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

  1. You're not alone. I'm an Australian engineer and I had this odd little consulting project back in 2015. I was stunned to find out the ACTUAL state of Australia's power stations. I watched a video today on California's looming crisis, so I did a quick look at their power stations AND ITS THE SAME STORY. When I look around the world its the same story again and again. Sorry to all if this is long but I have been on this for almost 7 years. Others have been trying to warn about this for a lot longer and nobody listens - we're just engineers. This isn't a German an Australian problem its everywhere. In simplest terms we all stopped building large baseload power stations in the early 1990s. So we are clear what I call a Gigawatt class power stations is one that can deliver in normal operation at least 1 GW (or >1,000 Megawatts) 24/7. California currently has 6 gas, 1 geothermal and 2 nuclear Gigawatt class power stations and only 1 of them was commissioned after 1990, the La Paloma Gas plant at McKittrick in 2003. In the time since they commissioned the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in 1980 California has grown from 24 to almost 40 million people. Here in Australia as our population went from 15 to 17.5 million in the 80s & 90s, we built 7 Gigawatt class power stations to meet the expected growth. The last of those was commissioned in 1999. As we went from 17.5 to almost 26 million we built NONE. Like another places we built a few smaller power stations and installed heaps of solar and wind. That's great and i love it but it DOES NOT solve the bulk supply that modern societies need. Its help mask the problem, but like the Titanic we are going to sink. It doesn't take any genius to understand the basic economics of supply and demand. If your population increases the demand for electricity increases. If supply doesn't grow to match population growth prices go up. When they used to build big power stations it was with growth in mind. In Australia we built those stations with 20 million in mind. So there's a delay between when we built those stations and when we hit the limits of their supply. Once that happened our prices haven't stopped climbing and have risen over 400% But it gets worse. Now those stations are reaching the end of their useful life. Its doesn't matter what type they are they all have an expiry date. California turned off San Onofre and Australia turned off Hazelwood along with some older small stations. We have 4 of our Gigawatt class power stations scheduled for shutdown due to age in the next 3-5 years and the rest not long after that. RIGHT NOW we haven't a single proposal to consider let alone approve let alone begin constructing. In Britain Hinkley Point C was announced in 2010, approved in 2016 began construction in 2017 and is expected to begin operating in 2027. At £26 Billion ($44B AUD) Australia would need 2 of those and 2 more 1/2 size ones to replace what we are shutting down at a cost of $132 Billion AUD. At best we might have 1 built by 2032 if we started tomorrow. CAN YOU SEE THE PROBLEM. Does rising power prices, power shortages, power outages all sound familiar? You are not alone. Does your government seem to have no answers on what to do? You are not alone. HERE'S THE REAL REASON FOR THIS. The time it takes to propose, approve and built big power stations means that no existing government (state or federal) that starts the process will still be in power when its gets approved or if they approve it when its built. So there's NOTHING for any politician to gain from asking for or approving new power stations. In fact for many politicians making no decision is their re-election strategy or "We will work on it!" is the way to win an election. If Britain had fast tracked Hinkley and maybe another 1 or 2 when they knew what the situation was back in 2010 and just got going they might be turning one on right now and avoiding the crisis. The rest of us are in an even worse state. To all, sorry for the long answer but no matter where you are its pretty much the same problem. Its not the fault of one particular politician or party. Its not the fault of the Green movement or the coal companies or the nuclear proponents. ITS THE COMBINATION OF ALL OF THEM.
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  2. NO PETER - we don't need reliable sources of information. 1) We need an educated public who can actually discern between fact and fiction. 2) We need some from of enforcement that is acceptable to all that can warn people about UNCONFIRMED INFORMATION.
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  3.  @invaderjoshua6280  Oh you have to be a farking zoomer with that sort of comment. WTF is an "older millennial"? 30 isn't old. I'm an Australian Gen-X who went to college in America. I was raised on metric and had plenty of fun explaining it to my Gen-X class mates. FYI - I did aerospace engineering. And yes I know all about a couple of space probes where they got metric & imperial confused. How did Jim Gaffigan put it? "Metric is so hard. Dividing and multiply by 10s is so confusing." In future be careful with metric comments until you know which country people are from.
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  4. As an engineer speaking as calmy as I can. Can people like you STOP regurgitating the PR and spin coming out of the fusion community. For the last 70 years they have been saying that fusion was only 20 or 30 years away. Yes there is progress being made but the facts don't indicate ANYONE is near to commercial operations. The ITER project is years behind. The Stellarator which has shown some promise is only experimental. If we really did make the giant push and did an Apollo like approach where a deadline was set then maybe we might see something in the next 20 years. Also don't ignore one of the biggest facts regarding nuclear fusion - its NOT as clean as the proponents suggest. The main mechanism it generates heat is with high energy neutrons and high energy neutrons are among the worst forms of radiation known. high energy neutrons tend to fly off like atomic bullets and in a human those bullets tend to smash DNA and that either kills cells or causes cancer.
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  5. Not unless its escorted. If you go back to the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) the Americans and others escorted tankers into and out of the Persian Gulf. Look up the "Tanker War" that's a subsection of the Wikipedia page in the Iran-Iraq War. But Taiwan would be totally different as people would not be protecting their energy supply they'd be blocking a large part of China's energy supply and certain key raw materials.
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  6. Along with that BS about the Israeli air force Peter is also 100% wrong about the differences between solid fuel and liquid fuel rockets. Its liquid fuel rockets that are far more complex than solid fuel. In simplest terms solid fuel rockets are tubes with a nozzle. There are no pumps or valves or any of the fueling systems required. Its an idiotic claim and it shows YET AGAIN that when it comes to engineering topics Peter does NOT KNOW what he's talking about. FYI - I have a degree in aerospace engineering.
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  7. AUSTRALIAN HERE: Who's also worked in our nuclear industry on the mining side, but as part of that we were fully schooled on the entire nuclear fuel cycle. Peter makes a series of horrendous mistakes in this the worst being that Plutonium is the end result of Uranium fission and that's just NOT true unless you are talking about breeder reactors. Peter's #2 egregious error is that Thorium produces Plutonium. Totally 100% UNTRUE This is a myth that started a few years ago and keeps getting repeated.
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  8. AUSTRALIAN HERE - Calling Australia America's Deputy is not quite accurate. The correct term that the rest of the Asians use is "America's Little Bitch!" We just call ourselves the 51st State but apparently that upsets the Puerto Ricans. Here's a couple of points that Peter doesn't mention with respect to the region and the countries he talks about. 1) There are 2 CRITICAL American bases in Australia that few people talk about. There's Wikipedia pages for both. - There's the Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt at Northwest Cape and its used to talk to the US Submarines operating in the Indian Ocean so for all that stuff going on in the Red Sea with Iran and Houthis all of the comms to the submarines in the area is done via this station. - There's Pine Gap in Central Australia that is the primary ground station for American Satellites watching Russia, the Middle East, Pakistan, India, China and most of Asia. Its what I'd call a "Zero Strike" target rather than a First Strike target because BEFORE tries a first strike this place needs to be dealt with because other wise America will see your first strike coming. 2) Besides 4 small Aircraft carriers the Japanese have 6 large destroyers (over 9,000t) and 29 smaller destroyers (5,000-7,000t). The 6 larger destroyers are similar size to the American Arleigh Burke-class destroyers Of the 6 larger destroyers the 2 Maya-class (Maya & Haguro) carry the AMERICAN MADE SM-3 anti-ballistic missile. The SM-3 is a major upgrade to the RIM-161 family of surface to air missiles. The main difference is the SM-3 is an anti-ballistic missile capable of intercepting missiles at greater than 100km of altitude. They have much greater range and their speeds are greater than Mach 8 with the latest Block IIA capable of Mach 13.2. For perspective the SR-71 went Mach 3.3 and Hypersonic is regarded as greater than Mach 5. Both Maya and Haguro have successfully hit targets at over 100km altitude during their commissioning. All those details are on Wikipedia. 3) BOTH Japan and Korea import large amounts of food and raw materials from Australia. Most of the food comes out of Australia's East Coast as does the coking coal for steel production. HOWEVER all of the iron ore comes out of Australia's West coast along with significant amounts of other raw materials and goes via the South China Sea. Go and have a look at WHERE China has been setting up bases in the South China Sea. The Spratly Islands are a long way from China and China has NO history of being on the Spratly's like they do with the Paracel Islands. So WHY ARE THEY THERE? Peter has often spoken about the 7 gaps the Russians want to control for their security. Look at map of where the Spratly Islands are they are not just a long way down near the Southern edge of the South China Sea but they are at a narrow point between the Philippines and Vietnam. So these bases are in a strategic position where multiple countries could interfere with trade. Basically if you want to put a toll gate on the entrance to the South China sea the Spratly Islands are the location to do it. This is one of the main reasons Australia wants (or needs) nuclear powered submarines. The South China Sea is where a lot of our critical Exports go. Its a long way from our main naval bases and nuclear powered submarines are significantly faster than conventional powered subs and don't need to surface every day or 2.
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  9. Yeah mate but who owns the majority of stocks on our stock markets? The Dow, S&P 500 and other indexes are great gauges of how the Top 10% are doing and to a lesser extent the middle class. But when it comes to the Bottom 50% of the economy the stock market is a SHlT indicator because NONE of the wealth on it flows down to them.
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  10. And of interest in the fertilizer issue just yesterday the YT algorithm flagged me a story from the Financial Times titled "Fighting agricultural pollution in England’s waterways." There's a 2019 Report that says only 14% of Britain's rivers are in good health and farm run-off is a major contributor. And I didn't mention it but farm run-off is a major problem in parts of Australia too.
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  11. Aerospace engineer here - 3 points 1) Kinzhal is spelt with an 'i' not an 'e' 2) Calling anything ballistic only means it follows a ballistic trajectory for some or all of its flight and has NOTHING to do with the speed at any point in the flight. 3) Saying something goes hypersonic only means that it can go faster than Mach 5 for part of its flight and has NOTHING to do with the type of flight path taken.
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  12.  @parrmik  I remember once seeing the cars leave the Dandenong plant for GM. It was like watching an army charge into battle or a massive herd of animals suddenly move. It was one of the most bizarre things I ever saw.
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  13.  @SolaceEasy  Yeah so I did apologise for the length right at the start.
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  14.  @krisushi1  On AUKUS, I am NOT (and keep saying it) against it in principle. I am against the terms of it. Here's an allegory. Imagine you are selling the next generation of giant dump trucks to BHP or Rio Tinto and YES your trucks are the best. They use less fuel, they require less maintenance and they have all round better features. Plus your company has a long history of making good quality trucks. As part of the contract that you put in front of BHP/Rio Tinto you ASK B.H.P./Rio Tinto to PAY YOU MONEY to fix YOUR factory because after years of neglect by your management its starting to break down and cannot deliver the trucks its supplying to other people. Do you think that's a contract BHP or Rio Tino would sign knowing that among their shareholders are smart people who would understand how stupid that is? We (as in Australia) are sending $3 Billion to upgrade the Huntington Ingalls shipyards at a time when they can't even deliver submarines (as well as ships for that matter) to the USN Navy on time. If that makes sense to you then I have no answers for anything else you might ask. Then there's the fact we hired a pack of Americans on monster pay packets starting at about AU$1.2 Million a year to tell us this garbage plan made sense. Here's an additional point of grievance I have. I recently found that one of the Australian Think Tanks (ASPI) not only gets money from the Australia Government to advise it, but also gets money from the US State department. Its there on their website which they have to do by Australia Law as a think tank & lobbyist. SO WHY TF is the US State Department funding an Australian Think Tank that's consulting to the Australian government even if its in unrelated material? More importantly WHY TF hasn't anyone in the media made a fuss about it?
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  15. You need to be clear what it means by WINNING. Because in a War the usual way you win is to defeat the enemy and there's simply no way Ukraine can actually defeat the Russians. Its a simple matter of numbers and Russia's numbers are simply bigger than Ukraines. Peter has explained this several times. HOWEVER if you consider that Ukraine can SURVIVE in its own right and NOT a conquered state like they were during the Cold War, then that is an entirely different matter. History tells us that America with all its might was pushed back out of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Their best post WW2 result was a stalemate in Korea. What Ukraine can do is simply grind the Russian military down to the point where they just can't continue, because there is nothing to be gained. This is what the Vietnamese, Iraqis and Afghanis did. They didn't really win, BUT it did put a NOT win against the mighty American War machine. So what I would say is Ukraine MUST NOT LOSE. Because as Peter has said so many times look at what Putin's real goal is. Its to recapture the strategic positions the Russians had during the Soviet Era. If Ukraine LOSES then Putin will keep going and that really is a disaster for everyone.
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  16. FOR FARK SAKE CAN YOU JUST GO AND WATCH ROLLS ROYCE'S OWN VIDEO BY ONE OF THEIR ENGINEERS. Its here on YouTube. He said it would be 2035 before they could be ready to start deliveries of SMRs. And that was provided they started back when he said it. These constant claims that its just a few years away ARE NONSENSE.
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  17. HEY PETER - I'm Australian and saying this out of friendship. I completely understand your stand on Qasem Soleimani as he simply was America's enemy or at least a foil in Iraq, BUT you can't simply say he was a bad guy because of his actions and leave out the fact George Bush and his Neo-con goon squad LIED about WMDs and got at least 10 times as many people killed. You especially can't say it when Benjamin Netanyahu has just bombed around 30,000 civilians to death in Gaza WITH THE BLESSING of Joe Biden. Everything you are describing about Soleimani's actions (and you hint at it) is what America has does all over the world. Americans are always howling about -> "Why do these people hate us so much?" More often than not I have heard Americans answer that with -> "Its because they are jealous of our success!" NO IT ISN'T and THIS IS WHY -> You point the finger at someone like Qasem Soleimani and say he's a bad guy for doing the same thing YOUR 3 letter agencies do all the time. Its called hypocrisy and the reason hypocrisy is not an Olympic Sport is because NONE of us can compete with America. I love American culture and the people. I went to college there and it was awesome. BUT Americans have this vile habit of pointing fingers at people for doing exactly the same things your government does.
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  18. And while he's there can you ship shuggers net tuch hum inee uv ya kunkee unimal hibits.
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  19.  @TanyaCumpston  You right on the minerals, but out major problem is that we no longer actually process that much. There's lots of angst on that subject in various parts of Australia. There's a few places where you can say the simplest thing and go to hospital. The biggest problems with our wind and solar is that a lot of it is nowhere close to the existing power grid. Added into that are some seriously stupid people with way too much to say and the media keep handing them the microphone. We have enormous potential in a number of areas and too many selfish clowns getting in the road on all fronts.
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  20.  @juniorjames7076  Just remember Australia might be trying to escape its past but a sizeable chunk of the population still wants to deny everything. I am Australian and our corruption might be different to South Africa's and we might have some ways to handle it BUT DO NOT THINK we don't have some huge issues. Chunks of our banks and real estate markets are fundamentally part of the global money laundering system. Our lobbying industry is atrocious, maybe not as bad as America's is but seriously bad none the less.
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  21. I'm an engineer and have pointed out on a few occasions that PZ doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to engineering subjects. I have repeatedly advised him and others to stop pumping out garbage, STFU and let the engineers explain what is and isn't engineering fact. My degree is in aerospace but I work in industrial control systems, robotics and automation. In 2005-06 I did a water treatment plant on a Uranium mine and as part of that we did an extensive nuclear induction. A normal mine site induction is 1-2 hours (max) this induction went for 2-1/2 days. the first 1/2 day was normal mine stuff and the other 2 days we covered uranium from when its in the ground to when its back in the ground. When it got to the subject of enrichment someone asked WTF the Iranians were up to. It was around that time that everyone was getting very anxious about what the Iranians were up to. The trainer doing the induction laid it all out and explained how EVERYONE across the World's nuclear industries KNEW 100% that the Iranians had a weapons program. It was the number of centrifuges that gave it away and we knew how many centrifuges they had because of how many high speed electric motors to spin them that they had bought along with the electronics to control those motors. The actual motors and electronics are NOT restricted tech because its stuff used in many other industries. Certain materials are restricted because they allow making the centrifuges much easier. I have explained that so many times.
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  22.  @thefisherking78  Agreed. I watch Peter every chance I get because on the geopolitics he's fantastic. Even on points you might find out later he's a bit off on you'll find that at least he's giving a perspective. ON ENGINEEERING how ever he is getting some damn bad information at times and I have commented a few times on things he's just been plain wrong about.
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  23.  @borag  Great question. I think its going to be more significant than some do. UP front I will say Sorry if this is lengthy but I have looked at Hydrogen and there's things many have NOT looked at or are aware of. Most notably many don't realise that hydrogen can be used in gas turbines. My degree is in aerospace and back in the 90s when they thought jet fuel was going to be done away with companies like Rolls Royce and GE did a lot of work on hydrogen as a fuel for gas turbines AND they solved many of the problems. These days GE and Siemens offer large gas turbines at 800MW (with combined cycle) that can use 50% hydrogen WITHOUT and modifications. The also say they have a path to use 100% hydrogen. FIRST (and this is very important) EVERYTHING has efficiency issues. If we'd used efficiency as the arbiter we would never have had the industrial revolution and possibly would never have made it out of the cave. We do need massive investments in energy storage research, but for the immediate future we need to use what we can. We can't rely on hope or maybe and have to use what we can and in ways we can. That means hydrogen will be huge, but there are some misunderstandings being bandied about. Simon Michaux (another Australian engineer) has done some really great work on the energy transition regarding the issues of just how much stuff is needed versus what's actually available. Once you realise there's 1.5 billion cars and 500 million trucks in the world, its a mind numbing task. Just to do that many cars with the same Lithium based tech Tesla uses you need in excess of 94 million tons of Lithium and according to the US Geological Survey there's about 21 million tons in reserves available. Other sources put that at 26 million tons (See Wikipedia). So there's some major problems to over come with energy storage. As Simon says "Its not impossible we just need a better plan." One thing I know Simon is wrong on is hydrogen. I have watched several of his videos including one only a few hours ago that he gave for the University of Queensland. In that video his models uses PEM cells for BOTH the hydrogen generation and power generation. Plus he insists it needs to be stored at 700 Bar which might be true for some cases BUT NOT ALL CASES. All up he gives an efficiency of 18% making Hydrogen unfeasible but I know his method is WRONG. If you use PEM cells on the generation and current generation gas turbines those have a combined efficiency of 45% with the PEM only at 70% efficiency. PEM can be as high as 80% and its believed they can get it up to 94%. At that point its over 60% without the losses for storage. Simons problem is that using PEM for generation only gets about 40% efficiency which combined cycle gas turbines are over 64% RIGHT NOW. What people forget is that if you have to flip the power from AC to DC and back to AC which you have to with these lithium based battery storage because its DC and that causes a lot of losses. A hydrogen gas turbine just produces AC directly. Now is GE and Siemens are BOTH pushing these turbines I think that means they know something. They are selling lots into SE Asia. The first couple have gone into Malaysia already and I saw a report that said one country might be buying 23. Here in Australia, we have 2 old gas thermal plants (Torrens island & Newport). Torrens is already past its "end of life" date. Based on their age I doubt if either gets better than 30% thermal efficiency. If I simply replace Torrens with one of these turbines it would be almost identical in power output but use less than 1/2 the gas. If we add in a hydrogen supply that comes down even further meaning there's more gas available in the gas market (i.e. lower prices). Based on age I'd estimate its running less than 30% thermal efficiency which is less than 1/2 the 64.7% these new gen gas turbines run at. So even without Hydrogen they'd be a massive saving on gas. With hydrogen there's an even bigger saving on gas and reduced emissions although at this point emissions reduction is only a fraction of the problem. FYI - I did my degree in aerospace and back in the 90s Rolls Royce, GE and others were flat out trying to run their turbines on 100% hydrogen because they all thought Jet-A1 was going to be phased out of the aircraft industry. So I know they've worked out the issues with using Hydrogen in gas turbines.
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  24. The other thing he talks about which is very rare for an American is that he recognizes that the rest of the Western World has had as one of its key foreign policies since WW2 is "What do the American's want us to do?" About a year into Trump's presidency it was leaked here in Australia that our Foreign Affairs Department (DFAT) was in unchartered waters. For the first time in decades they were having to think independently of America. The problem was its been so long since any Australian government has actually had to think for itself that NOBODY knew how to write policy outside of the "What do the American's want?" framework. What America is yet to accept is that a lot of countries have now had 4-6 years of thinking for themselves outside the "What do the American's want?" framework.
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  25.  @awolffromamongus875  There's talk of that sort of thing but no matter what's done you still have to get the rock out of the hole and when they go deep its a lot of rock. On top of that issue to stop the hole collapsing they have to put down a liner. You only have to spend about 30 minutes with people who drill to realise that its quite different to what's shown on TV. Its one of those odd areas of engineering where experience really does matter.
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  26.  @peakz8548  World demand, but mostly the Chinese construction boom. People seem to forget that the Chinese have lifted around 500 million people out of the peasant class into the lower middle and middle class. India is also moving in that direction. Then there's the rich oil states of the middle east, they have also been building over the past decade. Back around 2002/03 I was told the Australian iron order industry was planning to double from around 200 million tons to 400 million tons a year. In 2017 we produced over 885 million tons. I think that's backed off a little to around 820 million tons. There's a little heard of economic indicator called the iron consumption rate. Its so rarely heard of I might even have that name wrong. Back around 2003 the Western world consumed between 70 and 85 kilograms per person each year of iron. It was through stuff we bought but also through construction. At that time China was around 8kg and India 7kg per person per year. You don't have to move populations that large much to have a big effect.
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  27. Wagner - its the Russian word for Blackwater.
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  28. That's a really interesting point on the gold price. An interesting aspect to this is that here in Australia we have just had some very dirty secrets revealed about our gold trading AND SOME OF IT INVOLVES RUSSIANS operating via Cyprus. The bulk of it seems to be money laundering but the Perth Mint has been caught selling gold that's deliberately tainted with silver. Note that this story was aired on TV at almost the exact same time that Peter posted his video. This is from ABC Australia -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko_ZmxGBaB4
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  29. SORRY BUT PETER IS 100% WRONG on the project costings of renewables. FYI - I AM AN ENGINEER (Australian) I don't know where he's getting this nonsense from but he is so wrong and its infuriating. This is the sort of crap that drives engineers crazy. 1) The capital out lay of coal, hydro and nuclear is now multiple times higher than Wind and Solar. In Australia we have 22.7 Gigawatts (GW) of coal to replace and IT HAS TO BE REPLACED because most of it is old and worn out. In fact we have already turned of 6 coal fired plants NOT because of emissions but because they were so old we couldn't keep then running. BASED ON the Hinkley Point C nuclear project in Britain, the basic cost of nuclear is £10.3 Billion/GW based on a project cost of £33 Billion for 3.2GW. That £10.3 Billion is AU$19.8 Billion/GW. The current cost of wind and solar in Australia ranges from a low of AU$1.55 Billion/GW to a high of AU$1.86 Billion/GW. The Capital cost of replacing that 22.7 GW with nuclear is AU$450 Billion. Building the standard 2.2 times for Wind and Solar to make up for night time and wind not blowing the capital cost of 50 GW of wind and solar is between AU$77 Billion and AU$93 Billion. Even if we double that cost to include power grid upgrades we are still less than 1/2 the cost of nuclear. And before anyone says hydro we are also doing the Snowy 2.0 project that started at AU$4 Billion and went to AU$5 Billion before it started and will now cost at least AU$12 Billion with some estimates putting it at AU$14-15 Billion. The main reason for the cost blow out was because SOME CLOWN DID NOT include the power lines to connect it to the grid. At 2GW full capacity it will cost AU$6 Billion/GW or more than 3 times the cost of wind and solar. Because we are such a dry continent hydro is actually getting more and more expensive because it has to go into even more remote places. SO when Peter's talking about raising capital HIS FACTS ARE WRONG. 2) The actual project expenditure model Peter is are talking about is TOTALLY WRONG. When you are building coal, nuclear, hydro you CANNOT produce any power and start recouping costs until it is 100% complete. You cannot turn on 1/2 or 1/4 or any other fraction or percent of a coal, nuclear or hydro project. BUT YOU CAN WITH WIND AND SOLAR. The moment you put up the first array of solar it can be connected and start recouping money. The moment you put up the first wind turbine it can be connected and start recouping money. That money from a partially completed wind or solar project can help finance the rest of the project. The only reason people need to find 100% of the capital for a wind or solar project is they're INCOMPETENT at project management. 3) The problem with wind and solar has always been and will always be that it is cannot supply ON DEMAND and needs to have a buffer system. This has also been a huge problem with coal, nuclear and hydro power because although they can run 24/7 they do NOT RESPOND quick enough for the daily swings of modern society. This is why many modern societies have smaller gas turbine plants scattered about. They can spin up and shut down as needed. Hydro plants also use IF THE GEOGRAPHY ALLOWS to have small pumped hydro systems up higher in the hills. Because those pumped hydro systems are smaller they have smaller turbines that can be spun up and shut down as needed. Solar and Wind actually needs 2 systems in the future. The large batteries that people like Elon Musk sell are great for very fast response to changes in demand that happen every day, BUT when it comes to storing energy at one time of year to use at another time of year those batteries are almost useless. This is where hydrogen fueled gas turbines which already exist can be used. Before anyone says they don't exist BOTH GE and Siemens offer gas turbines that can run on up to 50% Hydrogen RIGHT NOW. This is not future tech needing development it EXISTS RIGHT NOW. I did my degree in aerospace back in the 1980s and when it looked like we'd need to move away from jet fuel (kerosene) they started doing research into hydrogen. By the late 1990s that technology and all the issues were worked out except for one thing. Storing enough hydrogen on a passenger plane to get it to fly anywhere was a nightmare and made it unfeasible. PETER REALLY NEEDS TO START SPEAKING TO SOME ENGINEERS.
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  30.  @SA-hh9mv  Soon as you tell all those Canadians what will happen with the seriously nasty toxic leftovers from the refining process you can start. Or did you miss the part where he mentioned that Albert crude has lots of sulphur?
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  31.  @bluerock4456  Yeah the Sask people told me about their roads. In a weird (and kind of fun way) they seemed almost proud of that fact. There's a road between Kindersley to Saskatoon which I drove several times and its regarded as one of the worst. So I do have experience on that subject. I think they joked about their roads as a way to deal with their frustration. Oddly the attitude of Saskatchewanites to Ottawa is identical to the attitude of most Australians to Canberra. Its very similar to the way Brits feel about London and Americans to Washington. We all see those places as bureaucratic cesspools where good ideas are eaten, digested and shat out by highly toxic swamp beasts.
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  32.  @bluerock4456  That sounds EXACTLY like the road up to Saskatoon from Kindersley. We have similar problems in parts Australia. The joke used to be you knew when you crossed the border into to New South Wales because of how much the car would start to shake. These are just symptoms of a much wider problem with infrastructure everywhere. It manifests itself differently in different places. In some places its roads, others bridges, other schools & hospitals but its really noticeable in energy if you know what information to look up. I first became aware of Australia's issues when I did a small energy project about 7 years ago and found out how old our major power stations are. Everybody thinks the energy crisis is a green energy transition issue, buts its NOT. The green transition is just a part of the issue. The real issue ECONOMICS. Many places have NOT been keeping up with their energy demands and everyone is told the same story about investments that cannot be guaranteed to earn money. That's all a misdirection. What I am talking about are the big power stations that supply bulk power 24/7. I call these Gigawatt class power stations because they supply at least 1GW (1,000 Megawatts) 24/7 except when they are shutdown for maintenance. When Australia's population went from 15 to 17.5 million we built 7 of them. As our population increased from 17.5 to almost 26 million we built NONE. California has 9 Gigawatt class power stations 8 were built before 1990. La Paloma at McKittrick was commissioned in 2003. France has not built a new power station since 1999 and since then its population has increased 12%. Its all been caused by some fundamental economics. If you own power stations the easiest way to make MORE money is don't build any new power stations and in particular big power stations. YES it sounds bizarre until you realise how supply-demand markets work. If you let the population growth increase demand then by basic supply-demand economics it drives prices higher. Since your power station has not cost increase (why would it) your profits increase. This is why new Gigawatt class power stations are NOT economical. They would increase supply and drive prices down which might be economically good for you an me but lousy for the people who own power stations. This is why the privatisation of infrastructure around the world has been so awful and why have things like: - bridges collapsing in Italy or failing in America; and - bad roads in Canada and Australia; and - water supply issues in America, Spain and other places; and - an energy crisis. I am amazed Peter doesn't talk about this more.
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  33.  @bluerock4456  More point is that its more or less symbolic of how developed nations just aren't spending what they need to on infrastructure. I agree with many people that governments have become so bureaucratic that most of what they do attempt they mismanage. But on that front I have seen private industry make some monumental management blunders over the past 20 years. And I mean multi-billion dollar blunders. In engineering project management is arguably the least understood and worst practiced activity. How some of the people I have met ever got their position in senior management defies common sense and practical reality.
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  34.  @nrotko  On America's ability to sort out its problems. There's a famous line by Winston Churchill "You can depend upon the Americans to do the right thing. But only after they have exhausted every other possibility." My way of describing America is: If procrastination was an Olympic sport America would win all 3 medals even if they weren't competing. Other than climate change which is a big issue America is 1) 24.5% of the worlds economy so if it sneezes the rest of us catch a cold and 2) the US dollar ($US) is still the World's reserve currency and that isn't going to change no matter what the BRICS do because its simply impractical. So the bottom line is the rest of us just can't afford to have America act like a drunk, belligerent, spoilt Ivy League frat boy who's never been told "NO" and who's daddy has bailed him out of every stupid thing he's ever done. Most of all NOBODY can afford another such person to be President again.
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  35. Peter is quite right about how NATO accepts new members and that Moscow has only itself to blame for those nations wanting to join NATO. Moscow treated those nations like SHlT for decades. BUT There's no doubt that America went back on the assurances that NATO would NOT EXPAND Eastwards into the previous Soviet block nations. It was never written down as a formal treaty but there is NO DOUBT what the Americans promised Gorbachev because its there in the records from those meetings regarding the German Reunification. PLUS America and Americans need to be careful with this stance because Washington (and I say Washington quite specifically) has treated many of its allies with contempt and as well preaching democracy to the 3rd world before supporting some of the worst dictators the world has seen in recent centuries.
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  36.  @dennishassler605  Buddy I am an engineer and don't be stupid. You have to compare like for like. Houses are affected by land prices so the same house in different locations are different costs. Different cars cost different money. These aren't different anything THEY ARE THE SAME ITEM. Estimating projects and managing them IS WHAT I DO FOR A LIVING. Nothing makes sense in this stuff unless you include staggering incompetence and Everest sized fraud. We are being taken to the cleaners, like we are with other projects. The Frigate contract we have with BAE has just jumped 50% form $30 to $45 Billion without any explanation. There hasn't been a 50% change in the cost of anything. What we have are clowns going down the options list ticking boxes and the sales monkeys laughing as the costs explode. Its not just military projects either its civilian infrastructure and private industry projects that are blowing out. I am aerospace engineer but have been working in the mining industry because we looked like going to the moon to mine it a while back. I have watched world class mining companies waste money by the billion all of it on stupidly poor management and mountains of advice from greedy consultants. We have a plague in BAD project management in Australia. Mostly caused by consultants, but also by the Think Tank brigade.
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  37.  @FullCircleTravis  And we both like shootin and eatin 'em. One of my favorites is "kanagnaise" which is bolognaise made with kangaroo mince. I use port instead of red wine and plenty of chilli and its awesome. Gotta be careful with most Australian wild meat. Its very lean with not much fat at all so if you get it wrong it becomes stuff so tough you can make mountain climbing boots out of it. So its either a quick sear served rare or a very slow vey low roast or combined. Kangaroo also makes for great leather. Super soft and super long lasting.
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  38. Your right but then Peter's not always on target with technology & engineering issues. He's close on most things but typical on non-engineers he gets his information twisted around at times. On things like political strategies, politics and demographics he's a wiz.
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  39.  @goncalovazpinto6261  That happens. I remember that after one of the San Francisco earthquakes there was a baby boom 9 months later.
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  40. WHY? Its a part of Western culture so ingrained its almost a genetic trait.
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  41.  @Crusde  Your spot on, and there's a lot of people here who have been warning for years that we had/have become too dependent on exporting raw materials to China. if the Chinese property market crashes and with it the Chinese construction industry then Australia is screwed. But if the CCP put some sort of restriction or blockade at the southern end of the South China sea then it would be major league chaos for Australia, Japan, South Korea and a several others.
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  42. We have very similar issues in Australia. FIRST - fire is a natural part of all forest environments and many species of plants and trees REQUIRE fire to germinate. We have a number of plant species that can't germinate unless the fire gets hot enough to crack the seeds. WHAT'S CHANGED is the size and ferocity of these fires caused by fuel build up AND how often we have bad fire seasons. Its not just mismanagement its a combination of factors. What climate change does is amplify the natural swings between wet and dry conditions. When its wet its really wet and when its dry its really dry. After years of drought we had the wettest of wet years in Australia, while Europe where its normally wet had the driest of dry summers. So here in Oz we should also expect incredible growth in the next year or 2. When the next drought comes it will dry all that growth out and build a massive fuel load. Combine that with another of our issues - being able to burn off safely and we have trouble ahead. The "Goldilocks" period when we can set things on fire because its not too damp and also not too dry that our forests are like rocket fuel is getting shorter and shorter. I expect our next fire season or the one after it to be the worst of the worst.
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  43. ​ @Cincy32  To back up what you've said my brother and his family went to to Vietnam for a holiday years ago and came back telling everyone just how much we misunderstood their situation. The Vietnamese dislike of the Chinese goes back centuries. They might not like America (and with good reason) but the Chinese thing is huge. AFTER the end of the Vietnam War the Chinese actually invaded Vietnam in the first of several conflicts. In the west we don't hear much about this because what we do hear is from the American view. The Chinese don't talk about it much because the Vietnamese stomped on them. Its all wrapped up in the Sino-Soviet split. the Soviets backed the Viets and the Chinese backed the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and Viets and Cambodians were already at war. So rather than being a Capitalist West versus Eastern Communist conflict it was a Commie versus Commie conflict. Its just one of the things we don't hear much about. Its like asking a Dallas Cowboys fan if they care who wins a game between the New York Giants and New York Jets.
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  44. I'd agree with that but Obama was "the straw that broke the camels back." I just saw some of his public campaigning over the last few days and there's no doubting he's an incredible public speaker. If you compare him to the Democrat candidates it really makes you wonder what's happened to talent in America. That says a lot because the GOP has even less talent than the Dems. Therein lies one of the biggest issues in world politics right now. The money men behind the candidates have spent so much getting ignorant puppets in place that there's not much for anyone to be inspired by let alone vote for. Its even worse in some of the less than democratic places like Russia and China where they have actually jailed and in some cases killed any talent off. If Putin goes tomorrow who's left to make a deal with? If Xi goes tomorrow who's left to make any sort of deal with?
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  45.  @george2113  Really baseball & softball are tedious?? WTF do you call golf then? Even the commentators in golf sound like they start the day by dropping half a dozen quaaludes.
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  46. I'm Australian but went to college in America and I agree. Peter is far less pragmatic and filters a lot with respect to America than he is with other countries.
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  47. As an engineer who has looked at this Peter has actually done a very good job of summing up where this is headed. What AI already does are tasks that are repetitive and well defined. If you think of something out of the image matching field like fingerprints. Any person can look at a finger print and then start comparing it to other finger prints on file. The task isn't to match it perfectly but to match it well enough. So that's a well defined task that has to be repeated. In stead of a person taking a couple of seconds to do each comparison you have a computer running an algorithm and its comparing 1,000s of images per second. Facial recognition is similar just a bit more complex. Another area which is also a well defined repeatable task is personal tax returns. Irrespective of how many receipts a person might have or how much they earned they all have to do a 401K or what ever your country uses. Another area that's similarly well defined is stock analysis and its bedmate economic analysis. As an engineer who detests accountants and economists because they just can't stop interfering with everyone else's business I look forward to seeing them wiped out as professions. 👍😅
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  48. Nice gaming reference.
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  49. Engineer here: On the base load side of the energy equation its called nuclear. On the load following side of the energy equation its called wind and to a lesser extent solar. A major problem is the pro-nuclear people and the pro-wind/solar people keep whining and finger pointing AT EACH OTHER instead of realising that BOTH are needed. Part of it comes from an odd fact I heard recently. Through the 1960s and 70s nuclear was steadily growing and REPLACING fossil fuel power stations as it did. When the Green transition started RATHER then replacing fossil fuel it started replacing low emission nuclear. Despite all the wind & solar installation there's been very little reduction in emissions because its been replacing nuclear or just increasing the supply to meet demands from growing populations. PLUS into that mix ahs been the stupidity of the nuclear industry with accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima which have been used by the fossil fuel industry to scare the crap out of the general public. One of the most notable examples is Germany where they spent a reported €1.3 Trillion on renewables then TURNED OFF the low emission nuclear and TURNED UP the old high emission coal fired power stations. The result was that after spending €1.3 Trillion emissions went UP not down. IT WAS IDIOCY AT A STAGGERING LEVEL. We can do the energy transition, but the first thing we need is for all of the special interest megaphones to STOP so that us engineers can explain what we NEED to do and I emphasize the word NEED.
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  50.  @marcob.7801  Yep there's some great quotes about the cost of war going a long way back. Here's one from 2,400 years ago. “War is a matter not so much of arms as of money.” - Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
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