Letters September 5 2022: We must find the drive for electric vehicle uptake in Australia

Apart from Russia, Australia is the only OECD country to not have fuel efficiency standards, resulting in our country becoming a dumping ground for dirty, inefficient and costly cars.

The benefits of transitioning to EVs are immense; from financial savings, to better health outcomes and environmental benefits.

Yet Australia's uptake of EVs stood at only two per cent in 2021, when the expected global EV uptake rate in 2022 is 13 per cent.

It is long past time that Australia plays catch up with the rest of the world and comes up with strong policies that will give Australians the real choice of good, affordable EVs.

FIRST we have silent for-hire e-bikes that don't need to be pedalled on Lake Macquarie lakeside trails.

Now we will have silent for-hire e-scooters that don't need to be pushed, ("Scooters ready to roll", Herald 31/8).

Both e-bikes and e-scooters are whispering death for unwary pedestrians who share the trails with riders.

Few riders ring their bells to warn pedestrians, whilst coming up behind them, as they are supposed to.

Pedestrians are trying to seriously exercise.

Riders are only having a jaunt.

May I suggest that the e-bikes and e-scooters be banned from use on these Lake Macquarie trails during certain hours, eg 6am-8am, and 4pm-6pm.

This would reduce injuries and allow serious walkers to exercise in safety.

THE overwhelming advantage of a container terminal at the Port of Newcastle ("If the terminal is sunk, what's next for port?", Letters, 1/9), is that it can be 100 per cent rail-based.

Not only that, container trucks in Sydney can be replaced by rail from Newcastle, if a new, dedicated rail freight line is built from Newcastle to Badgerys Creek and Port Kembla.

This line will be funded by railing containers for the entire NSW market compared with trucking them through Port Botany.

A guaranteed minimum return on investment can be legislated by Parliament with pricing regulated by IPART or ACCC.

Swift, low cost and reliable container transportation by rail is a vital component of future economic development in all areas of NSW, including Sydney.

But artificially keeping the Port Botany truck-based monopoly entrenches a cumbersome and high cost transport burden for the whole state.

Australian industry super funds own 80 percent of Port Botany and Port Kembla and 50 per cent of the Port of Newcastle.

They can combine their assets in the national interest.

By owning the new rail freight line, they can increase net returns for their members.

It's time the super funds worked together.

WE have still not received our new phone book which came out about two months ago, but I managed to pick one up from the Post Office and found that my White Pages listing was not there, (no changes from last year were made to cause any problems).

I rang Telstra to complain and just got a heap of excuses, no apology or anything from the overseas call centre person who had very poor English and no understanding of my problem.

She did say she would include it in the online listings.

I had difficulty making her understand the wording for my listing so just have to hope it's okay when next year's book comes out.

I then found out that my son's business listing was not printed, (it has been there for the past eight years with no changes being made).

I rang Sensis, who I was told are responsible for business listings in the White and Yellow Pages.

Again, no explanation or apology, his business name did however appear in the Yellow Pages strangely enough.

I wonder how many other people and businesses have suffered the same fate as us and have to wait 12 months to see if our listings appear.

THERE have been several articles and letters in recent times about green hydrogen and its properties.

Hydrogen has been used for over 100 years in various chemical processes, such as ammonia, methanol, oil refining, etc. There are countless such chemical plants operating safely around the world today.

Hydrogen for such plants is compressed, stored and in some cases transmitted long distances.

It is not a novel technology or needs research to develop this technology.

The research required for green hydrogen is improving the energy efficiency of producing green hydrogen, not its storage and handling.

Hydrogen does cause embrittlement of some steels used in the past.

There are plenty of proven materials in use for long periods of time, which do not suffer from hydrogen embrittlement.

Hydrogen fires while invisible in daylight have never caused a fatality by someone walking into them, as far as I am aware.

The reason that a hydrogen fire has never caused an injury by casual contact is hydrogen is normally pressurised and screams when released to atmospheric pressure, you feel a hydrogen fire from a significant distance due to radiation and hydrogen rarely burns without contacting another material which gives the flame colour.

Hydrogen while a small molecule does not pass through proper materials at a detectable rate, so it can be easily contained.

SMART electricity metres were introduced some 15 years ago, to change the behaviour of electricity consumption patterns, by imposing a significant kWh rate during peak demand periods.

Latest tariffs per kWh from Energy Australia on my usage bill until mid June are off peak 18 cents, shoulder 28 cents, and peak 54 cents (2pm to 8pm weekdays during summer) - I anticipate a significant increase will be next.

These time periods and tariffs were created basically with the traditional generating structure in place, which has now moved on significantly with a massive increase in input from cheap green renewables?

During the day renewables wind up and fossil fuelled sources wind back.

Surely this is when tariffs should be at their lowest, and not at peak rates, to encourage the highest electricity consumption, for both immediate usage and storage.

Overnight rates can be ramped up to help pay for the still essential base load supplies?