Climate Change in Australia (Part 2)

Oh their projections are outrageous. It does however show that they’re happy to go full steam ahead with the CO2 outputs.

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Interesting Energy Insiders podcast this week. Interview with the Rio Tinto energy leader, discussing their investments in renewable energy. They are spending billions in this space to build out a renewables portfolio that will provide consistent supply to their alumina refineries. This is part of their target to reduce emissions by 50% by 2030. Once complete, the Rio Tinto investments will alone reduce Australia’s total emissions by 1%, which is pretty remarkable.

When asked about nuclear energy being a good fit for alumia refineries, the Rio Tinto guy wasn’t enthused. Their view is that the only times that nuclear energy has been successfully deployed was in nations that were all in at every level of society for the investment over the long term. That doesn’t exist in Australia. Nuclear energy is a high cost option, so Rio Tinto has discarded it and focused on the proven cheap options like wind and solar.

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Bloody Rio Tinto greenies!

If climate deniers can’t trust Big Miners, who can they trust?

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Coal reserves in most of Western Europe were seriously depleted by the seventies, involvng higher extraction costs. In the mid eighties, France, Belgium, UK and Germany were beset by miners strikes as decisions were made to move to gas and nuclear as the main heating options providing greater energy security, against a backdrop of the OPEC oil crisis of the seventies.
Gas became more favoured in some countries following Three Mile Island and later Chernobyl. France remained the nuclear standout.
More recently, oil and gas from Russia ceased to be politically viable.
Australia, with abundant coal and gas reserves, did not go through the energy supply uncertainties and strategic insecurity of Western Europe. It also has a natural advantage in wind and solar power.
Just get the battery technology and grid set up and we have no need to contemplate nuclear.

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To add to the drift away from coal in Western Europe, the environmental precursor to climate change was acid rain damaging the forests, not solely linked to East German lignite .
There were also human health issues, going back to the London smogs in mid 20th century.
So when the LNP pushes the line that we should follow the leads of other developed economies on nuclear choices, it’s a sham.

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This is good to see! It’s still stupidly high but may it keep progressing downward. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Crazy. How the ■■■■ can a temp record be broken by 10C. El Nino is dying but our planet looks broken.






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we need to send some Melburnians over to tell them to relax because we had a mild summer here

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What an alarmist.





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Remember that time in Victoria when we thought it would never rain again and spent billions on a desalination plant?

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That’s quite a lot of thermometers & weather stations that have been moved for the purpose of telling one side of the story…

Full sarcastic font (you never know in this thread).

Remember all those times sceptics said there was no such thing as global warming?

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Do you mean do I remember our most recent drought?
Yes.
Yes, I do.
It broke around 2010, and we generally get them every 20-30 years.

I’m sure Rio Tinto is making money haha

Of course they are. Money to be made, helps drive the economy. It’s good.

The goalposts you want to be kicking through are up at the other end of the oval mate, not your own.

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and the places they’ve been moved from all have regular if not colder temperatures than normal

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You educate yourself mate