Fuel on the rise again.

Just wondering what you guys & girls think of the fuel cost these days?

How much has it affected your daily activities ?
Do you drive less or think before making unnecessary trips.
Take alternative transport bike or walk to the shops rather than take the car. Switch to public transport to get you to & from work.

How long will it take before it hits the $2 mark? at the moment Milk is only around ".85 litre looking at the current trend I guess it won’t take long at all.

Will the government ever step in & investigate the spiralling unregulated fuel charges from the bowsers? most servos bought there fuel supply last month but how they justify the sudden hike on price over night when the barrel of fuel goes up over night because some one in the oil industry crap there pants It's BS I tell you BS.

While watching the news this evening a interesting story about fuel cost hitting hard in the pockets of most American general public but some individuals up in the hill billy moonshine state are doing very well in sales. They sold & had more interest ever than before as people started buying distilled kits to make moonshine for alternative fuel. Because currently it's cheaper to buy stock feed & convert it to fuel than buying fuel from the gas stations.
Good part is you can save $ on fuel & get pissed on it at the same time hehehehe hick hick guess that's a double positive. Even the presenter said he will drink to that lol.

Here's the link below that might interest some people.
http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/index.html

fuel gets me to uni, fuel gets me to work

currently paying ".50/L for ultimate here.

it's ****ed, but really, what can i do about it

...besides LPG conversions, or so-called miracle fuels.

i have no problem with fuel

Telstra pays for mine

:P

there is nothing we can do about the rising fuel costs nor can do the government much as well.

India and China have a growing middle class now wishing to drive everywhere in the new cars they purchased.

They are now in the line of consuming oil/fuel and therefore the price of it goes up in the world.

[QUOTE=StarScream]Will the government ever step in & investigate the spiralling unregulated fuel charges from the bowsers? most servos bought there fuel supply last month but how they justify the sudden hike on price over night when the barrel of fuel goes up over night because some one in the oil industry crap there pants It's BS I tell you BS.[/url][/QUOTE]

1. Investigating fuel prices has been done, I recall, about a dozen times. The results keep coming back the same: it's all explainable. There's no conspiracy at work, just supply and demand.

2. Fuel station owners have to pay for the next shipment. When oil prices go up, so does the price of their next tankerfull. If you understood cashflow, you'd understand that putting up bowser prices immediately is the only sensible option for a station-owner. The alternative is bankruptcy.

and yet we're still paying more then down south

Quote from Bucky:
and yet we're still paying more then down south

Cause u live in the middle of nowhere.

Im paying ".15-".30 . depending on day.

$75 per tank of fuel at the moment. thank fark i only live 10 mins from work these days.

i like the excuse that we live in the middle of nowhere, yet in the middle of the dessert queensland pays like half of what we do, does it cost twice as much to get fuel to Darwin as it does to say camoweel

125 to 139.9 in melb
ive still gotta go places so i need to use it

When I get my P's I wont be able to afford a full tank of fuel on my budget lol

Yeah my car has a small fuel tank and took $45...then the prices went up and now its closer to $60

now more then ever someone has to start using their brain to create

a. a solar car
b. a car that uses something like water for fuel

ohh and for all you darwin people..

KATHERINE has cheaper petrol then you hahaah

Quote from Unseen:
ohh and for all you darwin people..

KATHERINE has cheaper petrol then you hahaah

NoOoOoOoO (is that acutally true?)

and besides I hear kathrine only has redrooster down there!!!!!

Do they make enough money with tax?

http://motoring.racv.com.au/racvm/petrol/petrolGuide.cfm?id=5B8BA09E-3888-497F-B43078A34A191CEE#table7

Quote from Unseen:
ohh and for all you darwin people..

KATHERINE has cheaper petrol then you hahaah

cause the distance to katherine is less

Quote from El Presidente:
1. Investigating fuel prices has been done, I recall, about a dozen times. The results keep coming back the same: it's all explainable. There's no conspiracy at work, just supply and demand.

2. Fuel station owners have to pay for the next shipment. When oil prices go up, so does the price of their next tankerfull. If you understood cashflow, you'd understand that putting up bowser prices immediately is the only sensible option for a station-owner. The alternative is bankruptcy.

If the alternative is bankruptcy then how come some petrol stations can sell at 10 to 15 cents less than everyone ells & still pull in a tidy profit? I think some are exploiting the situation & I know this because I know friends that run & own petrol stations.

Swamp Rat we get our fuel from Singapore it comes to Darwin 1st before being transported to Katherine. If Katherine can do it cheaper wtf is going?

Chris I hope Telstra cut expenses & remove your fuel card... grrrr

... seriously?
oh well
maybe katherine has less fuel stations per person ie only 1 in the town or something, so they get more business and can afford to lower prices?

Quote from swamp rat:
... seriously?
oh well
maybe katherine has less fuel stations per person ie only 1 in the town or something, so they get more business and can afford to lower prices?

katherine has bp, shell, ampol, and woolworths petrol stations
prices fluctuate, fuel isnt always cheaper down there sometimes its more expensive just depends...

Quote from swamp rat:
... seriously?
oh well
maybe katherine has less fuel stations per person ie only 1 in the town or something, so they get more business and can afford to lower prices?

Heh, if this were true there'd be a monopoly in Katherine and I can assure you fuel prices would be higher then the norm at any given time.

Quote from StarScream:
If the alternative is bankruptcy then how come some petrol stations can sell at 10 to 15 cents less than everyone ells & still pull in a tidy profit?

1. Where are these miraculous 10-15c discount stations? The best spread I've ever seen was 6c between Woolies and a Mobil.

2. Woolies, for one, aren't actually that interested in profiting on petrol. They want you to shop at their stores.

Petrol stations do not make a large profit on fuel, hence the myriad of other items now available on their shelves.
They use the profit on sundry items to make a living because they are not making their living selling petrol.

Quote from JugV2:
Petrol stations do not make a large profit on fuel, hence the myriad of other items now available on their shelves.
They use the profit on sundry items to make a living because they are not making their living selling petrol.

that's how i knew it, having used to work at a BP station

and those RACV figures are fairly different to what i thought, was under the impression that government taxes were MUCH more, maybe not.

It is about 40-45% tax still.

Environment tax.
GST.
Limo tax.
Wholesale tax.
etc.

On the sydney morning herald web site it states that the Saudi king said

"In order to improve the living standards of citizens and for the public good, we have ordered that the price of one litre of petrol for the consumer be changed to 0.60 riyals (A22.5 cents) instead of 0.90 riyals (A31.78 cents)"

the prices are not fair but we keep on paying so the keep on taking

Quote from Bad Crispy:
On the sydney morning herald web site it states that the Saudi king said

"In order to improve the living standards of citizens and for the public good, we have ordered that the price of one litre of petrol for the consumer be changed to 0.60 riyals (A22.5 cents) instead of 0.90 riyals (A31.78 cents)"

the prices are not fair but we keep on paying so the keep on taking

explain that a little bit more, we're paying the prices we are, so they keep on taking? taking what exactly

they pay so little for fuel in saudi arabia because they barely tax the stuff, that and i'm sure a fair bit comes from their back yards..

brb ma, gonna chop me up some petrol!

".39/L in Hobart this morning :|

Quote:
Darwin is the most expensive capital city to fill up, with motorists there forking out more than ".41 a litre, just ahead of Hobart at ".38 a litre.

taken from news.com.au

hahahaayha

Quote from El Presidente:
1. Investigating fuel prices has been done, I recall, about a dozen times. The results keep coming back the same: it's all explainable. There's no conspiracy at work, just supply and demand.

I could be wrong, but as far as i'm aware, an investigation would need to look at companies' books. They do not willingly disclose all their books. Hence unless an investigation has had access to a companied books/ledgers etc then it is merely window dressing, and i would call it a report.

Quote from Unseen:
ohh and for all you darwin people..

KATHERINE has cheaper petrol then you hahaah

yeah but that's beacuse you have to syphon it off the floodwaters yourself

Quote from Knight Of Nih:
now more then ever someone has to start using their brain to create

a. a solar car
b. a car that uses something like water for fuel
http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/features/fex51230.htm
its a conspiracy I tell ya.

I need it and they sell it.
I will pay waht they demand. Either that or Syphon it from Seqo's car :O

I'm paying ".61 atm :( stupid ultimate

Quote from Frenzy:
I could be wrong, but as far as i'm aware, an investigation would need to look at companies' books. They do not willingly disclose all their books. Hence unless an investigation has had access to a companied books/ledgers etc then it is merely window dressing, and i would call it a report.

However, as the ACCC and ASIC keep pointing out, they have the power to seize records if there is evidence of something naughty going on. It would take one whistleblower to bring those two into the fold. One "interesting" email. One interesting leak to the press. Yet no such thing has ever occurred.

The oil companies are not stupid. They know that politicians would love to have an excuse to set the attack dogs on them. So they play by the rules. Why wouldn't they? Prices are up. They can make money standing on their heads.

Quote from Minorci:
I'm paying ".61 atm :( stupid ultimate

I put regular in for the first time in months. :eek: Figured price of ultimate was just way too high for my budget at this time of year. Regretting it now though 100kms into the tank. :mad:

Blame the Cartel... them with nothing you would call competition, they can make the price what ever they bloody want to make it. In my opinion that is really what it amounts too, they control the market and if they can make more off something that is a necessity... well why the hell not.

Quote from IvoMan:
Blame the Cartel... them with nothing you would call competition, they can make the price what ever they bloody want to make it.

Is that so? Why isn't the price already "0/L?

Quote from El Presidente:
Is that so? Why isn't the price already "0/L?
goverment....

and besides if america bomb iran then meh it might be that much

Which cartel are you talking about in particular here...

I think you'll find that no they can't set the price as whatever they want as it creates incentives for other firms to undercut them and steal business. With a homogenous product like petrol (i.e. petrol from Shell is basically the same as from BP etc.) you can't possibly hope to keep any market share with a competitor pricing lower than you.

Refineries around the world have been at max production, or over max production for a while now. The supply of oil is fixed in the short term, new deposits take time and increasingly more money to find and extract (diminishing returns). Demand is increasing much faster than demand. I'm sure I don't have to explain what happens next...

There is no conspiracy, there is no big, bad cartel who spends all day thinking about how to screw you out of a few extra dollars at the bowser. It's simply supply and demand.

car manufacturers are already looking into picking up the slack with their hybrid-cars and whatnot.
in a way, high petrolium pricing is good, because it forces other manufacturers reliant on petrolium products to delve into alternative power.

not that I'm thinking about that one iota when I'm forking out ".50/L at the bowser. :p

he might be talking about OPEC as the big nasty cartel?

Quote from swamp rat:
he might be talking about OPEC as the big nasty cartel?

1. OPEC actually try not to raise prices - they have a target price band.
2. OPEC doesn't have final say on prices, though they do set supply targets.

How much is OPEC paying El Presidente? but yet again I think he's only wishing. :)

Just for interest.

News services are running stories speculating that should the United States try to exert pressure militarily over Iran on the nuclear issue that they will pull the oil card and lobby OPEC to do the same.

NPR commentators actually said that if Iran attempts to lobby OPEC nations and they reject these advances that Iran would consider this to be siding with the United States and an act of war by those countries against Iran.

Makes for interesting times.

Yep interesting times for sure...

Just US waving there big stick again... just like in school there's all ways one bully waving a stick at everyone stating I have the big stick but no one ells is aloud to have one but me & if you do I'll wack you.
Everyone wants to rule the world, scary part Bush...

Quote from StarScream:
How much is OPEC paying El Presidente? but yet again I think he's only wishing. :)

You tell me. OPEC is mostly interested in raising prices on exports, but not so much it lowers total revenue (by causing a shift to alternatives).

But they can only do this by raising or lowering the supply of oil. But when demand rises faster than OPEC can introduce new oil, then prices will rise no matter what.

And this is exactly what has been happening since August 2004: demand growing faster than supply. What OPEC wants and what OPEC is actually able to do have diverged.

Quote from StarScream:
Everyone wants to rule the world, scary part Bush...

I don't like Bush either, but if I have to choose between Bush having nukes and Iranian nutcases having nukes, I choose Bush.

Quote from El Presidente:
I don't like Bush either, but if I have to choose between Bush having nukes and Iranian nutcases having nukes, I choose Bush.

Two nutcases in a shell which one will crack 1st ?

Quote from swamp rat:
he might be talking about OPEC as the big nasty cartel?

OPEC supplies around 25% of the world's oil from memory. What about the other 75%?

edit: my memory sucks, its 40% of production and 50% of exports.. but my point still stands. With a homogenous product in such high demand with consumers who take very close notice of pricing differences, there isn't much chance of any firms being able to pull off artificially high prices as it creates too large of an incentive for other firms to undercut it and steal business.

Quote from StarScream:
Two nutcases in a shell which one will crack 1st ?

Both countries are led by religious loons, but only one of them can be impeached, and the other rules for life.

So I'm sticking with Bush on the nukes thing. I'd really rather Iran didn't have 'em.

Quote from El Presidente:
Both countries are led by religious loons, but only one of them can be impeached, and the other rules for life.

So I'm sticking with Bush on the nukes thing. I'd really rather Iran didn't have 'em.

I rather trust Iran cos they haven't made a bomb yet America has made many nukes & used one already. As long Iran use uranium for energy purposes I have no problems. If you in rich uranium it can help make the power station run more efficient, French been doing it for ages on the cost of the South Pacific islands.

Quote from StarScream:
I rather trust Iran cos they haven't made a bomb yet America has made many nukes & used one already. As long Iran use uranium for energy purposes I have no problems. If you in rich uranium it can help make the power station run more efficient, French been doing it for ages on the cost of the South Pacific islands.

You don't know much about this topic, do you?

I hate to put it so rudely, but it's a fair question.

Quote from StarScream:
America has made many nukes & used one already. As long Iran use uranium for energy purposes I have no problems.

Actually 2. if you dont include all the tests.

2 points for Unseen zero for el x-presidente

Quote from Unseen:
Actually 2. if you dont include all the tests.
if u count them u got about 100

Quote from Minorci:
I'm paying ".61 atm :( stupid ultimate

yeh I know Minorci I had to buy fuel today at BP Berrimah ".62 :(
lucky I don't drive a V8

Quote from StarScream:
I rather trust Iran cos they haven't made a bomb yet America has made many nukes & used one already. As long Iran use uranium for energy purposes I have no problems.

That argument makes no sense. Just because they haven't had the opportunity to create and use atomic weapons doesn't mean that they won't.

America has created atomic weapons and only used them in warfare to end WW2. If you knew anything about history you'd know why they were used to end the war.

Iran hasn't had the opportunity to create atomic weapons, but if they did do you honestly think they wouldn't threaten world safety? This coming from the nation whose president called for Israel to be "wiped off the map"...

Your argument is flawed, if we followed your logic we could argue that mentally ill people should be allowed to own guns because they have never shot anyone before...

If the world allows Iran to enrich uranium for power generation it is only a step away from enriching weapons grade uranium. I have no problems with stable, democratic countries persuing nuclear power, but if you think Iran is a going to be well behaved with nukes you're dreaming.

Quote:
If you in rich uranium it can help make the power station run more efficient, French been doing it for ages on the cost of the South Pacific islands.

Erm uranium used to generate power needs to be around 2-3% of the specific isotope (U-235). Weapons grade uranium needs 90%+ U-235. What you said there makes no sense. The French were testing nuclear weapons, it had nothing to do with power generation.

Quote from Minorci:
I'm paying ".61 atm :( stupid ultimate

Yeah I wish my bike ran on Uranium :) it would probably be Cheaper hahaha :)

Despite the fact that we are literally "burning" this precious resource which is going up in smoke daily ! How many Plastics are made from non-oil based products and how much can we live without plastic in the modern world ?????

2 words when it comes to civil or military Nukes for any country that happens to share this little rock with us circling our Sun !

"Chernobyl disaster"

Which we had the dubious honour of celebrating the 20 year anniversary of such an auspicious event only a couple of weeks ago :(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

It is pertinant to rember that the USA had to drop 2 Atom bombs on Japan before it "seriously" considered surrender (one was not enough). Estimates have been made that 1 Million US casualties where prevented by these two events and probably the near total elimination of all Japanese on the home islands !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

Quote from Kronk:

Which we had the dubious honour of celebrating the 20 year anniversary of such an auspicious event only a couple of weeks ago :(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

More people die from lung disease caused by coal burning than have died from the Chernobyl disaster, no matter how the deaths are counted. More than 6000 miners lose their lives in coal mining each year, compared to no lost lives in the uranium mining industry. Per kilowatt of energy produced, coal releases more uranium and thorium into the environment - in a completely uncontrolled way - than nuclear does, and none of that wasted material can be reclaimed or reprocessed.

Indeed, per kilogram, there is more energy in the latent (parts-per-billion) uranium locked up in coal than can obtained from burning it.

I realise coal isn't the only fossil fuel, but it's the only one we have where supply outstrips demand so much that it's the cheapest baseload form of electricity available. I fully expect that when oil and natural gas become to valuable for plastics production, GM crops and algae plus transformed coal will step in.

Besides, by the time it's a problem, we'll probably have carbon nanomanufactories - no more plastic required.

Ha Ha Ha El Presidente :)

Quoting stats so early in the game ! Shame on you ;)

We've been burning coal a "lot" longer than we've been burning Uranium in reactors or enriching it so we can drop it on someone who's "really" pissed us off !

Re carbon nanomanufactories, heck I'm so there. Sign me up ! My concern of course being we'll need "energy" (currently non-renewable) and resorces (aka plastic) to get there and I ain't seen no one stepping up to the plate so far with anything off the paper for the "GM crops and algae plus transformed coal" side of the house.

Per capita Coal Miners verses Uranium miners stats ? There might just be a "few" more Coal Miners than Uranium Miners me thinks. Get out of town or at least from Underground ! The 3 Uranium mines in this country are open cut ! Not a safety record that can be bragged about due to the mineral they pull out of the ground but more so due to the method they do it in.

It is a well known fact that in Australia, Underground mining is the most dangerous job there is in this country (based on injuries and fatalities). Coal contributes to a large majority of these underground operations. Deaths per capita in Underground have been higher than any other sector easily for the last 100 years and tragically continue to do so. One simply has to look at current events to see evidence of the inherit dangers in Underground Operations. In contrast Open Cut Mining is a far safer and economical operation. Of course in this country Uranium is Open Cut and this is indeed the case in the vast majority of major Uranium producing nations. Open Cut has seen statistically far less deaths per capita per annum than Underground. A trend reflected world wide.

Not that I'm any fan of coal consumption or any non-renewable power generation for that matter !

However supply does not in fact outstrip demand for "clean" coal deposits. No it doesn't mean it's washed (although in some instances it does get washed !), just it burns with extremely low toxicity ;). This combined with modern coal generating plants and techniques. Such as those in Australia which have their exhaust gases extensively filtered to remove toxic output into the atmosphere and they are stringently monitored by external agencies to ensure compliance to these strict settings. Industry and resource usage improvements very similar to the gains in Motor Vehicle emissions control, compare a FJ holden to a modern vehicles pollution output. Usage of "clean" coal has substantially reduced the affect of lung and other diseases and related health issues. It has been utilised in most modern Western Countries for many years now where it is considered "responsible" to consume such deposits for "cleaner" power generation to address the very point you have made for those reasons. Australia is of course one of the leading suppliers of "clean" coal world wide. Unfortunately discovery of new "clean" or "low emission" coal deposits are becoming extremely rare and I believe current Industry estimates are not more than 50 - 100 years of deposit remains in this country at current local consumption and projected export rates.

The other consideration here of course is the fact that the majority of US households use oil not coal for household heating during the winter months. Why ? Once again because it is cleaner.

If you do get the time I recommend having a read of the linked wiki for Chernobyl. Specifically the information regards the further and recent research presented by the TORCH report out of Germany and alternative studies outside the Soviet and Russian systems. Even details recently provided by further IAEA commission reports show this event in the true light of the massive human tragedy that prevails and despite "20 forgotten years" it is only now starting to ramp up to it's full deadly potential.

“The most recently published figures indicate that in Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine alone the accident could have resulted in an estimated 200,000 additional deaths in the period between 1990 and 2004.”

It is a sobering projection even if worst case.

We can always take proactive steps towards stopping the burning of coal. Reactor 4 at Chernobyl is going to burn for a few hundred years yet. No matter what we do we have absolutely no choice now. We've already tried "flicking the switch" there ! :(

I myself am no big fan of having Iodine I35 or Caseium 137 dumped into my front or back yard from either ICBM or more passively "civil" applications gone horribly wrong. Even if their half lives are only 8 to 14 days. Now as for Uranium dioxide in rouge reactors, Nuclear Waste Dumps or those big nasty ICBM's, well that's another story again :(

Glasnost was effectively commenced immediately after the Chernobyl accident and despite the "coincidence" factor there is substantial evidence to suggest a post Chernobyl realisation that nuclear proliferation was in no way a "viable future" for this planet by the Russians. The then Premier Mikhail Gorbachev is on record re this matter stating his "complete re-evaluation of the use of nuclear technology for Defence and development" of the then USSR and later Russian states. This was a complete turn around from 50 years of strongly entrenched antagonistic Soviet Policy and the Western powers themselves acknowledged that this was no small feat to achieve. It clearly shows the realisation that the potential dangers where severely under estimated by a country that paid such a terrible price to learn that fact. Let's not make the same mistakes. Ask any East Slav their thoughts on nukes. I doubt you'll find any supporters there !

The Inner 30 kilometer Exclusion Zone at Chernobyl now has no "set date" for re-opened public access but you can bet it ain't gonna be in your or my life times. And of far greater concern is the fact that it may be many if not 100 generations or more before such a date is set !

Anyone spell "half life" or "fall out" ?

ok. chernobyl = deficient reactor design run by incompetent operators. It didnt even have an outer containment shell for fricks sake.
name another nuclear accident
....
3 mile island..... where dispite the operators doing everything wrong, going against their training, no radioactivity got past the outercontainment shell. all of the fail safes worked. and you can be damn sure that nuclear reactor design has come a long way since then.

"Official UN figures predicted up to 9,000 Chernobyl-related cancer deaths.

But Greenpeace says in a report released on Tuesday that recent studies estimate that the actual number of such deaths will be 93,000."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4917526.stm

over the total time, in all reality, thats not a huge amount... even if you take the greenpeace figure which is always high ball

split the difference, 50,000

"estimate of global road deaths is between750,000 and 880,000 for the year 1999"

50,000 isnt that bad in comparison

Pebble reactors are extremely safe.

We have less than 30 years of oil left at the current exponential rate that India and China are industrialising at. Then civilization has some damn hard choices to make.

As Kronk said nearly everything you use or touch around you needed oil to create.

We don't have a choice. We have to go nuclear, its pronounced NEW-CLEAR :)

australia has about 10 years of oil stored, johnny just wont give the word

shifty...wtf?
are you talking about emergency national reserves? cause that is like 3 weeks. 3 months if military only.
and we have a huge amount of oil left. as the easy saudi oil runs out, we have to go for the harder to get oil. sure that costs more but in terms of cost, saudi oil is " a barrel. at the current high prices, a huge amount of previously un-economical deposits become econmical, and new technology makes it. we havent even touched shale oil, which has more reserves than the middle east has and has pumped

its just what i heard, my mate said (very smart guy) that australia as like 10 years of oil stored, but the prime minister wont use it to get the fuel prices down

ok, australia consumed 879 million barrels per day in 2002
thats 3208350 million barrels that need to be stored. 1 barrel = 159 liters
therefore 510127650 million liters would be required.
Sydney harbour has 0.5 million meggaliters. 1 megaliter = 1 million liters. therefore 510127650 million liters = 510127650 megaliters. or 510 million meggaliters. or 1000x the volume of sydeny harbour IF there is no change in oil consuption since 2002.
so no
we do not have 10 years of oil stored.
maybe in oil reserves?
but we dont have the refining capacity to supply the country

About Chernobyl - this has been posted before i believe but here is a really good writeup on it - This lady rode through a year or two back, taking many photo's. She had a geiger counter with her, the readings were incredible. - Mind you she stayed on the asphalt which held little radiation.

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html

Quote from Minorci:
About Chernobyl - this has been posted before i believe but here is a really good writeup on it - This lady rode through a year or two back, taking many photo's. She had a geiger counter with her, the readings were incredible. - Mind you she stayed on the asphalt which held little radiation.

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html

It turned out to be a hoax Minorci :(

Cool read though. If only it where true !

You got the link to where it was a hoax?

Wikipedia and Google is your friend ;)

http://www.uer.ca/forum_showthread.asp?fid=1&threadid=8951

love how the majority of the responses are 'oh, she has a husband :('

Ahh well i've been had :(

Dude you've been had.:p

Quote from Kronk:
Ha Ha Ha El Presidente :)

Quoting stats so early in the game ! Shame on you ;)

At least I quote from memory.

Quote:
Per capita Coal Miners verses Uranium miners stats ? There might just be a "few" more Coal Miners than Uranium Miners me thinks.

It doesn't matter, the ratio is still tens of thousand to zero. No matter how you slice it, nuclear kills far less people than coal.

Quote:
It is a well known fact that in Australia, Underground mining is the most dangerous job there is in this country (based on injuries and fatalities).

Australia is probably the safest coal industry on earth, which is a combination of factors. Less than 200 miners have died in Australia's coal mines.

Quote:
Deaths per capita in Underground have been higher than any other sector easily for the last 100 years and tragically continue to do so.

I suspect it would be possible to show that more of Australia's coal miners have died in car crashes than down the pits.

Quote:
Of course in this country Uranium is Open Cut and this is indeed the case in the vast majority of major Uranium producing nations.

You'll find that Olympic Dam - the world's largest single deposit of Uranium - is mined underground. Beverley is a leached field, neither underground nor open cut. Only Ranger is open cut. Jabiluka was underground.

So let's see - 3 out of 4 of Australia's uranium mines are not open cut. Hmmm.

Quote:
I believe current Industry estimates are not more than 50 - 100 years of deposit remains in this country at current local consumption and projected export rates.

Plenty of time for nanotech. Next question.

Quote:
The other consideration here of course is the fact that the majority of US households use oil not coal for household heating during the winter months. Why ? Once again because it is cleaner.

No, it is cheaper in small lots and much easier to handle. Coal is efficient but requires storage space and bigger burners to be used most efficiently. Oil is a liquid.

Quote:
If you do get the time I recommend having a read of the linked wiki for Chernobyl.
“The most recently published figures indicate that in Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine alone the accident could have resulted in an estimated 200,000 additional deaths in the period between 1990 and 2004.”

Granted this is the worst case - and the figures I saw bandied about talk of around 3000 cases which can be undeniably linked to the accident - it's still the case that coal kills thousands per year from mining deaths, lung disease and the odd industrial accident.

The other worst energy disasters were a few busted dams in India wiping out thousands of people and various oil fires killing hundreds of people all over the place. And in terms of nasty industrial disasters, I'd say Bhopal takes the cake. Unlike radioactive isotopes, many of the nasties released in that accident will remain lethal forever.

Quote:
We can always take proactive steps towards stopping the burning of coal.

Such as?

Quote:
Anyone spell "half life" or "fall out" ?

Do you understand the concept of the half life, and what it implies?

hmm :)

Back to the books for an appropriate reply it would seem ;)

incidentally, with Chernobyl, an international survey (don't remember the name of it, but - other than my nubness - apparently quite renowned, I think it was from some branch of the UN) did a complete study of the after-effects of the meltdown.

the actual deaths linked to the accident are actually quite low - less than 100 from memory. the birth defects and other malformations were said not to be linked to the accident at all, but rather a continuation of other social problems already in the area.

the only real deficit was that there would be an increase in symptoms over the next 20 or so years, in things such as thyroid cancer. but again, it was estimating an increased of a couple of hundred cases worst case scenario.

perhaps the only real disturbing thing, was the lifetime of the radioactivity itself, which as I'm sure most people know, can take thousands of years to dissipate. however even this works on a sliding scale. highly radioactive environments generally take smaller amounts of break down (decades, to hundreds of years). weaker radioactive environments take larger amounts of time (thousands of years).

already they have swarms of animal and plant life returning to some of the most affected areas around the Chernobyl accident.

take that info as a grain of salt, but other than loss of farming and horticultural area, even the most devastating (and preventable) nuclear accidents in our history aren’t necessarily as devastating as they’re cracked up to be - and they’re certainly not generating the amount of pollution that coal reactors are. nuclear ftw.

edit: ok, I was wrong on the thyroid thing - they're predicting around 4000 cases. but other than that:
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/Chernobyl/chernobyl.pdf - report from IAEA, one of the UN's nuclear watchdogs.

Quote from El Presidente:

Do you understand the concept of the half life, and what it implies?

The time for half of the radioactive substance to decay. Then you have another half life for the half left over and so on? :P

So you have 1kg of radioactive stuff.. Lets say the half life is 10 years. In 10 years you have 500g left still spewing out radiation. In another 10 years you have 250g. In another 10 125g..

Am i right?

Quote from Minorci:
Am i right?

Yes, you are, but you've missed an important fact.

Half life is inversely proportional to radioactivity. It's obvious: stuff that radiates like the buggery loses its power quickly. Stuff that has half lives in the thousands or billions of years is radiating slowly.

Remember that the next time you hear a greenie talking about "OMG it will be radioactive for evahhhh!!!!!111!1!"

^ Thats fairly obvious.. Theres some substances that have a half-life of seconds, nano seconds even.

maybe to you but not to alot of people. Nuclear waste loses like 90% of its radioactivity in the first 50-100 years cause of all the stuff with really short half lives. after that, its still radioactive but not in an "zomg you go near for a second you get cancer and die" sort of way

Quote from swamp rat:
maybe to you but not to alot of people. Nuclear waste loses like 90% of its radioactivity in the first 50-100 years cause of all the stuff with really short half lives. after that, its still radioactive but not in an "zomg you go near for a second you get cancer and die" sort of way

make sure you're not confusing yourself with the half-life and storage time of low level nuclear waste such as x-ray equipment and radioactive suits (and the lesser products in nuclear power plant [cooling equipment] to actual nuclear waste, plutonium.

... nuclear waste is made up of a heap of radioactive compounds. some with half lives in days, some in weeks/months and some in decades etc. because of all the waste with low halflives, waste is highly radioactive for the first few decades and by the time it gets put in long term storage, it has lost 90% of its radioactivity

You guys are nubs.
I can finish Half-life within a few hours.

Quote from Milenko:
You guys are nubs.
I can finish Half-life within a few hours.

So you're highly radioactive?

And here I just thought you stank :P