#193
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully it will mean more local solar off grid setups, more heat pumps and better thermal insulation. People need to start being more efficient with the energy they use. The increase in cost will help with that in some cases.

Should the message to poor people, who are getting destroyed with very high energy costs, be "just spend $10,000 on solar"? Environmentalists are pretty out of touch when they throw poor people under the bus and tell them to just buy a $50,000 entry-level Tesla or a $10,000 entry-level solar system. They'll simply vote for populism if they are bled further, and price rises are a certainty with expensive renewable 'so…

Especially in Australia, where we are also undergoing a housing crisis. Australia's poorest don't own their homes, and renters don't have a say on insulation or solar installation.

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

#194

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 That's absolutely not correct, the tax subsidy for buying bikes and ebikes in this country is bonkers and better than pretty much anywhere else. If you have any job you can always buy any bike(including an ebike) through the cycle to work scheme meaning it's deducted from your salary pre-tax (meaning that effectively it's a deduction from yo…

> That's absolutely not correct, the tax subsidy for buying bikes and ebikes in this country is bonkers and better than pretty much anywhere else.

Have you actually tried using it? Four problems:

1 - The bicycle belongs to your employer, and when it's ownership is formally transferred to you, you have to pay tax on it.

2 - The 'cycle Scheme' is implemented separately by each major bike shop running their own scheme, Halfords runs Cycle2Work, Evans runs Ride to work. Your employer signs up to one or the other. If you are on Cycle2Work you can't but from Halfords

3 - If you want something that's not in Halfords, like a specific seat you like or a Bafang Conversion kit, then you have to go to independent shops that are 'in network'. Halfords charges 15% commission, and Evans charges 10%

4 - Employers set random limits, for example my employer does not allow over 1K spend, so you can't buy a decent ebike

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

#197

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 the implication is that commuting longer distances (20km+) is doable on an e-bike. My commute is 10km (300m uphill) on a regular bike, but I have access to a shower. If I didn't, I don't think I could do it on a regular bike. In general, it's able to displace longer trips (other than biking for fun) than a non-electric bike.

> In general, it's able to displace longer trips (other than biking for fun) than a non-electric bike.

Exactly.

Since converting to an e-bike, I am using it 4x as much. Especially in the summer, it changes from a sweaty trip to a pleasant one. Those tips would normally be public transport.

10K sounds a bit ambitious, but myself and a friend are on track to exceed 3K.

This whole discussion is splitting hairs -> out of a single electric car, you can make 150 ebikes.

A good ebike battery is 0.5 KWh, a an electric car is ~80 KWh. An electric car might weigh 1500 KG and an ebike like 15.

So really it seems the conclusion should be that the ebikes are overpriced and they should cost $500 if their productions was automated like production of cars is.

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

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sh…

Its really hard to find stats for refinement. I thought I had seen 90%, but I do not remember where. Your [1] seems to suggest its only 60%. So I might have been wrong on that.

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

#200
post #112

Australia needs to get its act together and build high speed rail lines. Their geography is actually fantastic for it, its criminal not to have done it 40 years ago.

> Their geography is actually fantastic for it their demographic sparsity on the other hand, is not fantastic for it. You want high usage for rail. Unfortunately, there's not really enough people travelling to make it a profitable venture imho. Between sydney and melbourne, it's _just_ barely in the range for a flight, and so a rail will not beat it on convenience. But there's no destination closer!

Having something that is incredibly useful doesn't have to be profitable. High speed rail is infrastructure that will serve you well for literally the next 100+ years.

And as you improve your local rail network and amount of connections to that high speed rail, its a no brainer.

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