WHERE is the logic believing six hours of power can power everything for 24 hours?
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I find it bewildering that intelligent people, who believe only renewable energy is the answer to our energy needs, can't realise solar and wind powered energy on average work six hours a day and common sense says these six hours will never power everything for 24 hours.
There is talk of a national renewable energy grid, costing billions of dollars, where places in sunlight can transfer power to places in darkness, but what do these places do after giving their sunlight to others?
Even if possible, the time difference between Australia's east coast and west coast is only two hours. The maximum amount of power transfer would be two hours, which still leaves 16 hours without power.
I agree eventually these six hours may power the domestic market with personal battery storage, but the commercial and industrial market that provides the jobs that require high energy base load power; only a real power station that works 24 hours is capable and able of doing the job.
Carl Stevenson, Dora Creek
Crucial evidence left out
TONY Brown, ("Beastly behaviour still unwelcome", Letters, 21/9) after the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics director Don Weatherburn himself brought the supposed success of the lockout laws into question in 2016 over the former premier's use of "misleading" statistics , forgive me for doubting the "trusted life-saving Newcastle conditions" you continually praise.
Sure, said conditions look somewhat impressive in theory, but in reality there was already a decline in night-time assaults occurring before the introduction of the lockouts, and by March 2015, attendance to pubs and clubs was also down by up to 84 per cent in many parts of NSW.
Following this, assaults increased in the outer suburbs, indicating that the problems simply shifted elsewhere.
Domestic violence also increased, and statistics suggest that this was not a coincidence.
In Melbourne, the lockouts were scrapped after just three months following an investigation by independent auditors who determined that the laws made the problems there worse.
There have also been no reports of violent assaults since Sydney scrapped the laws, but I believe that your "evidence-based research" you often speak of quite intentionally continues to omit this evidence.
Adz Carter, Newcastle
ScoMo's 'empty-headed plan'
ATTEMPTING to rebut my letter, David Stuart talks about the "creditable job" Scott Morrison is doing "during these difficult times" (Short Takes, 22/9).
I can only assume he means what Mr Morrison has done in relation to COVID-19 (any credit for which is also very much due to the states). But my letter wasn't about that. It was about Morrison's long-winded announcement of an empty headed "gas plan".
I know poor old "Scotty from Marketing" has very little else to hang his baseball cap on other than COVID, but that doesn't mean we have to mention it every time we put pen to paper.
It doesn't say much for someone when they accuse you of not saying much without bothering much with what you're actually saying.
Michael Hinchey, New Lambton
Politicians, or FBI suspects?
IT'S amazing what you can learn from watching a current affairs program.
On Tuesday night they had a body language expert who has worked with the FBI. He watched all the state premiers being interviewed by the media and came up with the stunning conclusion that most of time they weren't telling the truth, they either avoided certain questions or passed it on as someone else's responsibility.
Wow, without these startling revelations the people of this country may have never known what our leaders are capable of. But maybe they should have told him that the people he would be studying were actually politicians, not FBI suspects.
Barry Reed, Islington
Why some vote for Trump
JOHN Ure (Letters, 23/9), Bill Clinton and JFK, both Democrats, were notorious womanisers, and Clinton's lying almost led to his impeachment.
Many political leaders have overseen unprecedented COVID-19 deaths and made mistakes handling the pandemic, Daniel Andrews for instance.
For this Christian, preferring Trump over Biden is a "no-brainer" because Trump and the Republicans have pro-life policies and strongly support religious freedom, in contrast to the pro-choice Democrats.
When you add that to Trump's foreign policy achievements, especially brokering an historic agreement between two Arab states and Israel, and his poll supported credentials as the better economic manager, it is no surprise that many Christians, in the absence of Mother Teresa as a candidate, will hold their noses and vote for him.
Peter Dolan, Lambton
Some points to ponder
PETER Brewer's article titled 'How does carbon abatement work?' contained a paragraph I wish to discuss.
He stated that "retro-fitting and refurbishment is costly and often as not doesn't work".
In reality retro-fitting is more successful with some failures. At Wangi Power Station the A station was fitted with an early type mechanical dust collector.
These were replaced with a completely new installation of Ducon fabric filters which were highly successful.
Less success was achieved with the B station electrostatic precipitators which were only 85 per cent efficient, which meant of the several hundred tonnes of fly ash generated each day only 85 per cent was caught.
New fabric filters were installed in the old concrete casings which over time cracked from the high exhaust gas temperatures and allowed considerable fly ash leakage.
While better than the original plant they were not very successful.
As designed, Liddell Power Station was expected to emit 18 g/nominal cubic metre of fly ash when in service.
But this was never achieved in service as the coal used had a higher than anticipated ash content and a high resistivity to collection.
Fly-ash emissions were in the order of 30 g/n cubic metre.
The station was retro-fitted with fabric filters in the early 1990s and reduced emissions to around 0.08 g/n cubic metre.