TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Early thorium-based (MSR) nuclear reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1960s By ORNL " Image courtesy of Oak Ridge National Laboratory " I f there was an energy source more efficient, safer, more available, and produces less nuclear waste with a significantly less decay time before it becomes safe again, you'd think countries would be climbing over themselves to jump on board. Thorium is that source, and it was extensively researched by the USA in the 1960's, ultimately losing out to Uranium because Uranium was cheaper and served a duel role in the nuclear arms race of the time. That leads us to today, where Uranium Nuclear reactors are an entire industry, with strong foot holds in many countries around the globe, and Thorium is still stuck in development hell. Even if the Nuclear industry did decide to pivot, it would be decades before Thorium would actually deliver on the benefits of using it. It's not as simple as swapping fuel in existing reactors. ...

I've written extensively about my objection to Nuclear Energy in this blog . My primary concern is Nuclear waste that has to be stored for hundreds of thousands of years that we keep adding to the more we use Nuclear power. With exception to those times when a Nuclear reactor has had a major meltdown and caused an environmental nightmare, Nuclear Power is a relatively clean source of energy... until you add on that the waste needs to be stored and that storage has to be maintained for generations. I've always maintained, if the Nuclear industry could find a way to manage its waste that would render it safe within a more reasonable timeline (lets say under 100 years but ideally develop an actual process to make it safe without the need for long term storage) I'd be more on board with it as an energy source. It turns out the Nuclear industry has had a method to recycle its waste since the nineteen sixties but thanks to the USA's fear of nuclear waste, which contains pluto...

Photo by Chris LeBoutillier Following on from my previous post,  Regardless of Whether You Believe in Climate Change You Should at Least Believe in Better Environmental Practices , I made a passing reference to the con that is carbon offsetting. In simple terms, it allows companies to continue to produce carbon emissions so long as they fund environmentally 'friendly' initiatives elsewhere. The whole concept has matured into the Carbon Credit/Offset scheme where companies can literally buy and sell carbon credits so they can claim 'reduced carbon emissions' or even 'net zero emissions' without actually reducing emissions at all. Ever since I first heard of the concept of carbon offsetting and how it worked, I've said it was a scam. You don't need to do any research at all to know it is.  To make an analogy, imagine if every week I empty my household trash onto your front lawn. It's a dick move. You wouldn't like it, and you'd expect me to cle...

Cow burps contribute to greenhouse gases. A beef cow flying through the clouds wearing an open astronaut's helmet. photorealistic. wide angle lens. Dall.e + David Arandle The Australian Government has been in the process of passing some bill that contributes towards meeting some goals on Climate Change that we probably agreed to at least two decades ago at a United Nations Meeting on the issue. I guess? I kind of researched it a little recently.  It's one of those issues I've kind of followed but generally don't like to argue because climate change deniers are some of the most negative and obnoxious people you'll ever come across.  These days climate change is closely linked to energy production and how we generate power because fossil fuel power plants are said to be big emitters of Carbon Dioxide, which contributes to global warming (apparently). Most of Australia's power plants are coal plants, with a small percentage leaning towards renewables like solar and...

The modern shopping trolley isn't equipped to survive in the wild. This is a Public Service Announcement. Your determination to release shopping trolleys from their regimented, thankless, lives at the supermarket back into the wild is somewhat misguided. The fact is shopping trolleys are not a domesticated, oppressed, wild species forced into captivity. Their ancestors were not once proud beasts roaming the Serengeti, carrying supplies for wildebeests during the great migration. Shopping trolleys are single serving domesticated animals that have always been bred in captivity. They are not equipped with any innate survival skills and just don't cope once released into the wild. Too often you'll find their mangled, broken remains being overgrown with plant life, many suffering the worse fate of drowning in a local river. Some are fortunate enough to be rescued through outreach programmes and returned to active service. The reality is, the community, and the trol...

Photo: Powering Forward Website Following on from last week's article, Nuclear Power Won't Reduce Your Electricity Bill Like You Think , the Australian Government launched a new initiative and website called Powering Forward . The site serves two purposes, the first of which is to prompt individuals to take action over reducing the cost of their own electricity bills. Often individuals will simply stay with their current energy provider despite receiving impossibly high bills because it's perceived that changing providers is just too hard. A situation that energy companies definitely exploit, knowing that a good percentage of their customers won't take any action to find cheaper alternatives. Along with assisting individuals to find cheaper providers the site also lists government rebates and other schemes people may be entitled to if they're experiencing financial hardship. The other key function of the Powering Forward website is to outline the Governm...

Cooling towers of a nuclear power station. Photo: Petr Kratochvil Australian energy consumers are currently in a crisis, receiving some of the highest power bills in the world, making us a prime target for the nuclear energy vultures who claim their industry will bring the cost of electricity down. It's a smoke and mirrors argument when you consider the cost of actually producing electricity isn't the main reason for Australia's ever increasing consumer electricity prices. Hypothetically, even after the cost of installing nuclear power plants, the actual cost reductions won't be as dramatic as the nuclear energy industry would have you believe. According to this article,  A high price for policy failure: the ten-year story of spiralling electricity bills by David Blowers, published in January 2018, the two biggest factors are the cost of the network (transporting electricity), and the retailer margins (cost of billing and servicing the customer). These are...

The Earth is flat. You can easily prove this for yourself. Just grab the biggest hard edged ruler you have, put the edge up against the ground (preferably on a bit with no bumps) and you'll see the Earth does not curve away from the ruler. It's flat from end to end. I'm the first to admit I don't know a lot about the beliefs of modern day 'Flat Earth' believers other than they believe the Earth to be flat and not spherical as Science has generally demonstrated since before we could send people into space and actually see for ourselves.

Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission Report. The Australian Government is currently searching for a location to build a nuclear waste storage facility where it can centrally and properly store the country's low and intermediate level nuclear waste. Presently it's eyes are set on South Australia as a possible location. The South Australian Government recently released the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission report looking into the feasibility of building such a facility within our state but going further and also looking at creating a commercial nuclear waste storage facility able to store spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants (High level waste).

 As I write this, late evening, the Mallala fire is still burning out of control just over six kilometers away, north of Gawler, South Australia. Unfortunately the fire has so far claimed the lives of two people (confirmed) and one not yet confirmed along with a number of homes and properties since it started around 2:30pm today.

The Lawnmower, Hedge Trimmer and I. I haven't written about the bastard lawnmower from hell in quite some time because it died. You'd think I'd want to document its demise but the fact is, it went out with a loud bang (that I suspect was something seriously mechanical inside the engine breaking) and never worked again. Not much to say about it really.

Not the actual Koala. When I take our dogs for a walk it's not enough that I have to watch out for snakes, lizards, prickles and other over enthusiastic dogs but now I also have to watch out for man eating koalas too! Well alright more like woman biting koalas but this happened right in the suburb where I live, and possibly where I walk my own dogs. Who would ever suspect a largely vegan koala would go rogue for a pound of leg flesh!

"Shhh... I'm hunting lizards." With Australia heading into the summer months Lizard Hunting Season begins. Well at least it does for our dog Oscar who gives them a serious barking tirade whenever he finds one. Australian Blue Tongue lizards are pretty common where I live, specifically the Eastern variety. Because we live a short distance from bushland we get more than our fair share in the back garden and, on a couple of occasions, even in the house.

In an effort to do my bit for the environment I decided to plant more trees and now I can't see my television. An observant friend asked why didn't I plant the trees outside as if this was the obvious thing to do. I asked him why would I do that? Trees have no trouble growing outside all by themselves. Just look out the window and you'll see plenty of trees. Besides, planting the trees indoors meant I could cover the floors in dirt and completely eliminate the need to vacuum. Win for me and a win for the trees I thought. I think the real problem was I didn't consult a landscaper. I'm sure they would have advised against planting trees in the space between my couch and the TV. At the time I just never thought about anything other than plant more trees. In hindsight I don't think I'm actually very good at this environmental stuff.

I was watching The 7PM Project on Channel Ten and the topic was the safety of Nuclear power in the light of the Japan Nuclear disaster. Japan's Fukushim Nuclear Plant Explodes  Japan's Nuclear Power Plant explosions are considered to be arguably the worst nuclear power disasters ever - even if nothing else went wrong from this point onwards (noting that at the time I'm writing this events are still unfolding). One of the 7PM Project's panelists, Andrew Bolt,  from a pro-nuclear power support position came up with the statement that '...even if you take the Chernobyl Nuclear meltdown only 65 people have ever died from that accident'. So that makes nuclear power safe then? Fortunately his co-panelist, Charlie Pickering, pointed out that this figure did not take into account all the people who got sick from that melt down but, as it was the end of the show, didn't have time to mention the environmental impact as well. However, how many times have ...

[Note: this is a duplicate post, from my animation blog, reproduced here so it will appear on my web sites homepage. This post will be removed from this blog at the end of the competition mentioned below on April 15th.] It's a surprising fact that there are actually more tigers in captivity than there are in the wild. It's not that wild tigers aren't prolific breeders the problem is that they're being hunted and their habitat is being destroyed faster than the tigers can cope with. Some subspecies of the tiger, such as the South China Tiger , are already considered 'functionally extinct' - meaning they haven't been seen in the wild in over 25 years and therefore are most likely extinct. I've always had a soft spot for charities like the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature a.k.a. World Wildlife Fund) so when GoAnimate launched it's Creating for a Cause competition I thought this was a great opportunity for me to actually support one of their proje...

Recently in Australia there has been much debate about the need to find alternative energy sources to fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. In terms of generating electricity the so called environmentally friendly Nuclear Power is often put forward as the one, clear and sensible alternative energy choice. However I've always maintained that Nuclear Energy isn't environmentally friendly because no company has found a viable use for the nuclear waste it produces. Nuclear waste is usually stored which, given its radioactive nature and inability to biodegrade safely within a time period of less than before Armageddon, doesn't seem all that friendly to me.

In my recent post A Tax on Rainwater I made the following statement: "A tax on rainwater might be valid if we were literally sucking the moisture out of the air. Farming clouds." Watching my local evening news broadcast tonight I was interested in a story about Australian owned company Island Sky who manufacture machines capable of extracting the moisture from the air and turning it into drinking water. Island Sky's technology can be scaled depending on intended usage. From a 'water cooler' style model for the home or office through to being able to adapt the technology for commercial and industrial uses. As much as the concept of Island Sky's technology is fantastic it does make me wonder if this kind of machine could affect weather patterns if implemented on a large and concentrated scale? For example could we see coastal cities sucking a larger proportion of moisture from the air to the detriment of inland towns? The reason why I wonder leads back to my o...

Over the past year there has been much debate in Australia over the idea of a rainwater tax for residential properties. It all seems to have started over a leaked Federal Government email by National Water Commission chief, Ken Matthews, suggesting that "Legally, all water in Australia is vested in governments." Mr Mathews goes on to say: "Governments have not yet considered the capture of water from roofs in rainwater tanks to be of sufficient magnitude to warrant the issuing of specific entitlements to use this class of water. "However, if rainwater tanks were to be adopted on a large scale such that their existence impacts significantly on the integrated water cycle, consideration could be given to setting an entitlement regime for this class of water." You can read the full article about the email and its subsequent discussion in this report by the Herald Sun dated January 14, 2007. I can certainly understand the logic of Government ownership of rainwater ...

If you live in Australia you probably caught this video on Channel Nine's 'i-caught' show which premiered here tonight. It's an American show (or at least the host is American) and 'Battle at Kruger' was the very first video they showed. As far as wildlife videos go this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen. This has got everything, water buffalo, lions and a crocodile all battling it out over a baby buffalo that could well be both the luckiest and unluckiest offspring on the planet. The lesson here is that even the kings (or in this case queens) of the jungle shouldn't get between a mother water buffalo and its baby. Watch the video and be amazed.