Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Peter Zeihan || Material Processing: The Redheaded Stepchild" video.

  1. I'm an Australian engineer (EI&C) and most of our Alumina is exported to Iceland, where they have incredible amounts of hydropower. I have actually worked on a project at was then (Rio Tino owned) Alcan Gove. Its currently shut down but that was over energy supply. The existing power station was heavy fuel oil and the wanted to swap to natural gas, which Darwin has lots of. Rio Tinto wanted the State Government to build a gas pipeline from Darwin to Gove and they got told "Do it yourselves." Rio had a dummy spit and closed it, but I can see it starting back when the prices are right. Where countries like South Africa and Australia are about to enter a golden age is the massive task of new power infrastructure around the world. FORGET the energy transition for a moment. The bigger problem is that because of the squabbling between the Greenies and Fossil Fuel clowns everybody stopped building big base load power stations in the 1990s. Every one is littered with rapidly ageing power stations. The Fossil fuel clowns thought they could play a delay game until people go so desperate that they'd have to build new coal fired power stations. The problem is there are countries who no longer have the time. Countries like Australia can't wait 7-10 years to build a coal fired power station and we need 5 power stations replaced in the next 3-5 years. YES - we have a bunch of power stations so old they are almost falling apart. When I checked around other countries its a similar story. This is what's actually causing the energy crisis. Its all these old power stations that can't keep up. So there is about to be a mad spree of power station projects across the world. To supply the raw materials needed is gonna keep several nations in business for the next 2 decades.
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  2.  @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.
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  3.  @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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  4.  @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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  5. The other thing Peter misses out here are the other steel producers like Japan, Korea and India. Everyone should have a watch of this to get some real perspective on steel production. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dnM-RQI23Y If you ever want to see how things have changed over time this is a great channel to look up stuff.
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  6.  @jamewakk  What have I said about Germans? NOTHING.
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  7.  @jamewakk  WTF has that got to do with anything I said, you ignorant racist?
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  8.  @raam1666  Buddy that's so stinking racist its ridiculous. Your forgetting that most cultures borrowed, inherited and stole from other cultures through history. We got engineering from the Romans, who got stuff from the Greeks who got stuff from the Persians, Indians and Egyptians. Just remember most of Europe were nothing more than scavengers and hunter gatherers before the Roman empire. And AFTER the Roman Empire, European society got Math from the Arabs, Astronomy from the Indians and printed money from the Chinese. The when the Europeans divided up Africa among them they made sure the Africans stayed uneducated and underfoot. You are ignoring a lot of nasty shite that went on.
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  9.  @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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