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But it’s not $1.2 billion people to do the thing. It’s only $1.2 billion to not do the thing. To do the thing would require paying the original contracted amo

But it’s not $1.2 billion people to do the thing. It’s only $1.2 billion to not do the thing. To do the thing would require paying the original contracted amount. Whatever that might have been. Melbourne, well Victoria the whole state, is looking at a similar scenario for rail tunnels many believe serve little purpose. Around $1.2 billion to stop the work now and pay the early termination penalty. Plus maybe another billion (estimated, who really knows) to bury the tunnel boring machines and remediation work. Or something like $200 billion to complete the work and operate the rail network over some number of probably too many decades. Although this number seems to increase at a regular cadence. A new road tunnel was recently completed and people who use it often report they are the only vehicle in the tunnel. Meanwhile our roads haven’t been maintained in a decade and are literally falling apart. It’s not uncommon to hear reports of multiple cars being recovered after suspension and wheel damage from the same section of poorly maintained road in one day. All of this in a political and economic setting so corrupt the now former state Labor Premier came out and admitted knowledge of a criminal element having infiltrated the union that represents the workers on the projects. She was recently replaced with her deputy. As if that helps. Electricity prices have also increased by something like 150 to 200 percent more than inflation over the past 20 years but mostly the past 6 years (so this decade) because state and federal governments seem to want to insist on ramming Net Zero down our power lines, yet we export around the same amount of gas as Qatar. And we have the worlds largest know uranium deposit and yet we have a ban on nuclear power reactors. Please explain?

dathinab 2mo ago
> on ramming Net Zero down our power lines except this is AFIK just plain wrong much more relevant factors seem - spikes in energy need, mainly AI in recent years - extremely badly handling of power grids in a high multitude of ways not related to net zero (like seriously, the German grid is pretty bad compared to an optimal grid. But compared to the nonsense many parts of the US have, it looks like a pristine optimal solution.) - health/environmental protections _not to be confused with climate protection_!! Not wanting your citizens to have massive health issues due to air pollution, acid rains etc. has _nothing_ to do with net zero. People tend to somehow always conflate it. But a lot of the policies the US ended up doing (compared to the ones they say they want to do) where more about that then anything climate related. - inflation statistics being... badly done. Like if most relevant daily use products have price increases noticeable above inflation then your way to measure inflation is the problem. And a lot of the net zero things, tend to actually produce relatively cheap energy, even if you include cost for e.g. some gravity energy store and similar buffers. Just if you don't properly modernize, then you can run into troubles. As part of the US has never been in favor of renewables at all you can guess what happens there wrt. making decisions to which make things work compared to decisions which hinder things and then blame the technology instead of your bad politics.
- perpetuallunch 2mo ago
  Modern coal fired power plants are much cleaner than those that contributed to acid rain. You seriously believe coal fired power hasn’t evolved in the last 40 years? You’re saying that renewables are cheap but only if you include gravity storage. What gravity storage? The only useful one is pumped hydro, and that works approximately nowhere because of a lack of suitable geography. Australia’s Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro is on track to cost an infinite amount and / or be finished never.
  - dathinab 2mo ago
    > You seriously believe coal fired power hasn’t evolved in the last 40 years? no but even with evolution it still is way worse then literally every other (practical used/usable) alternative e.g. the quality of German brown coal is so bad that there is a saying that burning plastic wast gives you both more and cleaner energy > approximately nowhere you mean no where except everywhere where you have decent sized hills or mountains (and even in flat land under some circumstances) and is already build and in use in Germany in multiple case (and also not just Germany)
anenefan 2mo ago
> "Electricity prices have also increased by something like 150 to 200 percent more than inflation over the past 20 years but mostly the past 6 years (so this decade) because state and federal governments seem to want ... " There's a few factors. The main one from what I hear / read from those I know down that way was private industry getting their hands on the energy grid ... from what I have heard read it's a royal shit show at times and pricing just kept on leaping upwards with what looks like fly by night to the public retailers that aim to just maximise the amount people are willing to pay. Pricing is my locale is spared electricity customers somewhat, from dealing with the same profit based clowns [1] down southern end of Australia getting any sort of market share here. Almost getting the top spot for higher jump in costs, is the increase of infrastructure spending on the network. Some of that has to do with population growth and increase of grid demand due to urban sprawl and higher energy demands from the average customer. But the jump you see down in your state has been that much of the network down that way has not seen much investment in its upkeep and the rise of weather events affecting the various electricity grids that were not specifically designed for high winds in mind. The southern states high winds especially during dry periods is linked to wild fire events, so there's additional pressure to perform. This costs money and private companies are once again going to recoup that cost harder than what a govt governed entity would do, but then again in my locale being without power for half a day to days while a transmission line is repaired that failed isn't that uncommon. >" And we have the worlds largest know uranium deposit and yet we have a ban on nuclear power reactors." The public indirectly voted three or so decades ago, it from that assumed a mandate against uranium ... the dolts tried again last election, again no dice. Done and dusted, public no want. Some people will persist it's a good idea, thorium is with its safe waste is, uranium is not. The uranium nuclear path involves not millions but billions for studies, the companies like Deloitte are waiting in the wings. Soil studies, site locations, blah blah paid think tanks - lots of tax payer money. Going forward then there's design - Australia will pay again billions to some international company that's part of the old uranium crowd ... building I'd guess once more another international company will get the cream though yes some local employment will be touted and finally a waste facility and where to put it. If and when it got that far it might finally occur that uranium waste makes for good dirty bombs and the security around moving the waste each year will cost millions along with storage security, which isn't going to be some small depot with a six foot fence around it and a couple of security guards ... people that would want to make dirty bombs are not going to be waiting for it to fall into their laps. Of course at the end, it such a plant ever got up and running, the power is now centralised around one or more nuclear power plants and rather than resilience, this future grid had introduced large points of failure. [1] cheapfwits Co with typically no phone support Edit on last sentence for clarity.

dathinab 2mo ago

> on ramming Net Zero down our power lines except this is AFIK just plain wrong much more relevant factors seem - spikes in energy need, mainly AI in recent years - extremely badly handling of power grids in a high multitude of ways not related to net zero (like seriously, the German grid is pretty bad compared to an optimal grid. But compared to the nonsense many parts of the US have, it looks like a pristine optimal solution.) - health/environmental protections _not to be confused with climate protection_!! Not wanting your citizens to have massive health issues due to air pollution, acid rains etc. has _nothing_ to do with net zero. People tend to somehow always conflate it. But a lot of the policies the US ended up doing (compared to the ones they say they want to do) where more about that then anything climate related. - inflation statistics being... badly done. Like if most relevant daily use products have price increases noticeable above inflation then your way to measure inflation is the problem. And a lot of the net zero things, tend to actually produce relatively cheap energy, even if you include cost for e.g. some gravity energy store and similar buffers. Just if you don't properly modernize, then you can run into troubles. As part of the US has never been in favor of renewables at all you can guess what happens there wrt. making decisions to which make things work compared to decisions which hinder things and then blame the technology instead of your bad politics.

perpetuallunch 2mo ago
Modern coal fired power plants are much cleaner than those that contributed to acid rain. You seriously believe coal fired power hasn’t evolved in the last 40 years? You’re saying that renewables are cheap but only if you include gravity storage. What gravity storage? The only useful one is pumped hydro, and that works approximately nowhere because of a lack of suitable geography. Australia’s Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro is on track to cost an infinite amount and / or be finished never.
- dathinab 2mo ago
  > You seriously believe coal fired power hasn’t evolved in the last 40 years? no but even with evolution it still is way worse then literally every other (practical used/usable) alternative e.g. the quality of German brown coal is so bad that there is a saying that burning plastic wast gives you both more and cleaner energy > approximately nowhere you mean no where except everywhere where you have decent sized hills or mountains (and even in flat land under some circumstances) and is already build and in use in Germany in multiple case (and also not just Germany)

anenefan 2mo ago

> "Electricity prices have also increased by something like 150 to 200 percent more than inflation over the past 20 years but mostly the past 6 years (so this decade) because state and federal governments seem to want ... " There's a few factors. The main one from what I hear / read from those I know down that way was private industry getting their hands on the energy grid ... from what I have heard read it's a royal shit show at times and pricing just kept on leaping upwards with what looks like fly by night to the public retailers that aim to just maximise the amount people are willing to pay. Pricing is my locale is spared electricity customers somewhat, from dealing with the same profit based clowns [1] down southern end of Australia getting any sort of market share here. Almost getting the top spot for higher jump in costs, is the increase of infrastructure spending on the network. Some of that has to do with population growth and increase of grid demand due to urban sprawl and higher energy demands from the average customer. But the jump you see down in your state has been that much of the network down that way has not seen much investment in its upkeep and the rise of weather events affecting the various electricity grids that were not specifically designed for high winds in mind. The southern states high winds especially during dry periods is linked to wild fire events, so there's additional pressure to perform. This costs money and private companies are once again going to recoup that cost harder than what a govt governed entity would do, but then again in my locale being without power for half a day to days while a transmission line is repaired that failed isn't that uncommon. >" And we have the worlds largest know uranium deposit and yet we have a ban on nuclear power reactors." The public indirectly voted three or so decades ago, it from that assumed a mandate against uranium ... the dolts tried again last election, again no dice. Done and dusted, public no want. Some people will persist it's a good idea, thorium is with its safe waste is, uranium is not. The uranium nuclear path involves not millions but billions for studies, the companies like Deloitte are waiting in the wings. Soil studies, site locations, blah blah paid think tanks - lots of tax payer money. Going forward then there's design - Australia will pay again billions to some international company that's part of the old uranium crowd ... building I'd guess once more another international company will get the cream though yes some local employment will be touted and finally a waste facility and where to put it. If and when it got that far it might finally occur that uranium waste makes for good dirty bombs and the security around moving the waste each year will cost millions along with storage security, which isn't going to be some small depot with a six foot fence around it and a couple of security guards ... people that would want to make dirty bombs are not going to be waiting for it to fall into their laps. Of course at the end, it such a plant ever got up and running, the power is now centralised around one or more nuclear power plants and rather than resilience, this future grid had introduced large points of failure. [1] cheapfwits Co with typically no phone support Edit on last sentence for clarity.