Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Zeihan on Geopolitics"
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Looking forward to what you have to say on AUSTRALIA.
Since getting the gist of what you mean by demographics and how that plays out I know Australia is in serious deep crap.
But even with that there's some other mind numbing issues the top 2 of which are energy and water. We don't have enough of either because we have stupidly done some idiotic things.
The most stupid thing we did which has caused both of these issues was following what we called Economic Rationalism which was the Australia version of Reaganomics and Thatcherism. We (all of us around the world) now collectively call this NEOLIBERALISM but its also called Chicago School Economics after the University of Chicago where Milton Friedman, Ronald Corse and other plotted the "Greed is Good" Era.
ON ENERGY - we privatised everything back in the 90s under the standard claim that "competition would deliver better services at lower prices" and like everywhere else that PROVED FALSE. The real reason economists preached that nonsense wasn't because they thought that privatising everything would actually be better it was just standard neoliberal ideology.
In the time our nation went from 10 to 20 million people we built more than 10 power stations across the nation with output power greater than 1,000 Megawatts (1 Gigawatt) with the largest over 3GW. These are the large bulk delivery power stations that supply the bulk of what's called BASE LOAD POWER. In the time our population has gone from 20 to 26 million we have NOT built a single power station over 1GW. So the backbone of our energy system is not only old but also smaller than it needs to be. So not only do we need to start replacing the older power stations but we need to replace them with even larger power stations. THIS IS ACTUALLY COMMON ACROSS THE WESTERN WORLD and if you bothered to be more engaging with engineers we'd tell you about this.
The problem is we have about 22.6 Gigawatts of coal fired power stations to replace. This actually has NOTHING to do with climate change its just a fact that things get old and worn out and eventually need replacing. Right now people are sayin go nuclear, but based on the cost of Hinckley Point C in Britain (because its useable data) that would cost over AU$440 Billion. But based on population projections we'd actually need to double that and then almost triple it to supply all the electric cars, buses, trucks and airplanes that people want us to have.
By the time you add in all of the required power grid upgrades that easily jumps to more than AU$2 Trillion AND THAT'S for a country that currently has only 26 million people. What's the bill for Europe, North America, Asia, India,.......?
ON WATER - Australia is even in a worse state than most people realise. We are a dry nation and water is simply not as free to use as when we were 10 million which we only reached in 1960 and we were only 15 million in 1980. We are now 26 million and we haven't built any new major water supplies in decades.
The projection is that we'll hit 30 million in about 2030 BUT NOBODY knows where those 4 million are coming from OR HOW we'll get them enough water or how they will be able to turn on the lights.
He's what I really like about your work Peter. You've opened my eyes to demographics. If you look up the Australian Bureau of Statistics there's a page for the population clock and pyramid. Its got an interactive pyramid where you can see what's been going on since 1981 but with projections going onto 2071. When you use the interactive features of that page there's a really interesting thing that happens and I wouldn't know about it if it wasn't for YOU - so big thanks.
Here's what I found
In the data for 2022, which is based on the last census in 2021 (so its real data), there's a noticeable notch in our population pyramid for older teenagers (16-19). According to the projections (notice how the color changes) that notch magically disappears. That would mean Australia thinks it can magically pull 40,000 teenagers out of thin air. Which is odd because I thought to make a 20 year old took 20 years 9 months and 5 minutes if your quick and 30 minutes if you have some endurance.
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@timstewart2468 Sorry for the long replay.
The whole subject of bringing processing back and manufacturing back always comes down to one single thing - ENERGY. The single biggest difference between modern society and previous societies in ENERGY. No matter what anyone wants to claim it all comes down to energy - how much is available at what cost. Access to raw materials, education & labor all matter but nowhere near as important as energy. The claims about labor cost are pathetic as labor cost hasn't mattered in decades. All the talk of labor costs are just lies and misdirection.
I have been looking at the energy thing ever since I did this small consulting job circa 2016. I thought Australia had serious issues and then started looking around. Its serious everywhere.
The biggest problem by far are people called economists. Its a long story and it actually goes back to a very small group of radical libertarians in the Bush White House in the late 80s who stalled everything and ran interference and ran scare campaigns. Its actually had nothing to do with climate. These were (and still are) people who believed that ANY government program except the military was a bad thing and needed to be stomped on.
Bottom line is, YES we can do what's needed problem is due to the stupidity of these economists its now going to cost stunning amounts that will be measured in double digit Trillions (no joke). Australia with all of 26 million people is facing a cost of between $200 billion and over a trillion if its managed badly. Imagine the costs for bigger populations.
Then there's the Greenies, who do mean well, but are insanely ignorant of engineering reality. They're right, places like Australia have some staggeringly good geography for both wind and solar. The problem is those places are inconvenient. We have the Great Australian Bite which is exposed to the Roaring 40s where the wind varies between gale force and cyclonic. Its like the Orkney's (off the Scottish coast) have so much wind they don't know what to do with it. We need mechanisms to transport & store energy and that has been stalled for over 30 years because it wasn't convenient to a few people with influence.
Plus and the Greenies need to eat this one big time, NOT every country has great geography. In fact most countries suck for wind and solar and they are going to need to get the energy from other sources and that includes the 'N" stuff (🫢 shhhh!).
Because of their ignorance the Greenies are their own worst enemy. My favorite gag on other engineers (mech, chem, civ,...) is to ask them how electricity works. Its how I get rooms full of engineers to shut up by making them look stupid. The Greenies are levels of dumber than the lowest of engineers who are the civil engineers. I call them "shovel monkeys" because other other than digging holes to fill with concrete they don't much else. They get confused when water wont flow uphill. So consider where the Greenies are.
So imagine what its like trying to explain to politicians what needs doing when they economist screaming in one ear and greenies the other ear? Its a shitfest and when the media get involved it goes from shitfest to hyper-shitfest faster than any of Einstein's predictions.
As for a safe place to discuss any of this, I believe there's a small town way out past the town of Burke NSW called the "Back of Burke". It has a sister city named "Idontknow" in a country called Biddleonia.
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On manufacturing Peter's again right about a couple of things and totally wrong on others.
Yes Tesla is making the chassis (the frame of the car) out of Aluminum, but the casting process they are using is is state of the art and very cost effective.
I watched a video where it was explained and even though I am not an Elon Musk fan in any way some of his engineers know their shite and know it very well.
The original concept for the Tesla Roadster came from a couple of very smart guys who knew what they wanted. They were not restrained by the business practices of the major manufacturers and were incredibly innovative.
Elon himself has, despite his claims, had fark all to really do with the car, which is why its pretty decent. The same can be said about SpaceX. I have had a ride in one and it was excellent. Elon himself is a shite engineer but what he is utterly brilliant at is identifying technical opportunities and exploiting them.
Where peter is misunderstanding some of the manufacturing is that thing engines and gear boxes and differentials are not cheap items in a build process. There's precision castings, precision bearings, cam shafts, valves, head assemblies, crankshafts, pumps and gears and all sorts of stuff to make a drive train.
Teslas have a battery and an electric motor. So it has more expensive materials but its also a lot simpler to make. and install the drive train.
But I also think Peter is dead right and that because of the available supplies we wont see a lot of long haul trucks or farm machinery go electric for a long time.
He is dead right that its a massive task that a lot of people have badly misread.
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