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Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

bloomberg.com

221–230 of 257 posts

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

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I type this, QLD is using 77% black coal. SA is using 71% gas. Over the past 24hrs SA was 83% renewable (solar+wind), 16% gas. In that same 24hrs QLD was 79% black coal, 12% renewables. Plaudits seem deserved. https://aemo.com.au/energy-systems/electricity/national-elec...

That page is showing generation not use. 83% of the power SA generated was renewable, but it wasn't enough to cover their use, so they imported 28% of their power from interstate, renewables cover 45% and the rest was gas. Other states are too big to just import 28% of their power. SA is small enough they can shut down their coal and just import coal-based power from Victoria. Meanwhile Qld, Vic and NSW each produced…

https://opennem.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=7d&interval=30m

OpenNEM puts it at 12% imported and states 67.9% from renewables.

Why would SA want to produce multiple times their requirements in renewable energy? Today during the sunny period more than 100% was fulfilled by solar.

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

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Judging by people's waistlines they're already eating the extra needed for the cycling, they're just not cycling. According to COVID-19 and Obesity: The 2021 Atlas [1], the figures for the UK are: - 63.7% of adults are overweight i.e. BMI >25kg/m2 (2016) - 27.8% of adults are obese i.e. BMI >30kg/m2 (2016) [1] https://www.worldobesity.org/resources/resource-library/covi...

Obese people won't get on a bike, though, because it's too big of a step. An ebike is a decent gateway into weight loss.

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

#223
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

To play devil's advocate: this puts higher-quality EVs within reach for more people. Some might go all out on a very expensive EV, but presumably most will just want bang for their buck. In turn, plenty of these vehicles will enter the second hand market, starting from a few years down the line. Back to reality: such effects smell like trickle down economics to me. They may work, provided the rules stay the same. Aro…

It sounds good in theory. Poor people don't buy new cars, they buy used cars. It's hard to lower the price of used cars by subsidizing them since they are in fixed supply. If you subsidize them the demand increases. The increased demand raises the price, neutering the subsidy.

The way to lower the price of used cars is to subsidize new cars and then waiting 3-10 years. But that doesn't work well either, because pricing is global, and because the demand split for EV/ICE changes every year.

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

#224
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

To play devil's advocate: this puts higher-quality EVs within reach for more people. Some might go all out on a very expensive EV, but presumably most will just want bang for their buck. In turn, plenty of these vehicles will enter the second hand market, starting from a few years down the line. Back to reality: such effects smell like trickle down economics to me. They may work, provided the rules stay the same. Aro…

> Back to reality: such effects smell like trickle down economics to me

These feel like scaling down costs rather than trickle down economics. Almost every home good or vehicle, electronic devices, computer parts were super expensive when they came out. The initial presumably rich people fund the factories that eventually mass produced them by buying these super expensive goods which lowered the prices to where the middle class can afford them. It also allows companies to iron out initial issues with production and usability before mass producing items.

Government subsidies and incentives drive this process faster and make it more likely to not die out by trying to ensure that the companies can survive when upfront costs are very high before the first few goods can even ship to the few people that can afford them. Trickle down economics is something quite different.

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

#225

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…

Imagine if all those public money could be spent on improving public transportation instead of in some rich pockets

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

#226

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?

Technically each Australian State is a sovereign entity with His Majesty King Charles represented by the Governer who is "advised" by the State Parliament. The Federal Government many only manages those things that cross State boundaries, like defense, international treaties and borders, once again via the Governer-General who represents the King.

We have an enormous amount of duplication in our governments.

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

#227
post #106

Funny that the article doesn't mention the word "export" once. As is always the case with green energy, local changes don't matter if you're shipping the CO2 emissions somewhere else. Interestingly enough Australia's coal export are at their lowest in 7 years , but this is mostly because coal companies have been able to maintain very high profits selling less as the price of coal has been high (because there is a lot…

Australia's CO2 emissions are down when accounting for trade. https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/australia

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

#228
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

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

This is incorrect: Russia builds new nuclear power plants slower than the average plant built by Japan and Korea in the last decades. The slowpokes are Europe and the U.S.

> happens before the start of construction, doesn't it

No. It’s an ongoing process in developed countries. (Including, increasingly, China.)

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

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If you pay income tax on everything else, then a carveout for a specific item is a subsidy.

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

#230
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As wrong-sounding as saying "the province of California ..."

Im glad someone else agrees. I expected more from Bloomberg.

A comment that might well be made about the entire article.
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