Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. If you would like to receive my (hopefully) regular email news, please sign up using the following link
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John Quiggin 
A healthy dose of reality from Geoff Carmody for those who want an immediate switch to renewables.
https://www.afr.com/news/economy/the-costly-renewables-reality-gap-20190303-h1bxhm
Carmody… Deloitte Access Economics… Deloitte… rubbish numbers wrapped in rubbish words, no poem, a chant from a rigorous style guide offered to the gullible and desperate. Deliberately lousy bounded qualitative and quantitative analysis employed to misdirect and deceive. Worse polemics even than the efforts of a significant muse, beneficiary/benefactor, Gina:
Is our future threatened with massive debts run up by political hacks
Who dig themselves out by unleashing rampant tax
The end result is sending Australian investment, growth and jobs offshore
This type of direction is harmful to our core
Some envious unthinking people have been conned
To think prosperity is created by waving a magic wand
Through such unfortunate ignorance, too much abuse is hurled
Against miners, workers and related industries who strive to build the world…
https ://www.michaelwest.com.au/?s=access+economics
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/?s=Deloitte
https ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deloitte#Australian_tobacco_industry
https ://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/9085842/Gina-Rinehart-pens-universes-worst-poem.html
http ://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2012/02/15/3431797.htm
Election looms. Out with the old, a tired economical egress.
Access Economics Is currently being re-imagined. (Initial offer $5000 for domain)
http ://www.accesseconomics.com.au/
Svante. ( I’m being a bit cheeky in jest – hope you’re ok with it. Apologies if not) “your post is hard to follow, but let’s put it this way.”
+ 1. I wish I wrote: “Deloitte… rubbish numbers wrapped in rubbish words, no poem, a chant from a rigorous style guide offered to the gullible and desperate. Deliberately lousy bounded qualitative and quantitative analysis employed to misdirect and deceive. Worse polemics even than the efforts of a significant muse, beneficiary/benefactor, Gina:”
Excellent heat.
And +1 Michael West
The govt position on dividend imputation, negative gearing and CGT is not consistent with the govt sponsored report into financial services;
“The tax treatment of investor housing, in particular, tends to encourage leveraged and speculative investment. Since the Wallis Inquiry, higher housing debt has been accompanied by lenders having a greater exposure to mortgages. Housing is a potential source of systemic risk for the financial system and the economy.”
“The case for retaining dividend imputation is less clear than in the past. To the extent that dividend imputation distorts the allocation of funding, a lower company tax rate would likely reduce such distortions.
…Unused credits are fully refundable to these investors, with negative consequences for Government revenue.”
http://fsi.gov.au/publications/final-report/appendix-2/
A government PV research centre in the Netherlands, with the Solliance industrial research collaboration, has just announced a bifacial perovskite-on-silicon tandem cell with a efficiency of 30.2%. The bifacial silicon cell part has 26% efficiency (state of the art), so the gain is not dramatic, but the total is striking. They hope to get to 35%. Rival Oxford PV is going for 37%.
*****pv-magazine.com/2019/03/04/netherlands-ecn-achieves-30-2-efficiency-for-bifacial-tandem-cell-based-on-perovskite/
It’s not certain that PV manufacturers will ever find the gain worthwhile, as they would need extra processing steps and – in this design – a second set of connecting wires. Look at it this way. Either tandem cells become commercial, or cells without them keep improving so much that there’s no point.
Mem: since pv conversion efficiencies are low, the relative performance increase is more than it looks: here, 4%/26% = +15.3%. So the manufacturers will go for it if it adds significantly less than 15% to module unit costs. BOS costs are more or less proportional to panel size not output, so you would get a +/- 8% reduction in system cost even at constant $ per watt at the module level.
A lot of people are scandalised by the apologetics for George Pell by his tribal supporters in the Murdoch media (Bolt, Devine etc).
Those people have it wrong. His defenders are welcome to die on the George Pell hill is they are determined to do so. Now that Pell’s been convicted and no longer has a reputation to defend, the stories will come thick and fast, free of the threat of a defamation suit. His defenders will look worse by the day, and their credibility on all matters will suffer accordingly; an excellent outcome if it happens.
This will remain true even if Pell wins his appeal.
So, Andrew and Miranda, if you are reading this: you want to defend George? Knock yourselves out!
James Wimberley,
New work is happening with solar nano-technology and solar “micro-aerials”. I have probably got the second term wrong.
1. Solar nano-technology
“New solar power nanotechnology material converts 90 percent of captured light into heat” – nanowerk
This technology would be useful for hot water systems, space heating and possibly for running Stirling engines.
2. Solar “micro-aerials”
Because I have the wrong term from my faulty memory I cannot find a reference now. Solar “micro-aerial” panels have many micro aerials printed on them to form a continuous circuit. Each micro-aerial is a small “square” spiral. These are claimed to turn 90% of incident EMR into electricity. They are so efficient because they convert visible light and non-visible spectrums (UV and IR) into electrical energy.
3. There are now also solar roof tiles and solar roof panels. The solar power generation happens in the roof tile or panel. No need to place solar panels on top.
These are all hopeful developments though not all commercialized yet. A rapid implementation of all these technologies could solve our energy problems and permit the relatively rapid phase-out of all fossil fuels. I hope we are at zero net emissions in the energy sector by 2035. A high hope but that’s what we need if we are to save the climate and civilization, IMHO.
A little-commented-on development is that One Nation federally is now polling at 5.6% after being solidly at 10% throughout 2017, but steadily down since the beginning of last year. ON’s vote seems to gone to Labor and Others in about equal measure, with little if any going to the Liberals and Nationals, at least not net.
The bloom seems to have gone off the Hanson rose, not that it was all that fresh to begin with.
Powerhouse brains wondering if they have the brains… how and who in Australia would approach this line up?
Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI
Lightning talks by thirteen “Possible Minders” at the Brattle Theatre—a Harvard Bookstore Event
Thursday, February 21, 2019 — A Harvard Bookstore Event
Lightning talks (1 hour, 28 minutes) from thirteen experts: Mary Catherine Bateson, Kate Darling, Peter Galison, Neil Gershenfeld, Alison Gopnik, Caroline Jones,David Kaiser, Seth Lloyd, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Alex Pentland, Steven Pinker, Max Tegmark, Stephen Wolfram
https://www.edge.org/conversation/john_brockman-possible-minds-25-ways-of-looking-at-ai-0
Followed by:
“brings together two of the world’s leading philosophers, David Chalmers and Daniel C. Dennett, to discuss themes from his new book “Possible Minds – 25 Ways of Looking at AI.” The exchange will focus on the question: “Is Superintelligence Impossible?” As scientists pull apart brain-environment and brain-microbiome mechanisms and quantify universal molecular principles, is there still room for purely philosophical deduction? Can we even understand the mind by using the mind?”
https://pioneerworks.org/programs/on-possible-minds-philosophy-and-ai/
I recently watched Scott Morrison talk about the importance of full employment and the Govts big spend on infrastructure.
From the latest ABS it seems that govt spending is the only remaining driver of the economy.
By adopting Keynesian principles and dumping austerity, have the Conservatives come full circle?
That should be 180 degrees 🙂