Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "" video.

@fionaanderson5796 You make a great point there. There's a very tired old argument about foreign aid about why it should be spent at home. I went to university in America and they roll out the same argument we do - Why waste money on the dregs of our society or somebody else's when we can buy more guns? I'm an engineer and right now the military spending that's going on makes NO SENSE. Not what's being bought although some is idiotic, but the amounts. Here's an example: Last week they announced $4.3 Billion for a new dry dock in Perth for the submarines and that it would require 500 construction jobs. I can name 3 major mining projects with a similar budget that employed between 3,000 and 4,500 jobs and the amount of hardware being constructed was a lot more than a dock and work shops. How is it that they brag about spending over $4 billion to create a small number of jobs? I can give you other examples if you want. Its not just the military either. I've seen this in mining and infrastructure. The rebuild of the Gabba for the Olympics is at least $1 Billion over comparable budgets and that's just for 1 of the stadiums needed.
2
@fionaanderson5796 I think it must be gold plated with platinum trim and diamond encrusted fixtures.
2
@fionaanderson5796 Yep, I see "Scomo" as a new word meaning "polished balloon." It presents itself as a shiny bauble, is full of hot air and when you let go it flies about madly with the same sound as farting.
2
@fionaanderson5796 Sorry for the longish answer. I'm from Victoria but currently in Queensland. About 6 years ago I got this odd little consult job via the internet to produce a PowerPoint for a Taiwanese investment broker who organizes solar farms around the world for Taiwanese investors and companies. They simply wanted an Australian engineer to put a PP together based on the Renewable Energy Council Report coupled with the power stations that were scheduled to be decommissioned from age (they all eventually wear out) and Australia's population growth. I got the shock of my life, when I found out the state of our energy sector. Its not just we have a few aging power stations we have over 2 dozen and that list includes all of our gigawatt class (bigger than 1,000 megawatts). Then there are a few just a bit smaller like Torrens Island in SA that's 800 megawatts. It was over 1.2GW but its so old they have already shut 1/3 of it down. The last Gigawatt power stations built in Australia were Loy Yang B and Mt Piper in 1993. Which means they were planned for a population of 20 million which we reached in 2003. We have a power system built for 20 million NOT 25 million. This has all been masked by the uptake in residential solar, but that can only be hidden for so long because that system only generates power during daylight hours. I have done the calculations to replace all these ageing stations. It snot hard as you can cut and paste the data into Xcel and the Clean Energy Council regularly tells us the cost of renewables. So its easy to put a cost on replacing these stations and that's about $95 Billion. Then we have to basically up that 25% because our system is for 20 million not 25 million and then double that number because the banks want another 25 million in Australia because that means lots of home loans for the bankers to make mountains of money off. We can't go nuclear as we don't have time. We can't go coal because we can't do coal anymore. We can't go gas (as in natural gas) because we have stupidly sold all our gas to Asia. We can't just go Wind-Solar like we have because we don't have the storage system it needs. We can't do Elon's batteries because there isn't enough Lithium to do it. We are in really really serious deep crap. There is a way.
2
@fionaanderson5796 I have worked on 3 separate mining projects that were full complete mine sites from scratch. They were in 3 different states for 3 different companies (although 1 company was also part of one of the other projects). All were worth (or cost) between $3.5 and $4.5 Billion. When I consider the amount of machinery (trucks, diggers, cranes, forklifts, vehicles, processing plants, etc.), infrastructure (buildings, worker camps, electricity, workshops, canteens, computer systems & networks, etc.) and then the size of the hole being dug there is NO WAY a dry dock should cost $4.3 Billion.
1
@fionaanderson5796 The saddest part of this election campaign season is the utter lack (as in complete no existence) of anything of substance. I'm an engineer and we have nothing more pressing than power stations. people take it for granted but EVERY home and EVERY business needs power and water. We have a set of idiotically old and dilapidated/worn out/clapped out/ power stations. I am talking about the major power stations that if they fail we are in serious trouble. FOUR (is in 1,2,3,4) of them are scheduled to be turned off in the next few years AND THERE is NO PLAN from anyone to replace any of them. ALL of our parties are driving us into a very bad place.
1
@fionaanderson5796 One your first comment, the power stations are the single biggest problem we have right at this moment and I can barely believe that any of our politicians are saying anything. Its indicative they have not got an answer that our big money players want to hear. The real problem with the power stations is that every business and household needs electricity. So if the costs suddenly explode or the amount gets restricted then it becomes chaotic across all of society. Nobody can earn more money because business costs are up and that makes its harder for businesses to be profitable and puts even more strain on household budgets. It just starts compounding in all sorts of ways. Plus trying to tell out nation to TURN OFF the electronics is hopeless. What millennial is going to turn off their phone to save power? Who's going to turn off all their computers and TVs not just put them on standby? Holding up any changes to how our societies function are the top 1% who all espouse neoliberal economics which has now proven to be disastrous. Its created extraordinary wealth inequality an concentrated insane wealth among a tiny minority. One of its core concepts is that government sucks and can't do anything right. Its like the wealthy lord of the British Aristocracy insisting the House of Lords has power over the House of Commons, which it did for centuries. It died after WW2, but re-emerged in the 1970s under the disguise of Thatcherism and Reaganomics and its now common name neo-liberalism. One of its core tenants is to privatise everything so that key parts of the economy can be run by people who know what they are doing. The problem with power and water is that they are so fundamental to an economy working that they MUST be controlled for everyone's good not the good of a few. Look at our power, its been in the hands of people who had 1 goal - make as much money as possible. The only way forward is for people to drop the neo-liberal economic model and move past it. That's what people like Mark Blyth, Stefany Kelton, Thomas Pikkety, Adam Tooze and others have been trying to point out for several years now. In Australia we need to build power stations and FAST as in we should have finished at least 5 major power stations (NSW 2, Vis 1 or 2, QLD 1 or 2 & SA 1) by now with several more under construction. America has over 30,000 bridges that need major remedial work or replacement. Some of those bridges are critical to the American economy. I know Canada needs waste water plants, because that's what I was in Canada for a few years ago. Australia's power station problem isn't easy, but I believe there are ways to go forward. The problem is getting dozens of other parties and vested interests to understand 2 things. 1) There really is a problem; and 2) if we don't start soon that problem will morph into an economic and social catastrophe that might just break our nation. And yes I do hope to be able to speak to certain people very shortly.
1