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

I'm an engineer who has been forced by circumstance to take a massive interest in ENERGY ECONOMICS. In simplest terms we have been massively let down by 3 groups of people - our politicians for a lack of leadership, our economists for some incredible stupidity and the media INCLUDING people like Michael West for NOT TELLING US THE TRUTH. The problem is not nuclear but that we need new power stations. Like most things they wear out and need replacing. Cars, shoes, toasters, and 1,000,000s of other things we make WEAR OUT and eventually need REPLACING. Thanks to the stupidity of economists who convinced NOT ONLY Australia but many other nations to privatise our energy sectors. Milton Friedman not only said "Greed is Good" he also said "There is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits....." There's more to that quote but that's the part business executives live by. So the moment we privatised our energy sector we were doomed. We were never going to get "better services at lower prices because of competition." That was just a sales pitch. The people who bought our power stations y were always going to charge as much money as possible AND they were never going to replace the large power stations like Hazelwood and Liddell when they finally wore out because there is a massive flaw in Free Market Economics. For Free market Economics that has as a core principle that the market can solve any problem, to work, there must be a VIABLE business case for any solution to be practical. If the proposed solution cannot make a return on investment (ROI) that is satisfactory then its NOT a solution. Simply put large bulk supply power stations like Liddell and Hazelwood take years to approve, design, build and pay off. No matter what the option is (coal, nuclear or hydro) there is no VIABLE Free Market solution where you take billions and tie it up for at least 15 years and more likely over 20 BEFORE you see an ROI. This is why when both Liddell and Hazelwood were shut down there was NOT a new power station ready to turn on. Its NOT a political problem its a fault of the economists who have too much to control and wont let anyone do anything that does NOT fit there free market ideology. AND I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO GET MICHAEL WESTS ATTENTION ON THIS FOR OVER 2 YEARS.
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@RealHooksy First line 100% correct. Second line 100% INCORRECT. If you had said "easier part" then yes. But there is nothing easy about the engineering. At a macro level things might seem easy. For example I can easily say that we could replace Hazelwood with a French EPR 2 reactor because Hazelwood produced 1.6GW and an EPR puts out 1.6GW so there'd be no need to upgrade the power grid and the power management already knows how to handle 1.6GW injected into the grid at that point. But trust me actually doing the job of building and commissioning an EPR 2 IS NOT EASY. Its complex and it needs people who know how to do the job. But will I grant that task however complex is EASIER than all the hassle and politics because that has had decades of misinformation pounded into it.
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@jvkanufan8115 Great comment. I am hopefully going to get to meet some people very soon with a proposal I have been working on for several years. Actually Coalitions nonsense has finally opened the door. Being as basic as I can be. You don't want engineers in parliament or at least NOT many. We can be just as bad as Lawyers and Economist when not kept in check. Examples of which include Bill Gates, Sam Altman and Mark Suckerberg, My basic plan includes the establishment of a National Engineering office. That is independent of the parties and its sole duty is to the Australian People and keeping our engineered systems maintained and upgraded as needed. A bit like CSIRO but more active in projects. If you go back to Julia Gillards Schools Construction program to help get through the GFC. On paper it was great except that of the AU$4.5 Billion spent over AU$2.5 Billion was sucked up in management fees. It was insane. Likewise the home insulation scheme was a brilliant idea (and I can explain why) but so badly managed that people died. Likewise I am in favor of Australia getting nuclear submarines (and can explain why) but the costs are insane. Its takes almost zero back ground work to find out the basic cost of a Virginia Class submarine AND THEN you find that we are spending almost 6 times that number and there's NO EXPLANATION. Likewise we just started the hunter-class frigate program. Did you know those boats are based on a British friagte EXCEPT we are paying 3 times as much as the Royal Navy is paying. Having a National Engineering Office with one of its main tasks as making sure we get VALUE for OUR MONEY, I think is a good idea. What do you think?
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@Jindychick thanks
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@watleythewizard2381 100% agree. One of the biggest issues in engineering and especially in large projects is the greed of management that forces engineers to submit of be fired. Its now so bad that the business model is basically HIRE bad engineers because we can use them to make more money. That's why so many projects across government, the military and the private sector go overbudget and are delivered late. Job security in engineering is now a matter of keeping your head down, work slowly, and book as many hours to the job as possible like a lawyer to a case. Most off all don't take credit for anything and don't get noticed by your boss or he will send HR to lop your head off. AND YES that has been done to me.
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@sandfish63 Don't thank us yet the computer engineers (Gates, Altman, Suckerberg,....etc) are right now out of control and they need to be reigned in just as much as the economists and lawyers need reigning in.
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@footbru I have been trying to be nice to MWM for 2 years and they have NOT replied to a single email.
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@dobbersanchez1185 I have been trying to be nice to MWM for 2 years and they have NOT replied to a single email.
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@RebeccaRussell-cc3pf Not certain of your field but I stumbled into this. I have been hoping for nearly 8 years that someone else would step up and either they haven't or they have all been stomped on. I am hoping to meet with the ALP soon. I finally had a constructive phone call on Friday after years of frustration. The Coalition plan which is utter nonsense has opened a door that has been previously closed. And its not utter nonsense because they want nuclear. Its utter nonsense on HOW THEY WANT to do it. Its like the AUKUS submarines aren't crazy but the current plan is bonkers x bonkers (bonkers² and maybe even bonkers³). I just answered another person in this thread about a National Engineering Office who's sole task is to manage things like this to get the Australian people sensible outcomes and not let the triple clown brigades of economists, lawyers and the media dictate our future.
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@ianmclaren9721 triggered by what? The fact a pack of clowns are LYING about wanting to spend several hundred billion on power stations that will likely end up costing 3 to 5 TRILLION by the time we have had 70+ years of power bills? Lets NOT FORGET that they are lying about the KNOWN COSTS because we know the costs. If you want to accuse me of trying to get Michael Wests attention then guilty as charged. I have been trying to tell him about these things for over 2 years AND SO FAR HE'S IGNORED EVERY EMAIL.
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@RealHooksy Tanks - its a relative thing. You can have a score of 2 out of 10 and still claim its twice as good as as score of 1 out of 10. Or you can get a score of 96 out of 100 and the guy who person who gets 95 or 97 can say similar things. Or how do you compare that to 2 people who got 49, 50 and 51 on the same test? Who's the failure? What was the pass mark? I see one of the biggest problems in almost any public discussion these days is how easy it is to lose context.
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@footbru He has an obligation to the TRUTH and he claims to be a voice of TRUTH. I'm telling you that Michael can just as easily filter out voices as the other media outlets he chastises on a regular basis. But then Kool Aid drinkers like you need to not be surprised when you get called out for being ignorant Kool Aid drinkers.
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@peterlattimore6013 That's a great point on Accountants and VALUE. I've been trying to point out the cost of energy and its effect on down stream businesses and house holds. I've been listening to British Economist Gary Stevenson for a couple of years. He repeatedly asks people to think about where the money flows to and what it does as it flows there. Similarly If you follow energy flows and how that affects money flows you quickly realise that every business and every house has an energy bill and there is a giant river of money going to a small group of people. Every step of every supply chain needs energy and almost every activity in people's homes uses energy in some way. NOT understanding this reality was why economists and accountants misunderstood the ACTUAL VALUE of state owned energy systems. They believe everything must make a profit and that the sole responsibility of managers is to maximise that profit. BUT - If you maximise the costs of energy then you pass that cost onto every business and every household and all the activities they do. But if you consider that some things like roads exist NOT to make a profit but to allow other activities to be profitable then the TRUE VALUE of a state owned energy system is NOT to make money but to help everyone else make money. Its doubly worse because of the massive money flow to a small group of people who own the energy system and that starves everyone of capital and the lower 1/2 of society from accumulating wealth. How they have hidden it is in the GDP figures. Because GDP is basically an averaging function it can hide anomalies. Like if you have 100 flat broke people in a room and Jeff Bezos walks in. Then on average everyone is a billionaire because Jeffs an anomaly. Similarly the profits from the energy sector ADD INTO and RASIE the GDP figures because to economists profits equal production and more profit means more productivity. So they add in the anomaly that is the private energy sector profits and GDP growth looks great. They don't care where or how those profits are generated or who's paying the cost of them.
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@dobbersanchez1185 Sorry if you think my complaint with MWM is I disagree with his view of privatisation. Its not. My issue with him is that he's so concerned with ripping into the politics that he's not giving any air time to anyone else who's trying to help. I can both sides of politics apart on energy, but for slightly different reasons. I can also tear them apart of other things that are basically engineering tasks and its because BOTH sides listen to the same economic advice. Economics education is what I'd call the root cause because when you tunnel down to how decisions are made you keep arriving at this point where both sides have the same ideology about economics and free market solutions. That comes from the fact that no matter what politics they have their economic education is the same. That's why nothing changes when governments change. Both sides have the same economics education. That's something almost nobody talks about and one of the things I want Michael West and others to start talking about.
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@dobbersanchez1185 Your right that we are in an economic cul-de-sac. Its one of the things that took me a while to get my head around. Its not simply that economics is badly taught. ITS DELIBERATE. ALL the main text books are published by Harvard Press, Yale Press, Oxford Press, Cambridge Press,..... OR are written by professors who are at Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge,.... OR are written by people who went to Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge,..... What we are now stuck with is that every one with an Econ or Business degree or anyone who took any economics options like I did was taught pure Chicago School economics. Its been the only voice in the room since Reagan and Thatcher unleashed it on the world in the 1970s. Even though the Left and Right come at issues from different POLITICAL perspectives there solutions are economically the same. For example last week on the 7:30 Report Chris Bowen (the energy minister) said he "didn't believe the government should own power stations." Forget that he wants wind farms and solar panels. His economics are pure Milton Friedman. The Coalition wants the same private sector economics but with nuclear and or coal and or gas. Consider this. When some foreign company comes here with AU$10 Billion for wind projects have you ever considered what happens long term? We all get told again and again by both sides of politics that "foreign investment is good!" because the government doesn't have to pay for it. BUT THEY DON'T TELL US that that investor isn't here to be nice they are here to MAKE MONEY and take it home. The basic rule for long term investments is to make 5 times as much money as you invest. That sounds bonkers but at 20% profit over 25 years you make back 5 times what you put in. So a Spanish or French or German who comes here as a saving angel with AU$10B in hand is going to take back AU$50B over the next 25 years. AND GUESS WHO PAYS FOR THAT every time they turn on a light, boil the kettle, cook diner or take a shower. How about the lights at the office, store factory you might work at? How about the cost of the traffic lights when you're in your car. EVERY TIME you do something that foreign investor takes money out of Australia. Its economic suicide by a billion cuts. And every politician, banker and medic clown will tell you how fantastic it is.
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@dobbersanchez1185 As for Michael depriving people of oxygen. He's no different to every other media outlet. If it helps make money he publishes if it doesn't he doesn't care. I have tried explaining to him how the AUKUS project is a disaster from a project management perspective, but its being done in the same way that other notable projects are being done or have been done. When the Gorgon Gas project blew out from AU$55 to almost $70 Billion, do you think anyone lost their job? NO. WHY - because of how the economists and accountants spun it into a triumph. FIRST Chevron gets to avoid paying tax as it writes down the extra expense. SECOND Kentz the company who wasted all that money simply walked away with it and their shareholders applauded their skill in getting a difficult job done and handed out bonuses. THIRD the Australians who worked on it got to walk away with the money they got paid out of that AU$70B. SO WHO GOT SCREWED? You did. I did. The ignorant neighbor I have did. We all did. Because Chevron got to get that extra AU$15B back on tax credits. It will never cost them anything. So that's AU$15B our government never got and never will get and we all get told how fantastic it is our government can't afford to do certain things because they don't have the money. This is the sort of stuff I want to explain to people. When these mega projects go off track and consume giant piles of money. WE ALL PAY FOR IT. That's why I'm pissd off at people like MWM. Its not just him but all the media. They just wont talk to us engineers. Its far easier to just blame us when things cost more.
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I'm an engineer who has been forced by circumstance to take a massive interest in ENERGY ECONOMICS. And you are 100% RIGHT, but its not just nuclear its the bulk of the Energy Sector that needs to be State Owned and run in a similar way to a Sovereign Wealth Fund. I call such entities Sovereign Asset Managers (SAM) and YES they already exist. The difference is that instead of returning money from investments a SAM provides a service. In this case it would be energy at the lowest practical price (LPP is the basic operational cost plus enough to maintain and upgrade it as necessary). There can be private energy producers but it needs to be part of a system similar to Australia's health care system where there's state and private enterprises working in parallel. If you are interested I will be explaining this on the Steve Keen & Friends podcast on 29 June 2024. Here's the short version. There's a giant flaw in free market economics. They believe the market can respond and fix any problem. That can't work without a VIABLE business case. If there isn't one then things do not get fixed. Its easy to see with large bulk supply power stations. Its doesn't matter what type they are coal, nuclear or hydro they take so long to approve, design, build and pay off that there is no viable FREE MARKET business case. How do you explain to investors that you are about to spend Billions of their money and they wont see a return on that investment for at least 15 years and more likely more than 20 years. Its fine if you are buying an existing power station because you don't have to get any approvals or build it. One day you buy it and the next day you start making money. Once paid off it becomes a giant money production machine because you have a captured market NOT a free market. The idea that privatising our energy market was going to get us better service at lower prices because of competition was NEVER TRUE. The private sector DOES NOT exist to deliver better services. Milton Friedman not only said "Greed is Good" he also said "There is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits....." There's more to that quote but that's the part business executives live by. So the moment we privatised our energy sector we were doomed. They were always going to charge as much money as possible AND they were never going to replace the large power stations like Hazelwood and Liddell when they finally wore out. Watch the podcast next week and I'll explain just how f*cked the British are and we can avoid the same fate.
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@FuIhat WTF do you mean by FF advocate? As an engineer I am all in favor of the switch to renewables, BUT I ALSO KNOW HOW A POWER GRID NEEDS TO FUNCTION. and I can't scream that loudly enough right now. The problem is that in this debate BOTH sides are both right and wrong about certain points. Up to a certain point you can have all the renewables you like but beyond a certain point you start running into problems that become more and more difficult and more and more expensive to get past. The Left want to take the renewables too far and that has opened the door to those narcissistic scumbags on the Right who are taking advantage of it. If we don't get the Left to back down a bit and be reasonable the Right will do what the Right does and screw us all over. The problem is that this time their screw over will break our nation financially and it will take generations to recover and we already need to recover from what they have already done. Some of these "1 trick solves everything" solutions is like pain killers. If given in the right way they help patients get over their injuries. If done too much it makes them into addicts and destroys their lives.
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@footbru This is a much smarter comment that the mud slinging you've thrown at me elsewhere and I AGREE 100% with it And its also EXACTLY the point I have been trying to get Michael West to let me talk about for 2 years. That's why I am frustrated with him. Economists think EVERYTHING has to make profit. They have no concept that some things need to exist and be run in a way that allows EVERYONE ELSE to make money or as a household accumulate wealth. That's the re-think you are talking about. About a year ago I stumbled across Steve Keen who's an Australia economist who's been trying to point these sorts of things out for several decades. He predicted the GFC and people said he was nuts. Even after that he's seen by many in main stream economics as a heretic.
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