offbyone

opinions here are all my own, I do not speak for my employer, boosts and likes are not endorsements

pronouns: he/him
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Last Notes

2026-03-28 09:35:23 UTC

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this does not seem to be fully correct.
allow me - Chuck Schumer, in the Senate, on the 24th of March 2026
quote ICE needs to leave the airports now. end quote
citation follows
https://www.democrats.senate.gov/news/press-releases/leader-schumer-floor-remarks-on-donald-trumps-decision-to-send-ice-to-airports-while-tsa-workers-go-without-pay-due-to-republican-obstruction
as a reminder - the Democrats are not the charge of either the House, or the Senate or the White House or the Supreme Court. That would be Republicans.
#uspol

2025-09-25 22:11:30 UTC

Battery installation in Australia (behind the meter, backed by solar) is astonishing since the Federal Government's rebate scheme came in.
Looking at the August numbers, round figures we're at 25,000 installs per month, at an average size now around 19kWhrs and heading up.
So that's what, 475 MWhrs of storage per month or so, nearly 4 times the capacity of the South Australian Hornsdale facility when it was first put in in 2017.
https://cer.gov.au/news-and-media/news/2025/september/solar-battery-installations-rise
#renewableenergy #battery #solar #auspol

2025-03-24 00:37:54 UTC

In case you were wondering, Australia is on track to eliminate cervical cancer as a public health problem by 2035 thanks to the HPV vaccine. And here in Victoria anecdotally (ie I couldn't find a link) we're even further along, with practical elimination in sight as early as 2030.
#vaccine

2025-03-11 10:01:39 UTC

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it also doesn't address the issue of nuclear proliferation. Recall, Ukraine voluntarily surrendered the nuclear weapons stationed on its territory, in return for security guarantees. Right now, given the negotiating stance (and maps) like this in play the smart strategy going forward is to go for nuclear weapon capability asap, because functionally there are otherwise no guarantees that you can be offered that will allow you to keep your borders intact.

2025-01-07 08:42:21 UTC

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hold now placed at local library

2024-11-25 20:28:00 UTC

Going to keep an eye on this one, sounds like fun.
The Game Awards for Games who can't afford The Game Awards is encouraging indie game developers to self nominate. Gonna be a big long list of indie games.
https://bsky.app/profile/tgagwcaga.bsky.social/post/3lbi6epxxyc2u
#indie #indiedev #indiegame

2024-11-05 19:20:15 UTC

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South Australia would like a word.
"...there have also been periods, starting in September last year, where the entire state was powered by rooftop solar alone,” Kuiper says.
On New Year’s Eve 2023, rooftop solar met 101.7% of South Australia’s energy needs for 30 minutes. "
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/sep/08/south-australia-renewable-energy-targets-international-template-solar-power
#renewableenergy #climatechange #climate #solar #australia

2024-11-04 21:10:05 UTC

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Aaargh batteries! Another fast moving target.
A domestic install cost is solidly in the $1000/kWhr range, but factory cell cost is now hitting $100/kWhr this year.
I'll run with $500/kWhr.
Generating capacity first.
For solar to match the annual output of our reference 1GW plant (ignoring time of generation for now) needs around 5 GW of install. (I'm basing that off my own rooftop install's performance over the last 5 years.) That 5GW of cells will yield around the 7000 GWhr of electricity over the course of a year, plus or minus a percentage for weather, location etc etc.
So $5B for generating capacity. On to dispatch.
Look, I'm going to run with the conventional wisdom here. When sizing a battery for overnight dispatch a solid working estimate is for storage that can support 4 hours of peak delivery. In our case that leaves us at 4 GWhrs.
(I'm juicing the numbers in favour of nuclear here. Recall that its availability factor was 80% of peak, so arguably I should go with a like for like of 3.2 GWhrs. Not going to though).
At $500 per kWhr that runs us $2B.
Grand total of $7B. 35% of our nuclear option.
Circling back to the start, the stand up build cost of our nuclear plant was $20B. But achievable real world best case is closer to $9B, which is now within a reasonable distance (not close exactly, that would be doing violence to the language, but they can at least see each other and wave).
To me, there are 2, say, clear tie breakers.
The first is that nuclear isn't being built in Australia, while renewables plus battery is. So we're comparing desktop possibility with realised constructed actual along with actually having the engineer/procure/construct skillset in place right now. That's a huge advantage.
The other is that renewables are built out, over time, but each individual unit has the potential at least to be generating right away.. A nuclear plant doesn't generate until it's done. Once the first solar panel or wind turbine is up and running, though, it's generating. So there is a year 1 benefit from renewables that you don't see with nuclear at all.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/nov/04/no-bigger-rent-seeking-parasite-than-nuclear-industry-matt-kean-tells-former-coalition-colleagues-in-heated-debate
#auspol #nuclear #rentseeking
4/n

2024-11-04 20:24:26 UTC

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Pivoting to cost of renewables
Solid planning estimate is $1/watt installed.
It's actually kinda hard to pin down a good number here, the renewable world is moving fast. Offshore wind is a bit pricier but dropping fast, onshore wind and solar are in that range, and the powers that be are now openly musing on over the horizon possibility of ultra low cost electricity driven by solar installs at $0.3 (30 cents!) a watt installed.
Let's run with $1/watt.
So matching the faceplate capacity of our reference nuclear plant is $1B.
Renewables have intermittency to deal with, and in the case of solar that pesky nighttime daytime thing, so we'll need to spend more to genuinely match.
The go to combination option is more generating capacity plus a battery. Let's run those numbers.
3/n

2024-11-04 20:16:51 UTC

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So $20B for 1 GW. Assuming 80% availability, that gives annual output of 7008 GWhrs. Plugging in 10% return on capex ($2B/yr) gives $285 per MWhr, before operating expenses.
I'm not including discount factors, cost of money and things like that in this analysis. Makes it easier to follow the money so to speak. Hard to say if that's to the advantage or disadvantage to nuclear in this approach - with long construction times and long operating lives, choice of discount factor can have huge (literally exponential) effects on the equivalent present day costs.
Doing it this way though gives a solid idea of how close (or otherwise) nuclear is to the present day cost of alternatives. If you find yourself relying on cost of money to get a project over the line, might not be that great of a project. Certainly needs a closer look in that situation. 2/n
#nuclear #auspol

2024-11-04 19:55:23 UTC

Just noodling some numbers here
Good planning estimate of a 1 GW capacity nuclear reactor in Australia is $20B. (CSIRO would suggest $17ish, Vogtle and Hinkley (forecast) are in that range).
(The 7 proposed by the Liberal party under Peter Dutton are all likely to be in that range - as all will be at a different site, each will effectively be the first-of-a-kind.)
Focussing on one for now though. 1/n
#nuclear #auspol