Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Zeihan on Geopolitics" channel.

  1. That's a pretty good way to describe it.
    7
  2.  @FullCircleTravis  And don't forget our animals are different. Our ones that eat people stay in the water where they belong. Polar bears get out of the water and hunt you down.
    7
  3.  @Seany06  I think Peter may have covered Djibouti in another video some time ago. I know others have. Its not only an interesting place but in the current situation in the Red Sea its even more interesting.
    7
  4.  @FrikInCasualMode  Your 100% right which is why those reefs & islands are of such significance.
    7
  5. ​ @robertblue3795  SORRY BUT YOU ARE WRONG and I only know because I have worked in the Australian mining industry constructing new mines. Coal is not simply black stuff that comes out of the ground. Like all minerals there are grades. For starters there's thermal and metallurgical coal AND THEN there's grades within those grades. Coking coal is graded on its lack of impurities and calorific value (how hot it burns). Australia's coking coal is not only cleaner than Canadian coal but also has a significantly higher calorific value. The only other coal that is of similar grade comes from New Zealand but they can't match us in volume. There's some high end coking coal available in other places but they are small deposits and none of them come close to Australia's reserves. In terms of just coal as in all types combined. YES there are places like China and Russia with massive reserves but most are lower grades. Indonesia despite being small has massive reserves of coal BUT those reserves are mostly thermal coal. Basically you CANNOT just switch the Japanese and South Koreans over onto Canadian Coking coal as its the wrong grade. We didn't realise this until until the late 90s when the Japanese threatened to switch to Canadian Coking coal which they did at every negotiation. Eventually we told them we'd had had enough of those threats and if they wanted to use Canadian Coal then they could go use and F--CKING use it. When they backed down we found out their steel mills were set up to take advantage of Australian coal and could not use Canadian coal. The South Koreans followed suit. FYI - Most Australians are not aware of any of this. I only know from working in the mining industry.
    7
  6. Engineer here and I can tell you that there's a METHODOLOGY behind this when it comes to human interaction with machines. I work in control systems and that includes the control screens you see in news stories. You might the term SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) and part of my work is programming SCADA systems. What your talking about is something that has become a huge issue in engineering and it has to do with human machine interaction and necessary information versus less necessary information. We have to be incredibly mindful of information overload to operators. About 20 years ago they worked out that the process industries in America were losing more than US$20Billion a year because control room operators were being overloaded at critical times. There's been plenty of aircraft accidents happen for similar reasons of information overload during emergencies and instead of handling the situation pilots got overloaded and crashed. On cars there was a push in the 1990s to have digital dashboards. The problem is drivers don't need detailed displays. They don't need to see the exact speed or water temperature. Just seeing that your below or above the speed limit is enough or that the water is in the green zone is enough rather than overheating is enough. So analog gauges are actually a lot better for drivers as they give relevant information faster rather than detailed information that then has to be processed. The same applies to many other things, even household appliances.
    7
  7. Yeah that's a good summary.
    7
  8.  @NathanPK  I absolutely agree. I actually have spent most of the last 20 years in Australia's mining industry. I went looking for experience when it turned out we might be going back to the moon to mine Helium-3 AND YES I know. One day one of the people I was working with told me how Logistics was going to become EVEN BIGGER and more important. He'd done logistics for many years and explained how logistics people were going to become some of the most important people in any and every company. That was circa 2010 and before Amazon, which is basically a logistics company, had become what it has become. In hindsight if you ga back to consider what went wrong with the invasion of Iraq, it had a lot to do with logistics. If you look at the massive disruption of COVID, it had a lot to do with logistics. Its odd how you remember those odd conversations that never seemed important at the time suddenly seem important years later.
    7
  9. It depends if they are present in the ore. Like any of these by-product resources its dependent on the ore body and also the concentrations in that orebody. I've spent most of the last 20 years in the mining industry doing control systems and EVERY ore body is different. Germanium isn't present in all zinc ores. According to Wikipedia its most prevalent in what's called Mississippi Valley type deposits. Mt Isa the worlds 3rd largest zinc mine isn't that type but MacArthur river probably is looking at the maps. There's the refinery in Tasmania but who knows what type of ore they process. I checked for Gallium and there's a real possibility Australia does have some capacity because we have a number of Alumina refineries. There's a bunch in Western Australia south of Perth and one in the Perth area at Kwinana. We also had one at Gove in the NT where I spent some time for work.
    7
  10. Yeah this is ANOTHER in a growing list of Peter doesn't know SHlT about Engineering videos. All anyone has to do is go and look how much Lithium is needed to do things like convert all the cars to electric and then check that against the Lithium Reserves which you can get on Wikipedia. Answer at about 63kg per car (based of a Tesla) the 1.5 Billion registered cars in the World need about 95 million tons of Lithium and there's less than 30 million tons in known RESERVES. AND for those wondering if they look at Wikipedia and see the number for Resources the difference between resources and reserves. Resources are what people think is out there. Reserves are what the Geologists and miners KNOW they MINE.
    6
  11.  @nrotko  I think your mostly right. Where Peter usually gets it right is when he sticks to his strengths of history, geopolitics and demographics. Where he gets it wrong is when he gets away from the areas he knows or gets into a country he doesn't know as well as he thinks he knows it. He also has an American centric view of the world, which gets him along with EVERY OTHER American into trouble. Having gone to college there I have seen the American Centric mentality up close. It can be fixed, but it takes an American to live outside America for 2 years or more and then go home. They need that time to acclimatise to different information. It actually happened to a really good friend of mine. Doug was in Australia for about 3 years after an ugly divorce, went home not too much different, BUT THEN when he visited a year later he was a different person. He'd had enough time outside America to see when he went home just how much of a bubble the American people live in. That was back in the late 90s. I see Peter's mistakes when he speaks about technology but then I'm an engineer. Some of the things he's said on the energy transition are just plain wrong, but I have noticed that MANY OTHER COMMENTATORS making the same mistakes. For an engineer its an infuriating time because there are a bunch of persistent meme's and its like playing whack-a-mole trying to correct them. I do think he's right in that America is going through a major political realignment and that its going to be messy for a couple more years. The thing I see is just how different it is this time. Its nothing like after the Great Depression of what happened in the 1970s & 80s. There's NEVER been a time when Americans were so divided along religious and secular lines where the "other side" isn't just the "other side" they are mortal enemies and think the other side is out to exterminate them as if they are from another planet. I actually think the US Constitution is one of humanities finest achievements EXCEPT that it needs a people who actually care about it rather than what they can exploit from it. That's part of the change that I don't hear Peter or any other American talk about much. American's used to value the Constitution and now its a club to bash the other side with. And that's why I am really concerned.
    6
  12. As an Australian this freaked me TF out because if you change the words to Australian and Australia and swap Trudeau for Albanese and you are 100% factually describing Australia. His description of Vancouver is practically identical to Melbourne and especially Sydney with respect to housing. We are idiotically addicted to foreign investment. I'm an engineer and was actually in Canada late 2017 through early 2018 for a project. Other than the temperature inversion Canada was like another version of Australia. I was in Saskatchewan and it was like wheat belt of Western Australia, the Western 1/2 of Victoria and the Murray Darling section of New South Wales. A vast area of endless flat farmland, with exactly the same kinds of people. We even hate Canberra the EXACT same way Canadians hate Ottawa.
    6
  13.  @harrymaurer7984  That's a great point. FYI - I'm Australian and one of the underlying issues with the whole AUKUS Submarine deal is: "How are we supposed to trust America as a partner in our future security when Americans don't trust America?" I actually went to college in America in the late 80s. I was there for 87 campaign season and it got bonkers at times but it was nothing like this stuff. I think 9/11 had a bigger effect than most people realise. That was followed by the invasions of Afghanistan & Iraq, then the GFC and then Trump arrived. There's moments I'm amazed America is still 1 country.
    6
  14.  @beccawoodhouse  I'm an engineer and his opinions on engineering are often terrible and factually wrong. But on geopolitics and demographics (which is actually his background) he's better than most pundits.
    6
  15. I'm Australian and we have been hearing off and on for years now that we have a similar problem. Its just gotten so expensive to have children that its now very difficult for people to have them. COMPOUNDING that is the explosive cost of housing in Australia. Basically our entire nation got drunk on property prices over the last 25+ years. Its been great for the investment orientated baby boomers and an utter disaster for the rest of us. We have tried to make up for a falling birth rate with immigration but that has brought its own set of issues.
    6
  16. ​ @SamiKotiranta  You are 100% right, but sadly International Lawlessness has been what humanity has done for its entire recorded history. These days we hear the term "Rules Based Order." I am yet to hear a single person explain in any sort of coherent fashion WTF that means. There MIGHT be a number of treaties including things like the International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt), but if you have a look at the Wikipedia page for the ICC there is a map (RHS near top) showing the places which are and aren't in that system. NOTABLY - The United States of America and Russia which were 2 countries instrumental in that courts founding because of the Nuremberg trials ARE NO LONGER signatories to that treaty. China and India, the 2 largest nations on the planet HAVER NEVER SIGNED. Combined those 4 nations are over 40% of the World's population. So WTF are any of them talking about with this "Rules Based Order?"
    6
  17. ​ @macalister8881  I like Peter he's very good on geopolitical stuff but occasionally gets his information wiring crossed. I'm an engineer so pick up that he gets technical stuff wrong at times, but they also tend to be common misconceptions. On practical math & stats here's my best advice for everyone. If you put 2 circles either side of a line like this -> "oIo" its basically a dick symbol. If you tilt that symbol to the right you get this symbol "%" or as I like to call it the dick symbol of math because it f-cks anything and everything it can. For starters it can make any number equal any other number. Like when does 1 = 25? When the interest rate goes from 4% to 5% that 1% equals a 25% increase. That's why bankers like it so much because with it they can f-ck who ever they want. Just remember whenever you see this symbol -> % if you aren't careful you will get f-cked.
    6
  18.  @jacobtaylor7506  Its not often mentioned that the reason PWRs became the mainstay of the nuclear power industry was because the tech had already been developed for the USN. Its like all the stuff that eventually trickles down to our cars from the racing industry. Those guys sort all the bugs out of the technology to where its reliable. The USN had similarly sorted out all the tech and operating and maintenance details of PWRs, which made it easy to scale up for the power industry. Plus the USN supplied a steady stream of skilled operators to the power industry. In some ways it also stifled other tech like molten salt. Why spend the time on that when you have PWRs all sorted out? Similar for the CANDU reactors which the Canadians have sorted out. For a country like Australia (my country) its not a matter of IF but WHEN we have nuclear. The actual discussion needs to be WHAT TYPE. I was pro-MSR until recently when James Krellenstein was talking about CANDU and he pointed out the experience they now have operating CANDU. He said MSRs look very good but at the moment NOBODY has any real experience operating and maintaining them year after year. So for Australia right now I'd say CANDU is the best option because the Canadians speak English, behave rationally and we get on really well with them.
    6
  19. EXACTLY - I'm Australian and have worked in Canada and the moment any Canadian has US Health Care System explained to them they will not waste a second on this. POP QUIZ - people from which nation cross a border to get cheap affordable medications.
    6
  20. I'm Australian but went to college in America (late 80s) and that is a VERY GOOD way to summarise the American concept of "Biparisan." To be fair it wasn't as obvious then as it is now but the signs were there to be seen if you looked. in my experience Iran-Contra should have been a major wake TF up warning. I was there during that episode. The girl I dated at the time expressed it an unusual way. She said she hated how "it made the Office of the President look bad." Its one of those off-handed remarks that keeps echoing in my head these days. Even in Australia we now have a majority of politicians who see themselves and their policies as IMPORTANT rather than being the person who's been GRANTED BY "WE THE PEOPLE" to look after that office and care for it.
    6
  21. Yeah too many people who re-post don't do that. Or if an interview is a few weeks in the past. I agree its incredibly important we know when people produce a video.
    6
  22. As an Australian who went to college in America an watches British politics a reasonable amount. You might want to add in that British politics is a SHlTSHOW its just not as much of a SHlTSHOW as America but damn you guys tried hard with Brexit. And before you ask - YEAH I know Australian politics isn't much better but at least we rejected our Trumpist billionaire and we didn't punch ourselves in gonads like Brexit, but then we have also let the Americans con us out of several hundred billion for submarines.
    6
  23. HUGE FOLLOW-UP COMING. Just after this was posted the news started coming in - Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has died in prison. How he died is unknown.
    6
  24. AUSTRALIAN here. The one thing I would say or ask is what the effect of the incredibly powerful Jewish Lobby in America will play in this. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee better known as AIPAC has an incredible amount of influence on American Foreign Policy as we are seeing right now with Biden being UNABLE or UNWILLINGING to condemn the insane over response of the IDF that has caused so much harm to the civilian population of Gaza. Its one thing for Israeli forces (the IDF) to go in after the Hamas terrorists and NOBODY can blame them for seeking justice for what they did on October 7th as it was an act of bastardry, but more than 20,000 civilian dead including more than 10,000 children SHOULD BE CONDEMNED and Biden had been unable or unwilling to publicly step up and face the ire of groups like AIPAC shows just how influential they are politically in America. FYI - There's also a fairly influential Jewish Lobby in Australia which also explains the similar reluctance of Australian politicians to condemn the Jewish assault on the civilian population of Gaza. The Jewish Lobby in Australia is not as open in its influence in Australia as it is in America. There aren't the large high publicity conferences that groups like AIPAC hold, BUT if a matter like Gaza comes up there are Jewish leaders here who are very quick to grab the microphone and let their views be heard. There is also a section of the Australian Jewish community who are staunch supporters of the Settler Movement in the West Bank who are also quick to grab the microphone when that subject is broached.
    5
  25. As an Australian this freaked me TF out because if you change the words to Australian and Australia and swap Trudeau for Albanese and you are 100% factually describing Australia. His description of Vancouver is practically identical to Melbourne and especially Sydney with respect to housing. We are idiotically addicted to foreign investment. Your specific comment on students is IDENTICAL to here. The industry we have developed for students from Asia, India, China,... etc is almost identical to what's happened in Canada. When our news services do stories about the issues almost all the comparisons are with Canada. I'm an engineer and was actually in Canada late 2017 through early 2018 for a project. Other than the temperature inversion Canada was like another version of Australia. I was in Saskatchewan and it was like wheat belt of Western Australia, the Western 1/2 of Victoria and the Murray Darling section of New South Wales. A vast area of endless flat farmland, with exactly the same kinds of people. We even hate Canberra the EXACT same way Canadians hate Ottawa.
    5
  26. He's quite right about a couple of things but also a questionable on others. I am an engineer who works in industrial control systems and automation. I have worked in both manufacturing and mining and know both industries quite well. In the short. He's quite right we simply do not have enough supply of certain raw materials to go to a full EV system. In particular Lithium and a couple of the other ingredients just aren't there in the quantity needed even if the Ruskies were being good boys. On manufacturing he's NOT as right. Other than the drive train (fuel system, engine, gearbox, drive shaft,... there's actually NO DIFFERENCE in making and EV or any other car. The body shell, doors, glass, seats, seat belts, sound system, steering wheel, suspension, chassis, wheels and tires are still the same stuff. Depending on the manufacturer something like 80-95% of an EV is the same as a normal car. In the longer story. On the mining of some of these metals like Lithium and Molybdenum those projects can take many years to go anywhere. There's a Molybdenum mine in Western Australia and a company I worked for did the electrical design for the processing plant. That was around 2007-08. The GFC smashed that project. But they did get it done and mined the site from 2010 to 2014. Its now in care and maintenance. So there's at least 1 Molybdenum mine that can be brought back into production fairly quickly. The company that owns it has a good coper & molybdenum ore body nearby but they have not yet developed it. At that's one thing about mining, they wont spend money digging stuff up unless there's a market to sell it to. So they don't look at what the markets are today they are looking 3-5-10 years into the future. Plus to actually mine some of these minerals can be damn hard. Sometimes the percentage of what you want is tiny. They measure gold in grams per ton of ore. Copper isn't much better. And getting it out can be seriously hard. They dissolve gold with cyanide and copper with sulphuric acid. So a lot fo the processing gear is fairly serious stuff. Right now there are people scrambling for finance for projects but these thing take time to plan, procure build and get operating. Typically from the first time an ore body is found its at least 5 years until first dirt. Some projects go for about decades until first dirt because the markets aren't right or there's other mines producing what's needed. Even when everything looks good there's still that fact you are hoping to dig dirt and turn it into money. Its quite a difficult thing to get a full appraisal on an ore body and it can be horribly expensive if you get it wrong. I watched BHP, 1 of the biggest mining companies on the planet blow over $3 Billion on a Nickel project because the geologists did not check properly and guessed wrong. So I'd say Peters quite right on the supply of raw materials, but depending on what the Chinese and Russians do next that can change rapidly.
    5
  27. Another Aussie here and you're fairly close to my view. What I'd add is that the illegals who do get caught trying to get here consume resources. A lot of them are NOT political refugees they are economic refugees and that consumption of resources means we are NOT spending money on people we should be helping. Part of the problem is that we have advocates who just wont accept the judges decision and just move on. A staggering amount of money and resources is spent on appeals. Those same advocates relentlessly howl we need to discuss the issue but then wont allow anyone with even the slightest counterpoint to be heard. Every person or group of people who have ever emigrated anywhere have arrived with baggage. My Anglo-Saxon ancestors arrived in Australia with Anglo-Saxon baggage and some of that is still haunting our nation today. The real problem with trying to have any sensible public discussion on immigration is there are so many people who will instantly turn it into a howling screaming shite-fest knowing full well what they are doing.
    5
  28.  @alexandermckay8594  I am well aware of that, but Peter keeps repeating that its a MATTER OF EXPERTISE. Its actually easy to stop them freezing, don't stop them flowing for too long. You do know that wells heads can both open and close. So open one of them one day and another the next and keep cycling them. Peter has this bug, that's typical of Americans and that's American technical superiority over other nations AND ITS JUST NOT TRUE. I'm Australian but went to college in America so I am aware of how technically advanced America is. the University I went to was at the time the world center of supercomputing technology. But I also know that Americans have the flaw that they think they are the worlds best at EVERYTHING and that they are so far ahead of everyone else that nobody could possibly solve any problem the world has without them. Its called American Exceptionalism and it gets them into a lot of trouble because they keep underestimating other people.
    5
  29. There's a quote that I believe is attributed to Warren Buffet. "When the tide goes out we can all see who's swimming naked." Its his way of explaining that when capital leaves like when people shift their money to safer more secure places we can all see which companies are operating with real profit making activities and/or systems and those that are just clever at PR, marketing and tax evasion.
    5
  30. HUGE FOLLOW-UP COMING. Just after this was posted the news started coming in - Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has died in prison. How he died is unknown.
    5
  31.  @nrotko  You have just perfectly described the problem with the American Centric view of the world. They are completely oblivious to consequences. They are almost childish in their view of the world. You know how a young child can't see the consequences of their actions. But eventually as we grow older we know what to do and what NOT to do. On foreign policy Americans just don't seem to get that lesson EVER. I think Peter's right on China because that's a demographic issue and nothing can fix demographics except time. As Peter once said if you want a 25 year old it takes 25 years and 9 months to make one. We also have a similar issue in Australia. It was only 2 days ago I checked out bureau of statistics and found a bizarre thing. There's an interactive population pyramid and it has this noticeable notch for 16-19yr olds and that's factual because we just had a major census in 2021. BUT in the forward projections that notch just disappears and its something like 40-50,000 people. NOBODY IS EXPLAINING where they are coming from. Somehow the bureaucrats are magically going to pull 40-50,000 high school graduates and university students out of thin air.
    5
  32. Engineer here - 100% RIGHT. This is just Peter being pathetically like 100s of other commentators and just regurgitating PR from companies trying to raise money. I really like Peter when he's explaining geo-politics but as an engineer I think he needs to either employ an engineer or just STFU on engineering topics. Because every time he's either 1/2 Wrong, 3/4 Wrong, or 100% WRONG.
    5
  33.  @hughjass1044  That's a valid point.
    5
  34.  @deahelkcunklaer2180  I went to college in America mate. I love the place and the people, but your politics are toxic, your economics are a nightmare and your health care system is a sociopaths wet dream.
    5
  35. AUSTRALIAN HERE: I went to college in America and the most fundamental way to see this is that America REACTS while others have to PLAN. America with its incredible resources with the water ways & farming coupled with some of the worlds best mineral resources allows Americans to REACT rather than plan because almost everything is in over supply to demand. On minerals Americans often forget that they have some of the richest mineral deposits every found. They might not be as large as those found in Canada and Australia but the quality of its deposits makes gives America a huge advantage. Australia (26 million people), Canada (36 million people), New Zealand (3.5 million people) might have some amazing resources (minerals, oil & ocean) but none of us has the population to take a "we'll do what we need to when we need to" approach. We have to think ahead a lot more than America and its something we don't always do well. In fact MOST of the time Australia, Canada, New Zealand..... try to operate like America and wait until they MUST do something and that gets us into some staggering trouble with things like infrastructure, water management & power grids.
    5
  36. Great point and 100% accurate, but the Cubans were not alone. As an Australian I can tell you that the Brits used Australians, Canadians, Scotts, new Zealanders and any other "colonials" they could throw into a fight for that last 100+ years. And lets not forget the Americans did the same in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
    5
  37. As an Australian this freaked me TF out because if you change the words to Australian and Australia and swap Trudeau for Albanese and you are 100% factually describing Australia. His description of Vancouver is practically identical to Melbourne and especially Sydney with respect to housing. We are idiotically addicted to foreign investment. I'm an engineer and was actually in Canada late 2017 through early 2018 for a project. Other than the temperature inversion Canada was like another version of Australia. I was in Saskatchewan and it was like wheat belt of Western Australia, the Western 1/2 of Victoria and the Murray Darling section of New South Wales. A vast area of endless flat farmland, with exactly the same kinds of people. We even hate Canberra the EXACT same way Canadians hate Ottawa. AND we have the same brain drain of younger highly educated Australians to America, particularly in tech industries.
    5
  38. ​ @pondering1716  As I just said to Obcane if China goes away as Peter predicts its a massive issue. If the timing is right the we might be in trouble and the Indians can screw us on any deals. Right now some of their big players already have stakes in Australia. I actually spent time on a copper mine that was Indian owned and yes the food was awesome. So they already have a serious footprint here, but who knows where it will actually end up.
    5
  39.  @skippertunes  Yeah sorry. I went to college with a Kevin Costello and flipped the names. And there was the Kevin Rudd vs Peter Costello rivalry. My mistake.
    5
  40.  @JRay2113  I agree on the basic description but they are messy for very different reasons and those reasons have a lot of history. Italy as we know it wasn't a country since the fall of Rome in the 5th century. Its been a lose collection of warring states that occasionally united against a common foe but usually just assassinated each other. Italy as we know it is quite recent, but that history lingers. India has some similarities to that in that it has been a number of semi-autonomous kingdoms and even to this day has some large cultural groups who don't always get along. But while Italy has had a population of Catholics controlled by Catholics, India which is majority Hindu has been controlled by the Islamic Moguls and then the British. So its had long periods where the control was by people of another religion and culture than the bulk of the population. Then there was the split where they literally split India into 3 chunks - India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Then there is the whole Kashmir thing and the India versus China issue. I'd agree there's similarities but also some major differences.
    5
  41.  @rishisingh3408  The Hindu caste system is almost unique in religious ideology. There is nothing like it in Islam, Christianity or Judaism for that matter. I suggest you learn about other people and their cultures before making such stupid remarks.
    5
  42.  @TanyaCumpston  Firmly within the sphere of U.S. influence?? We actually kind of don't like that but its way more than 100% true. We actually have a couple of incredibly important US bases in Australia. The most significant is Pine Gap. There's a lot of "Ooh Ah What If" vids about it but this one is fairly good. Note the graphic on satellite coverage at about 8 minutes to see why its so important. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FUVwC-B1k4 Its what should be labelled a zero strike target, because before anyone tries to do a first strike they need to take this place out.
    4
  43.  @SP-po5qg  There's parts of Australia around our major universities where you can say exactly the same thing, except its about 50% Chinese and 50% Indian students. Its causing some very serious issues with our universities but the "business people" who now run our Universities don't care. More students = more money, and that's as far as things are discussed. As far as I know New Zealand has similar issues but not yet as bad as ours.
    4
  44.  @projectgolio  That's exactly the thing I have found everywhere I look with few exceptions and the few exceptions aren't that clear either. There's actually 2 business cases for large base load power stations. 1) If the government built them they are insanely profitable because if you don't do anything but keep them running then eventually population growth will flip the system from over supply to under supply. Prices go up but costs remain the same and especially for the coal plants where the coal mine is right there beside the plant. At that point profits skyrocket. 2) If private industry tries to build large scale then there is no viable business case. It takes too long to pay off. How do you ask a CEO who's probably 55 or older that if he spends this monster pile of money that he'll break even when he's 75? So its only viable with massive government subsidies, tax breaks and forward profits/bonusses.
    4
  45. Another Australian here and that's one of the great questions NOT BEING ASKED RIGHT NOW. How this has come about is anyone's guess, but I would start with the ECONOMISTS because they have influence over pretty much everything. I'm an engineer and have some VERY SERIOUS questions on energy for our leaders. They are all basically standing around waiting for someone to do something. The biggest problem is that ECONOMISTS now have so much control that we can't get anything done or have anything discussed WITHOUT their interference. And this is not simply and Australian issue. Its rampant across the entire Western developed world as well as having way too much control over the rest. Its basically hardwired into economics DOCTRINE that they have to be in control because as far as they are concerned "the rest of us don't know what we are doing." I've been looking into this for a couple of years now and there are a loose collection of fringe economists who have bene trying to sort out the rest of the economics profession for some time without any luck. One of the more prominent people in that is Australian economists Steve Keen who hosts a weekly LIVE podcast that's also shown here on YouTube for free. Sadly it starts 3:00am Sunday Mornings.
    4
  46.  @awolffromamongus875  Yeah - agreed. The thing for geothermal will be the same as it is for oil & gas - GEOGRAPHY. Geography is also a major issue with wind solar and hydro. Its arguably the least understood factor in the energy debate.
    4
  47.  @jamesspry3294  No these are new holes in a different place that have been specifically drilled to geothermal power. The difference is they are using the same fracking techniques the shale oil people use to great the wells and instead of extracting oil & gas they are extracting heat. I don't know how they have actually done this system but a few years ago a system was tried in Australia that sounds similar. In Australia the hot rock was actually granite so it was very hard but also brittle and could be cracked. In that system they'd drill 2 holes and frack the hot rock between them. They'd pump water down one hole and as it went through the hot rock via the cracks caused by the fracking it would get hot and then come up the other hole. That system failed in the end to deliver as much power as they thought they could get and it wasn't economically viable. I suspect this new system is working because its a significant improvement in how much they can frack the hot rock and access the energy.
    4
  48. HUGE FOLLOW-UP COMING. Just after this was posted the news started coming in - Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has died in prison. How he died is unknown.
    4
  49. Australian here but I was working in Saskatchewan in late 2017 on a waste water treatment plant. Little known fact is that Saskatchewan is sitting on top of one of the worlds least developed onshore oil fields. Its South West of Saskatoon sort of centered around Kindersley. The difference is that its deeper than Alberta's oil fields - about 1000m. I know this because the accommodation I had was shared with oil people. The reason I was doing a water treatment plant was so the town where it was could expand. Canada's problem is that its population has gone from 25 to 38 million and that means there's an extra 13 million people flushing toilets. Its another part of the infrastructure issues plaguing the Western Hemisphere. In some places its roads, in others bridges, others power stations like here in Australia. But in Canada its waste water treatment. Plus their roads are crap, but they do have really good rail out that way to service their potash and ag industry. That field has been marginal because its deeper, lacks a pipeline out to the world and not much else. Because of changing world politics the locals were telling me they expected Sask to boom through the 2020s if they could get past their infrastructure issues.
    4
  50. Aerospace engineer here: fabulous comment. There's been a few times Peter has gotten close but missed the mark on technology issues. Sounds like he missed a bit on the battery tech. Which begs a couple of questions. What do you know about the Sadoway Battery? What do you know about the Lithium Air batteries the U. off Illinois Chicago team did a couple of years ago. I will say this about Peter - this time he's actually dead right on the mining side for a change. Because I thought we'd be going back to the moon to mine it I went off to Australia's mining industry for some work experience. One thing I learned is that until you do a proper drill test program and confirm an ore body NOBODY should take any claim seriously. No serious investor with the kind of money needed will touch it NO MATTER the potential and that's because they have all been burned at some point by someone making a claim that turned out to be NOTHING. Peter is dead right. At best its 8 to 10 years away.
    4