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HK1837 Offline
#1 Posted : Tuesday, 10 October 2017 3:21:24 PM(UTC)
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If we all had the same (good) taste, who would buy all the Fords?
wbute Offline
#2 Posted : Tuesday, 10 October 2017 4:12:05 PM(UTC)
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Interesting they "get" what made Australian sedans so good. Interesting that they actually knew we existed!
Sad really.
castellan Offline
#3 Posted : Wednesday, 11 October 2017 8:35:04 AM(UTC)
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Yes we did have the ability once to make our Nation one that was worthy of being respectable.
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#4 Posted : Wednesday, 11 October 2017 10:57:38 AM(UTC)
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Thanks Tony Abbot and Joe Hockey, well done!
Dr Terry Offline
#5 Posted : Wednesday, 11 October 2017 11:19:11 AM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: wannabe51 Go to Quoted Post
Thanks Tony Abbot and Joe Hockey, well done!


Are you serious !!

Dr Terry
If at first you don't succeed, just call it Version 1.0
KBM Offline
#6 Posted : Wednesday, 11 October 2017 6:29:56 PM(UTC)
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Unfortunately Holden, Ford and Toyota have been struggling for a lot longer than blaming the likes of Abbot and Hockey. Our love of a good wage and a house has made production costs out of reach for keeping companies viable in Australia. It's a shame they couldn't pack up and ship the tooling, design and assembly over to another country to keep the dunnydoor going.
wannabe51 Offline
#7 Posted : Wednesday, 11 October 2017 8:12:09 PM(UTC)
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I understood the Button car plan was always designed to continue subsidising (albeit scaling down progressively) the car industry, as it was recognised that the domestic market could never consume what was capable of being produced. Through the Howard years financial subsidies continued to be provided to the car industry to offset their loses. Not
because their products were of lesser quality than imported vehicles, however they were generally more expensive. and this may be explained that to maintain the lifestyle Australian were becoming accustomed to, wages were required to be maintained at current levels.
President Obama, recognised the social and economic consequences of letting GM and Ford fail in the US, so he made an Executive order(which many in congress strongly opposed), to have the US Treasury release funds to these companies so as to allow them to keep producing cars, to keep people employed and also provide zero interest loans to encourage people to purchase cars and continue the consumption cycle.
Prime Minister Abbott and Treasurer, Joe Hockey took the decision to cease subsidising the Australian Motor industry, with what now appears to be bad judgement. That is very dry economics considering the cost to the country with all the unemployment and human hardship caused by this decision.
Not to mention the loss forever of the production of motor vehicles that were world class!
wbute Offline
#8 Posted : Wednesday, 11 October 2017 8:20:24 PM(UTC)
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I can't be bothered with who did what. Other than Button more or less doubled the price of a new car overnight. Then it was all down hill from there.
However, if you can't build and sell for a profit without a government handout then you shouldn't be in business. GM can't do it so they took manufacturing off shore. I don't see why my taxes should be used to subsidise a bloke to buy a car from Holden anymore than that blokes taxes should prop up my farm so he can eat.
HK1837 Offline
#9 Posted : Wednesday, 11 October 2017 8:57:38 PM(UTC)
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I don't know enough about the ins and outs of it, but from my perspective it is more important to subsidise agriculture in Australia. The world will run out of food eventually.

The problem with propping up the car industry is the technology will take a big turn at some stage - so big that we will all wonder why we ever bought cars as we know them today. Just look back now at home landline based telephone technology, phone books, encyclopaedias, CRT screens, DC motors. All stuff that was big business 20 odd years ago, all essentially part of history as large scale industries or soon to be.

Still a shame to lose so much manufacturing in Australia over such a short timeframe though.

Edited by user Wednesday, 11 October 2017 8:59:36 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

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If we all had the same (good) taste, who would buy all the Fords?
commodorenut Offline
#10 Posted : Wednesday, 11 October 2017 10:10:14 PM(UTC)
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Funny how political grandstanding blurs reality.
Like the propaganda released by the union movement, claiming Abbott & Hockey to have scored a "trifecta" with Ford, Holden & Toyota pulling out.

But the simple fact is Ford had already pulled the plug during the Rudd/Gillard term, well before Abbott got in - some 3-4 months in fact.
But don't let facts ruin the political blame rant.....

Wages is a problem yes, but not the whole problem. Lack of export opportunities - or disguised plans to fail (eg the Territory to Asia), or lack of support from corporate HQ (think G8 & Chev SS opportunities that weren't maximised, or the export opportunity FPV missed out on with the Miami when Ford US contracted Roush instead).

But getting back to wages, think back to the 80s. A typical factory worker was living in a 3 bedroom house in the outlying suburbs, from week to week, driving a 10 year old 2nd hand car, and the annual holiday was a trip to the coast or the Qld theme parks. Fast-forward 20 years and these "highly skilled" factory workers are mortgaging McMansions to the hilt, financing new cars, and flying to Bali every 12 months. Their salary exceeding that of an average school teacher, that just 20 years prior, would have earnt 50% more than a factory worker.

That's just one cost that has gone well above the growth rate of everything else. Add in the raft of taxes & charges (carbon tax, environmental levies, OH&S costs etc) and it starts to become very costly to do business here.

I challenge those who think the unions & wages are not to blame, to go check out the wage rates in Kentucky, where Toyota build the Camry to quality levels equal to, or exceeding Australia. Here's one link to help, but there's a number of government sites with the data as well: https://www.payscale.com...te=Kentucky/Hourly_Rate
Now compare that to what Toyota workers in Australia were being paid - one source noted $28/hour minimum - and you can see why Toyota will quite happily pull out of Australia, and build the export LHD cars in Kentucky (or any of their other handful of Camry plants).
Cheers,

Mick
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Judge a successful man not on how he treats his peers, but on how he treats those less fortunate.
wbute Offline
#11 Posted : Thursday, 12 October 2017 6:08:27 AM(UTC)
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There are no subsidies in Australian farming. Subsidies won't make us able to grow more food. Food production in first world countries has peaked at its maximum. Actually it peaked about 20 years ago. I know that's off topic but it's an interesting fact probably more important than anything else in the world.
We can not compete in an export market as commodorenut states. That's the simple fact if the matter. You need to appreciate that car manufacturers have already replaced a lot of employees with robots and yet they still can't build them cheap enough here.
HK1837 Offline
#12 Posted : Thursday, 12 October 2017 8:39:24 AM(UTC)
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Subsidies to make it more attractive to Australians to actually farm rather than sell their farms into foreign ownership or to large Companies might work. In Australia we probably are positioned well (at least compared to other land masses) to provide food not only for ourselves but to the world, yet short-sightedness by politicians has made it harder and harder. Sure water is an issue, but it is similar anywhere else. I agree that food production is going to be a massive issue, and so is water. Many predict wars will be fought in the future over food and water, or at least over the real estate on which to produce food and get access to water. You can see the problems now faced with energy and gas as Government has allowed large private or corporate ownership to dictate where future energy will come from and how much gas is to be exported rather than kept for future domestic use. The idiot left tells us renewables will solve all, and we don't need coal or gas. The truth of the matter is renewables only are useful when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, and even if you can somehow store it economically you still have to have a network to get it to where it is consumed, and that network needs to have rotating generation to generate the base load energy that the renewables supplement. This can only be done right now with coal or gas (or nuclear). The Turnbull Government rightly is interested in Snowyhydro expanding the Snowy scheme to be ready for more storage of renewables as hydro is the best form of a "battery" available to store future renewable energy. I think only Tumut 3 is capable of this right now, and the idea is to bore tunnels and put in infrastructure to convert the rest to hydro storage so water can be pumped back to the top reservoirs during times where there is excess energy available on the grid, and running the hydro generation when renewables are not working. Nice read here if interested:
http://www.snowyhydro.co...g-pumped-hydro-storage/
If we are all going to electric cars in the future, or even semi-electric we will have to supplement all that energy no longer produced by ULP or diesel with energy off the electricity grid, and it will have to be generated somewhere/somehow. My hope is there will be a breakthrough in nuclear power that the end product is carbon or lead rather than Plutonium. I can live with the danger of the process but not with the waste output.
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If we all had the same (good) taste, who would buy all the Fords?
wbute Offline
#13 Posted : Thursday, 12 October 2017 10:18:55 AM(UTC)
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I agree with your views HK.
I feel (and I may be wrong) that foreign ownership of Australian farms is not the issue it appears. There have been foreign owners here since settlement. They always leave. The drought cycle busts them all. Three to five years in and farming with no income weeds out the farmers from the business focused conglomerates.
The reason agricultural production has peaked, is scary really. Plant variety development is no longer getting the massive yield gains of the 50's/60's. Fertiliser is now readily available to all and no great leap forwards in its development either. There have been no new chemical groups developed in years and none on the horizon. Efficiency is peaking through minimum tillage and moisture retention.
Basically, all the easy gains have been made two to four decades ago. There isn't anymore to gain other than slight gains in efficiency.
Some extremely fertile countries can catch up but their government will never let it happen.
So yes, food and water no one can live without, hungry people become irrational. Thirsty people die. It's a fact and population growth is pushing us all ever closer to that point.
I agree on renewable energy regarding storage, until we work out how to store power it is never going to replace coal or nuclear(hydro is an exception I guess) power.
As for our car industry, it's gone and not coming back. We have the ability, but it just costs too much. I reckon even the ability will disappear though as the need for trade skills disappears too though.
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albyht on 12/10/2017(UTC)
gm5735 Offline
#14 Posted : Thursday, 12 October 2017 10:26:18 AM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: HK1837 Go to Quoted Post
The Turnbull Government rightly is interested in Snowyhydro expanding the Snowy scheme to be ready for more storage of renewables as hydro is the best form of a "battery" available to store future renewable energy. I think only Tumut 3 is capable of this right now, and the idea is to bore tunnels and put in infrastructure to convert the rest to hydro storage so water can be pumped back to the top reservoirs during times where there is excess energy available on the grid, and running the hydro generation when renewables are not working. Nice read here if interested:
http://www.snowyhydro.co...g-pumped-hydro-storage/


Oh the spin Byron, the spin.
I spent 30+ years working in the energy storage industry, and this one has been around for at least that long.
Ignoring the environmental impacts of hydro, the tussle between irrigators (why the hell do we grow cotton and rice on the driest continent on earth...?), the hydro generating requirements and environmental river flows, the technology is incredibly inefficient.
It owes it's existence to the ability to sell peaking energy to the grid for very short periods of peak demand at a massive profit to the generating company. All funded by government grants, and distorted by the NEM. Profit is the entire motive here, not an altruistic energy alternative.
castellan Offline
#15 Posted : Thursday, 12 October 2017 11:02:25 AM(UTC)
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There is a breakthrough in Nuclear power and has been so for years.

But the media must be hiding the facts as much as they can, because Nuclear power stations now are making what's called Generation 4, go look it up.

We are being led to believe that Nuclear power tec is still back in the 50's and I say that all such old plants should be closed down because they are total 3rd rate backward crap.

The new type called Gen 3 and 4 use up all the old wast product that the old plants can not use and the world now has 150 years worth of such for the world to run on all that, that was just wast from the old stations. believe it or not but that's a fact.

After the new Gen 3 and 4 stations uses up what it can of that wast that could not be used in the old plants being used, the spent product from the gen 3 or 4 it's only toxic for under 200 years, it's great news. we need not dig up anything out of the ground for 150 years as it stands.

I am going off what I learnt at least 5 years ago now I think.
We had gen 3 stations running back then, one was in Japan 1 in France and some others.

Where Japan had the big problem with that old plant getting destroyed of late, if it was a gen 3 plant their would not of been a problem at all in fact and that's the truth of the mater, such plants are as safe as houses and that's a fact, they are like the difference between a T model ford and a car made in 2017 and that's a hell of a difference in fact.
But not many people will believe such is a fact, because they have been brainwashed about all that out dated crap and they all just run around in big circles screaming like fools.

The new Gen 3 and 4 power is cheap, it leads all other types of power generation for dead in value for money and environmentally by far.

What is going on now in Australia is a total insane rip off and cunning pricks are making big money out of it all, while leading Aussies totally astray.

I am a political party member and the subject came up and a professor was saying to me that their is now a Gen 5 that's even better again and that Nuclear power advancement tec was halted for years for what ever reasons.
wbute Offline
#16 Posted : Thursday, 12 October 2017 12:13:43 PM(UTC)
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Oh the spin Byron, the spin.
I spent 30+ years working in the energy storage industry, and this one has been around for at least that long.
Ignoring the environmental impacts of hydro, the tussle between irrigators (why the hell do we grow cotton and rice on the driest continent on earth...?), the hydro generating requirements and environmental river flows, the technology is incredibly inefficient.
It owes it's existence to the ability to sell peaking energy to the grid for very short periods of peak demand at a massive profit to the generating company. All funded by government grants, and distorted by the NEM. Profit is the entire motive here, not an altruistic energy alternative.

I question any group that considers environmental flows from a dam on a river as normal. That water naturally would have been gone out of the system as it entered the river catchment. Australian rivers traditionally went dry, not existed continuously with a flow. To truly be environmentally conscious we would remove all dams and regulation of flow.
We grow cotton and rice in Australia because we can. Grapes and vegetables are also prolific users of water. They also are grown in the driest continent on earth. I don't irrigate by the way. I also don't agree that some cotton growers seem to be able to rort the system at will.
Am I wrong in assuming we are nowhere near building or even designing a storage system for power? Is the inefficiency with hydro surrounding the pumping to re-use the water?

HK1837 Offline
#17 Posted : Thursday, 12 October 2017 4:05:02 PM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: wbute Go to Quoted Post


Oh the spin Byron, the spin.
I spent 30+ years working in the energy storage industry, and this one has been around for at least that long.
Ignoring the environmental impacts of hydro, the tussle between irrigators (why the hell do we grow cotton and rice on the driest continent on earth...?), the hydro generating requirements and environmental river flows, the technology is incredibly inefficient.
It owes it's existence to the ability to sell peaking energy to the grid for very short periods of peak demand at a massive profit to the generating company. All funded by government grants, and distorted by the NEM. Profit is the entire motive here, not an altruistic energy alternative.

I question any group that considers environmental flows from a dam on a river as normal. That water naturally would have been gone out of the system as it entered the river catchment. Australian rivers traditionally went dry, not existed continuously with a flow. To truly be environmentally conscious we would remove all dams and regulation of flow.
We grow cotton and rice in Australia because we can. Grapes and vegetables are also prolific users of water. They also are grown in the driest continent on earth. I don't irrigate by the way. I also don't agree that some cotton growers seem to be able to rort the system at will.
Am I wrong in assuming we are nowhere near building or even designing a storage system for power? Is the inefficiency with hydro surrounding the pumping to re-use the water?



It may be inefficient but so is having coal or gas fired generation not running all the time (which you cannot do with the daily peaks as they are now), and the best way to store that off-peak energy for peak demand periods is with pumped hydro. The problem is with closure of Victorian and South Australian coal generation there isn't as much off-peak energy available anymore. But hydro can be used for storage of renewables and until there is many gigawatts of reliable battery storage available this is the best solution. There are large solar plants being installed and commissioned in Australia right now, and there needs to be somewhere to store this energy or it is a waste of time. The difference here may be that they pump water during peak solar and wind periods and run the hydro when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing.

There is battery storage around but it still has issues around cost and longevity. Basic mats shows you a 100Ah battery will give you 100A for an hour when the battery is new, that is 1200W of power for an hour. With the expanded Snowy scheme they are talking 2,000,000,000W (for much more than an hour) or over 16.5 million 100Ah batteries which will be lucky to last 10 years. How old is the Snowy scheme? Sure battery technology will improve and that is what we need. Inefficiencies are basically pumping inefficiencies you get with any pumps.

Edited by user Thursday, 12 October 2017 4:24:32 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

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If we all had the same (good) taste, who would buy all the Fords?
Sandaro Offline
#18 Posted : Thursday, 12 October 2017 4:33:46 PM(UTC)
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Hey Wb, have you seen what they are doing in the Netherlands with agriculture? They've made great advances in using the little space they have (and at time unfavourable climate) by growing heaps in climate controlled greenhouses (big greenhouses 50acres for eg) that have year round growing and multiple layers (think warehouse racking). I can't remember the exact figures but they are capable of producing something like 20x the produce per acre of traditional farms.

From memory the Netherlands exports 25% of all Europe's Produce. Amazing for a country with such a small footprint.
wbute Offline
#19 Posted : Thursday, 12 October 2017 5:18:54 PM(UTC)
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That does sound fairly amazing Sandaro. I guess that's a direction Ag could take to increase production. I did work on an orchard in the UK. They grew strawberries in a poly tunnel. Just one deck of plants though.
I bet they grow a bit of other gear in those greenhouses in the Netherlands too....
wbute Offline
#20 Posted : Thursday, 12 October 2017 5:25:11 PM(UTC)
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I can't see batteries being the storage answer. There must be a massive environmental disaster involving the worn out batteries. Not to mention the amount of rare earth minerals that need to be mined to make them.
Perhaps they could pump sea water to run turbines for the excess power generation? It's in bulk supply and free. Pump it the top of Mt Tomah for example and let it flow back to the sea. There must be a way to do it simply.
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