Play Nice Random Chat Thread V

[Snake_Baker]

Blood Meridian is a mere coffee table book by comparison.

 

[Del191229]

Coal-fired power plants in peril as prices plunge

Most of Australia’s coal-fired plants are running at a loss as energy prices crash, sparking warnings about early closures.

www.smh.com.au

Re a convo we had a while back LuvtheKangas

 

[Del191229]

Blood Meridian is a mere coffee table book by comparison.

You don't even know what the book being discussed is yet you bagged it.

 

[Gasometer]

It really is.

The parts where he describes the teenage Iranian conscripts on the train who have been gassed is just haunting.

The descriptions of Afghanistan during Soviet rule too.

Spoiler alert

 

[Gasometer]

Yeah, I threw Gravity's Rainbow in the bin the moment it arrived.

Give me some titles Tef.

I have reckoned I have watched a number of tv docos on Afghanistan and Iraq but I need to knowledge up further

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

Give me some titles Tef.

I have reckoned I have watched a number of tv docos on Afghanistan and Iraq but I need to knowledge up further

More of a general work, but this work has some interesting insights.


Kilcullen D, 2020, The Dragons and the Snakes How the Rest Learned to Fight the West, Oxford University Press, USA

 

[Del191229]

Give me some titles Tef.

I have reckoned I have watched a number of tv docos on Afghanistan and Iraq but I need to knowledge up further

What kind of stuff you looking for?

This is brilliant on the Soviet-Afghan War

Amazon product ASIN 080213775X
One of the better things I've ever read.

 

[Del191229]

More of a general work, but this work has some interesting insights.


Kilcullen D, 2020, The Dragons and the Snakes How the Rest Learned to Fight the West, Oxford University Press, USA

One of the most important thinkers Australia has produced in the last few decades.

But because he's military our media tends to not understand him.

His columns in The Australian only sensible thing published in that rag for ages.

 

[Del191229]

 

[DesertRoo]

I thought it was a day off for international women’s day..

Where’s our men’s day!

 

[Del191229]

I thought it was a day off for international women’s day..

Where’s our men’s day!

19th of November

 

[Val Keating]

Give me some titles Tef.

I have reckoned I have watched a number of tv docos on Afghanistan and Iraq but I need to knowledge up further

Do you listen to podcasts at all? There’s a few gripping podcasts on the Middle East

 

[Mr_Nyah]

No. I'm trying. I just don't get what you're trying to say in that post.

Racism is disgusting whether it is non-compulsory training that says “how to be less white” or whether it’s non-compulsory training that says “how to be less black”. If you agree, then we see eye to eye on this.

 

[DesertRoo]

19th of November

It’s only lip service, we don’t get a day off..

 

[Del191229]

Racism is disgusting whether it is non-compulsory training that says “how to be less white” or whether it’s non-compulsory training that says “how to be less black”. If you agree, then we see eye to eye on this.

100 per cent agree.

And thanks for taking the time to clarify for me.

 

[Del191229]

It’s only lip service, we don’t get a day off..

Jokes aside, Labour Day, in the city that gave the world the eight hour day, one of the few "real" public holidays there is.

Like Bastille Day in Paris.

 

[see see]

Jokes aside, Labour Day, in the city that gave the world the eight hour day, one of the few "real" public holidays there is.

Like Bastille Day in Paris.

Doesn't get much more real than Grand Final Eve or Melbourne Cup Day.

Marvellous Melbourne, most probably the only city in the world with TWO public holidays to observe sporting events.

 

[Gasometer]

This was around last year



This is the equivalent of Ken Burns masterpiece on Vietnam.

 

[D23D]

This was around last year

This is the equivalent of Ken Burns masterpiece on Vietnam.

Was a fantastic doco. It’s disappeared from Netflix now sadly

 

[7577969923]

Do you listen to podcasts at all? There’s a few gripping podcasts on the Middle East

This one is excellent if you haven't come across it already.

BBC Radio 4 - Intrigue

A scholar turned sleuth hunts stolen relics, exposing a scandal of biblical proportions.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Gasometer]

Was a fantastic doco. It’s disappeared from Netflix now sadly

It looks to be on YouTube as an abbreviated version. I reckon the original was 4 hours long or longer ?

 

[Tas]

Coal-fired power plants in peril as prices plunge

Most of Australia’s coal-fired plants are running at a loss as energy prices crash, sparking warnings about early closures.

www.smh.com.au

Re a convo we had a while back LuvtheKangas

The challenge is to have enough peak power capacity at night. Unless we get a lot more of our renewable energy from hydro, we are going to be relying heavily on storage. We will have a solar battery built near Geelong be next year that is 300 MW/450 MWh, this is equivalent to having enough power to run 500,000 homes for half an hour.

Rather than buy the battery ourselves, we are paying a French energy company to install and run the Tesla megapack battery for $12.5m per year for 10 years. Megapacks normally have a life expectancy of around 15 years with performance degradation after 10 years.

AEMO suggests that we would need between 6-19 gigawatts of dispatchable power to support variable renewable energy, we would need 63 batteries the size of Geelong battery being built to reach the high end of that scale, if we are relying on battery service contracts similar to the Geelong one that would be in ballpark of $800m a year, just for the battery and that could potentially skyrocket if the global demand for solar pushes demand way above potential supply.

I think if we are going to push into renewables, particularly solar, as our long-term solution to be our main source of electricity generation then we can't be reliant on foreign companies for our electricity grid. We are paying a premium for basically every stage of the development process when we have plentiful supply of the natural resources in Australia. I think it is fine outsourcing what we are doing on a small scale now but if it is going to be the cornerstone of our energy grid for centuries to come we need to develop our own industries here from solar panel manufacturing and recycling to battery manufacturing, inverters and all the technology involved with it. We are going to waste billions of dollars if we just get someone else to do it at a premium because we are technologically backwards.

if the plan is to be 100% renewable by 2050 or whenever, we need to start on creation of the industries here for us to do it ourselves.

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

Australia loses another oil refinery, leaving our fuel supply vulnerable to regional crises

The loss of Melbourne's Altona oil refinery, on top of the looming Kwinana closure in Perth, raise fresh concerns about the nation's ability to produce enough fuel if shipping and supply chains are ever severely disrupted, writes Gareth Hutchens.

www.abc.net.au

Nothing like being dependent on foreign resupply.

 

[D23D]

It looks to be on YouTube as an abbreviated version. I reckon the original was 4 hours long or longer ?

There were 10 episodes around 1.5 hours long each!

 

[LuvtheKangas]

Coal-fired power plants in peril as prices plunge

Most of Australia’s coal-fired plants are running at a loss as energy prices crash, sparking warnings about early closures.

www.smh.com.au

Re a convo we had a while back LuvtheKangas

It's a good outcome if sustainable. I'm not a coal power proponent as such (recall I was of the view that nuclear is still viable and I retain that view), but renewables have proved seriously inefficient at this point and the back-up needs to be retained. However, moving the industry to efficient renewable energy is a must. Will just take another decade or two, I suspect.