Technology – Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans

23/09/2023

China’s Technology

The much hyped launch of the Apple iPhone 15 was presumed to announce the latest technology in phones. This presupposed that it would have the world’s best microchips, which are currently assumed to come from TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company).

But China’s Huawei, which is supposedly hampered by western sanctions on high-end chips has just produced a phone which seems as good or better than the Apple one.

It was commented that the Huawei phone has not had much attention in the Western mainstream media, but some reviews have said that it is actually better. Other writers have wondered (?hopefully) that the small, sold-out production run was because they did not have enough high-end chips to make more phones.

www.johnmenadue.com/chinas-huawei-mate60-launch-set-to-challenge-iphone/

www.smh.com.au/technology/why-this-new-chinese-phone-has-rattled-the-us-20230905-p5e21c.html

Stephen Bartholomeusz in the SMH also mentions China’s dominance in EVs(Electric Vehicles). European and American car companies are unsure how to respond since they have major EV factories in China, so any tariffs will hurt them. They have moved their jobs offshore and the United Auto Workers strike in the US has the problem that there is a transfer from internal combustion engined (ICE) vehicles to EVs, as well as their wages being higher than the Chinese factories that they are competing against. It is a global world, so there are huge economic forces equalising wages across the world and favouring capital over labour.

And we had also better get used to the idea that China is going to be a world power, and any delays in achieving this will merely annoy them. We need to accept their power, respect and trade with them and avoid any US dreams of fighting the inevitable.

www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/how-china-sparked-chaos-in-the-world-of-cars-20230918-p5e5fn.html

15/03/2023

Fracking for Gas Destroys Farmland

15 March 2023

Some years ago, I was a farmer in New Zealand. I met a cashed-up American who was in NZ trying to buy farmland. I asked him why he was NZ rather than Australia. He said, ‘Australia is fuc*ed , mate. The governments have let them frack it all, and soon they won’t be able to farm’.

He was from the US and had seen it happen there. The problem is that politicians are mostly lawyers and accountants and do not know what they do not know. Perhaps they are easily conned by lobbyists in suits. The fact is that the surface of the earth is like a layered cake with rock strata that stop water simply going to the lowest level. If an underlying impermeable level is broken, the water which may have been kept in the overlying soil drains to a deeper level. So big mines or fracking, which means fracturing and cracking the stratum, allows gas to be released upwards, but also allows the water to flow downwards. This leaves the topsoil without water, which eventually will turn it to sand as the organic matter dies.

The nett effect is that the gas is released once, but the water escapes forever. The gas company makes its money and moves on- the yield of the land is forever damaged. The farmer is the first economic casualty, national production notices it more slowly. The chemicals used in fracking also pollute the groundwater, so bores used for stock produce undrinkable water. There is no method for removing these chemicals from the groundwater.

The advocacy group, ‘Lock the Gate’, are doing their best but are still losing the political battle and the gas companies are still expanding activities. Some of the best agricultural land is the Darling Downs in Queensland and the Liverpool Plains in NSW, which are both under threat. What is also likely to happen is that they will frack near the Great Artesian Basin, which is a huge water body under a third of Australia. It is currently unpolluted by fracking chemicals, but if it becomes polluted, which seems inevitable, there will no usable water in huge areas of arid Australia. It will be a national ecological disaster.

The words of the American entrepreneur are ringing in my ears.

Farmers betrayed by government, Shell, PetroChina “fairytales” as prime land damaged by gas fracking

26/10/2022

Electric Vehicles: How helpful are they for Climate Change?

5 June 2020

There are claims and counter claims for how much electric vehicles (EVs) improve the greenhouse gas situation. The production of batteries is quite energy-intensive, so a large battery car takes about twice as much energy to produce as a normal Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) car.

The ‘payback’ time for that extra energy is about 2 years based on the number of km an average (UK) driver does per year.

But the key variable is how the electricity is generated, both in making the battery and in running the car. If it is made in Asia with coal fired electricity to manufacture the car and then charged with coal powered electricity, there is very little benefit. If the battery is produced by renewable electricity and the car charged with renewable electricity, the savings are more than two thirds by 150,000km.

If you keep your old ICE car for 4 years, it will have produced about the same amount of greenhouse gas as it takes to produce a new electric car. Looked at it the other way, it takes 4 years for a new electric car to pay for itself from an emissions point of view as against paying just for the petrol of an existing ICE car.

www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tackle-climate-change

05/06/2020

Electric Vehicles: How helpful are they for Climate Change?

5 June 2020

There are claims and counter claims for how much electric vehicles (EVs) improve the greenhouse gas situation. The production of batteries is quite energy-intensive, so a large battery car takes about twice as much energy to produce as a normal Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) car.

The ‘payback’ time for that extra energy is about 2 years based on the number of km an average (UK) driver does per year.

But the key variable is how the electricity is generated, both in making the battery and in running the car. If it is made in Asia with coal fired electricity to manufacture the car and then charged with coal powered electricity, there is very little benefit. If the battery is produced by renewable electricity and the car charged with renewable electricity, the savings are more than two thirds by 150,000km.

If you keep your old ICE car for 4 years, it will have produced about the same amount of greenhouse gas as it takes to produce a new electric car. Looked at it the other way, it takes 4 years for a new electric car to pay for itself from an emissions point of view as against paying just for the petrol of an existing ICE car.

www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tackle-climate-change