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posted by martyb on Sunday April 07 2019, @02:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the Gotta-ban-them-all dept.

An Australian Parliamentary committee has recommended that petrol and diesel cars be phased out in favour of electric vehicles in a report. This is not yet law but shows that the government is serious about reducing the dependency Australia has on oil and reducing greenhouse emissions.


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  • (Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Sunday April 07 2019, @05:07AM (7 children)

    by stormwyrm (717) on Sunday April 07 2019, @05:07AM (#825656) Journal

    So, how many fossil fuel power plants are they planning to phase out and how many nuclear and renewable plants are they planning to build to fill in the massive increase in demand for electricity that this huge boost in electric vehicles is going to require? Renewable will likely not be able to fill 100% of the demand for electricity this measure will take, so nuclear is going to have to remain on the table. It is is the only way to cleanly (i.e. no greenhouse emissions) generate reliable base load electricity available at our current state of technology. If they don't shut down all fossil fuel plants at the same time this will be an empty gesture.

    --
    Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
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  • (Score: 2) by jb on Sunday April 07 2019, @05:47AM (2 children)

    by jb (338) on Sunday April 07 2019, @05:47AM (#825672)

    Simple: if it's an overcast day with no wind, the State/Territory Government must declare a public holiday, since little if any work could get done anyway without sufficient generation, once the law requires absolutely everything to be electric & most generation to be solar or wind.

    After a few months of that approach, productivity per capita in Australia will drop to levels below even those of, say, France or Spain ... which strikes me as just what some sections of politics in Australia seem to be aiming for.

    Of course, with an "all wind and solar generation; all electric vehicles" approach, deliveries by road to local stores of food and other essential items will also become weather-dependent. Perhaps the end goal is to solve the overpopulation problem by starving as many of us as possible to death?

    You're right re nuclear power too. Always thought it was rather ironic, given Australia's abundant supplies of uranium, that our government opts to let it all get shipped overseas rather than put it to beneficial use here at home. There are many unpopulated areas of desert (not all that far, in relative terms, from where the uranium gets dug up in the first place) which would be ideal sites for nuclear power plants (yes building transmission lines would be expensive in the short term, but well worth it in the long term).

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by deimtee on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:22AM

      by deimtee (3272) on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:22AM (#825689) Journal

      I agree on the need for Oz nuclear power but the reason they don't put them in deserts is not the transmission lines, but the cooling. Uranium makes a great heat source, but you need an equal heat sink to extract power. It takes a lot of water to cool a nuclear power station.

      --
      If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday April 07 2019, @08:20AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 07 2019, @08:20AM (#825696) Journal

      Simple: if it's an overcast day with no wind, the State/Territory Government must declare a public holiday

      Pragmatically, all that is needed is a good distribution network.
      On the entire continent, is impossible to have sun not shinning and wind not blowing all over the entire continent in the same time.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @08:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @08:17AM (#825694)

    Renewable will likely not be able to fill 100% of the demand for electricity this measure will take

    Why do you think that?

  • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday April 07 2019, @02:32PM (1 child)

    by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Sunday April 07 2019, @02:32PM (#825782) Homepage Journal

    You forgot Clean Coal. Australia is fortunate to have some of the World's cleanest Coal. But, they don't have a lot of Oil. They've been getting it from Iran and a lot of countries that aren't very nice. But they came to their senses. They said, let's create many new jobs in our magnificent Coal Mines. Not in Middle East!!!!

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Mykl on Monday April 08 2019, @04:29AM

      by Mykl (1112) on Monday April 08 2019, @04:29AM (#826072)

      Not sure where you heard that, but Victoria (the South-East state on the Australian mainland) is primarily powered by brown coal, which is as dirty as it comes. Huge health problems for towns in the main coal mining and power generating areas. They're trying to wean themselves off it at the moment.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @05:03AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @05:03AM (#828873)

    Let's start by not creating any more coal mines.