Geothermal

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Details: Written by: Richard_McKie; Parent Category: Economy; Category: Energy; Published: 26 December 2010; Hits: 85894

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Geothermal power is competitive with coal and less expensive than wind when the resource is very near to the surface; for example in the ‘pacific rim of fire’ countries. Many plants already exist around the world in volcanic areas. Unlike wind or solar geothermal power is continuous and ‘base load’. But the easily exploited resource is geographically limited and its contribution to total energy consumed worldwide is negligible compared to that of hydro and wind.

Deep geothermal is more widely distributed and is being explored in several locations in Australia but at the present time substantial technical issues have not been fully resolved and the capital cost of extraction is likely to be very high (leading to a high carbon footprint and very high cost per kWh).

Nevertheless it is hoped that geothermal power could compliment wind or solar as the REC value climbs and/or an ETS comes into effect.

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Travel

Canada and the United States - Part1

In July and August 2023 Wendy and I travelled to the United States again after a six-year gap. Back in 2007 we visited the east coast and west coast and in 2017 we visited 'the middle bits', travelling down from Chicago via Memphis to New Orleans then west across Texas, New Mexico, Nevada and California on our way home.

So, this time we went north from Los Angeles to Seattle, Washington, and then into Canada. From Vancouver we travelled by car, over the Rockies, then flew east to Toronto where we hired a car to travel to Ottawa and Montreal. Our next flight was all the way down to Miami, Florida, then to Fort Lauderdale, where we joined a western Caribbean cruise. At the end of the cruise, we flew all the way back up to Boston.

Seems crazy but that was the most economical option. From Boston we hired another car to drive, down the coast, to New York. After New York we flew to Salt Lake City then on to Los Angeles, before returning to OZ.

As usual, save for a couple of hotels and the cars, Wendy did all the booking.

Breakfast in the Qantas lounge on our way to Seattle
Wendy likes to use two devices at once

Fiction, Recollections & News

Christmas 1935

When I first saw this colourized image of Christmas Shopping in Pitt St in Sydney in December 1935, on Facebook (source: History of Australia Resources).

I was surprised. Conventional history has it that this was in the middle of the Great Depression. Yet the people look well-dressed (perhaps over-dressed - it is mid-summer) and prosperous. Mad dogs and Englishmen?

So, I did a bit of research.

It turns out that they spent a lot more of their income on clothes than we do (see below).

Opinions and Philosophy

A Dismal Science

Thomas Carlyle coined this epithet in 1839 while criticising Malthus, who warned of what subsequently happened, exploding population.

According to Carlyle his economic theories: "are indeed sufficiently mournful. Dreary, stolid, dismal, without hope for this world or the next" and in 1894 he described economics as: 'quite abject and distressing... dismal science... led by the sacred cause of Black Emancipation.' The label has stuck ever since.

This 'dismal' reputation has not been helped by repeated economic recessions and a Great Depression, together with continuously erroneous forecasts and contradictory solutions fuelled by opposing theories.

This article reviews some of those competing paradigms and their effect on the economic progress of Australia.

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