Franks Blog: June 2024

Wednesday, June 26, 2024

Pub Choir

I have a good number of friends who are very musical.... Was feeling woefully inadequate so figured I needed to take singing lessons. So Phoebe and I went to pub Choir and learned a song. 🤣

Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Pondering the libs announcement on Nuclear

Last week the Federal libs announced that if elected, they would build nuclear power plants.

https://www.liberal.org.au/latest-news/2024/06/19/australias-energy-future

My thoughts.... Atm. (may be open to changing my mind)

Politically: I suspect the libs will get some back lash against this. Obviously the rusted on libs and nuclear enthusiasts will love it but I suspect that un decided will sway away from it. I suspect it will be easy for the opposition to play the risk card. One obvious response would be to say "If it is safe, why not put one close to Brisbane".

CURRENTLY
https://www.qao.qld.gov.au/reports-resources/reports-parliament/energy-2023

QLD can generate about 8GW of power from coal

Borumba Pumped Hydro project: 2000MW is estimated to be $14.2 billion. First use by 2030.
$14.2Billion/2000MW=$7.1/Watt to build. But what does the electricity generation cost?

Technically: I suspect that battery technology will develop low cost long life batteries that paired with solar panels will be able to give us reliable and economical power.

Personally I think we should stick with coal until then.

PUMPED HYDRO
I think pumped hydro could be a partial near term solution. There is not really any technical development needed. To me the downside of pumped hydro is environmental. One has to flood lots of land.

EFFICIENCY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity
Shows the efficiency of pumped hydro and batteries are both at around 80%

INTEGRATION SOLAR WITH OTHER FORMS
The sun only shines at night. Therefore we need to have a way to generate power at night or store power generated during the day for use at night.
COAL
Coal fired power stations can only operate between full power and half power. I understand that Queensland is at the limit in that there is so much solar that it can supply more power than is needed, given that the coal powered stations can only be wound back to half power.

NUCLEAR
Nuclear power stations do not change output very well. The French power stations can go down to 70%. Not as good as coal and so installing lots of nuclear makes it even harder to switch to solar.

I'm unsure about nuclear. Risk feels high. I doubt it will result in cheaper power.
Politically, I'm usually a person who leans to the right but I suspect the libs will discover a back lash against this.
Until batteries become economical, We could always beat up the companies who are almost giving away our natural gas and force them to sell it domestically at lower prices and put in gas turbines to supply power at night and have a much higher percentage of daytime power provided by solar and not coal.

COST

Nuclear

https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/libs-say-nuclear-power-will-be-cheaper-than-csiro-estimates-20240522-p5jfqx

$8.6Billion / 1000 MW => $8.6/Watt

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosemarybarnes/

I've got nothing against nuclear power but it is a dumb idea for Australia. Here's 4 reasons why.

1️⃣ - Nuclear is too slow to build. Within a decade Australia will have 90% renewable electricity, by the time we managed to get a nuclear reactor operating in Australia the energy transition would have mostly happened. ⏳🌞

2️⃣ - Nuclear doesn’t play nicely with wind and solar. Either nuclear or renewables need a dispatchable energy source like hydro, batteries, or gas peakers to match generation with demand minute by minute. Combining nuclear with variable renewables turns out to not actually reduce the amount of dispatchable power needed by much, if anything. ⚡💨

3️⃣ - Nuclear is too expensive - nuclear cost estimates range from double to more than triple the cost of wind and solar in Australia, and nuclear projects are prone to cost overruns with the average nuclear project eventually costing over double its original estimate. 💸💡

4️⃣ - Nuclear solves problems that Australia doesn't have. Rooftop solar has killed the need for "baseload" in Australia. We don't suffer from a large seasonal mismatch in renewable supply and energy demand because our winters are mild and sunny. Our dunkelflaute (long periods without wind or sun) aren't that bad. 42 years of weather data history show that widespread dunkelflaute across the whole Australian grid last hours, and occasionally a day. Wind and solar potential in our worst ever winter month was still around 70% of the whole year average. 🌏☀️

Check out the full video on YouTube (sources to back up all those claims are included there! I'm happy to share them here too so ask in the comments if you want me to back up any of those claims) 📺 https://lnkd.in/gifs-R5X

https://youtu.be/H_47LWFAG6g

Sunday, June 23, 2024

weekend 22 23 June

SATURDAY

I think my Saturday morning looks like this:

4:30 rise and shine

4:45 Depart Glenrich st

5:15 park West end ( West end markets)

5:30 Arrive shed

6:00 row upstream

7am race start

7:30 race finish

8:00 back at shed.

Shower

Breakfast

9:00 depart West end

10:00 arrive Raby Bay

Parked at the end of Cleveland pt and watched the view.

11 ish I think Graham and Mel

SUNDAY

Friday, June 21, 2024

Rowing

Tomorrow is Winter Racing Series Race #4 WRS#4

Today (Friday) we had a training row. It was a good row. We did three 18 minute pieces. 6 min at 20, 6 min at 22 and 6 min at 24. All at ideally at 80% effort. I felt that the boat sat up well and timing was pretty good. In all I walked away feeling good.

Breakfast well attended. Always sign of a good row.
Mel & Phoebe, Seven, Paul and Kathy all dropped in.

Cancelling a credit card

Easier said than done

THURSDAY
1. Pay it off.
2. Get $50 by converting points to cash. The balance is now $50
3. Transfer the $50 out.
4. Try to cancel but the $50 is pending and the system won't cancel.
Would be nice to be able to queue the cancellation.
Now discover there is a $4 cash advance fee. That's a rip off in anyone's language.
FRIDAY
5. Now the balance is -$4.03 so I am sure uncancellable.
6. Transfer $4.03
7. Try to cancel but the Transfer is pending.

WEDNESDAY 26-06-2024

The balance is 0.03 and it wont let me close it

WEDNESDAY 26-06-2024

Thursday, June 20, 2024

Wedding Aniversery

Today 20 June is the wedding anniversary.

Reflecting on the end- I wonder how much I was hurt by the loss of the institution and how much by the loss of Megan. I had, I thought, a strong attachment to a old fashioned conservative view of life. Being married fitted with that. That all came crashing down. I think I strongly considered that vows were contracts not to be broken.

I spent a lot of time in the latter half of the marriage, wondering what is wrong with me.
It does reinforce in my own mind that we can not see ourselves. I can not see me if that makes sense. I must have been really really rotten / nasty / fucktard / deadbeat /looser ... to hurt Megan to such a degree that she could not stand me.

For me the separation was really painful. There was an initial sense of relief because it was an extremely cold and lonely existence. Then the sense of loss and rejection flowed in. It was like waves on a beach. First they washed over refreshing then they came over like a tidal wave. Drowning.

Time is a healer though and although the painful memories surface at times like this when the date comes round, now days I feel much better. Having a wonderful loving girlfriend has made a huge difference.

Megan is tripping around Europe. I hope she is feeling free.

Sunday, June 16, 2024

Moogerah Camping

Mags — I had bought from big W a dog jacket and a size 12 kids jumper. In the end I think the kids jumper was better. They were both about $12, the jumper kept her tummy warm.

SUNDAY

I got up first about 6:30am.

Leaves and twiggs and gradually larger and larger sticks on the fire. It slowly began to smoke and eventually burst into flames.

Filled the cast

1:30 at the top

2:05 depart top

3:20 back at the dam

Friends Robyn, Chris and myself drove round to Moogerah day area. Phoebe very kindly stayed back at camp and looked after Magnus.

It's an exhausting walk.

Sat at the top and enjoyed the view.

CUSTARD

16 4 2 tablespoon cust powder

8 2 1 tbsp sugar

16 4 2 cups milk 500mL

5 2/3. 1+1/3. 2/3 cup powder

16 4 2 cup water

Thank you Chris PFP

Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Gas Prices

Origin sent me an email advising my gas price will be increasing

WHO	c/day	c/MJ	Notes.
Origin Now	136.202	4.235	.
Origin New	139.095	4.488	.
AGL	123.18	3.884	.
RED	115.775	3.685	All the plans show the same costs - Why? Qantas points.
Covau Basic	130.515	6.160	.
Covau Freedom	124.3	3.773
Alinta Home Saver	101.178	4.246	+$50 credit. No exit fee
Alinta Home Saver	87.5	4.246	Amortize the +$50 credit
LPE -	.	.	I think only for strata title apartment blocks
GloBird No Contract	77	3.87	Connect $22 disconnect $22 Equiv to a month or 12c /day
.	90	3.87	amortize the $22 + $22 over 1 year
.	.	.	Not sure if they actually supply Corinda
.	.	.	.