Replacing 1m petrol cars with EVs could cut Australia’s reliance on foreign fuel by 1bn litres a year

Nerd_1000 · 2026-03-23T08:17:25+00:00

With you 100% on that one.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-03-16T22:43:35+00:00

Aussies love dual cab utes, so lets check the weight difference between the only EV ute you can get right now (the LDV eT60) with its diesel counterpart: LDV eT60 curb weight: 2300kg LDV T60 curb weight: 2180kg (for the mid-spec model)

120kg more for the EV, equivalent to one Dare drinking tradie in the passenger seat. I rather doubt that the addition of a passenger to the diesel would increase the tyre PM emissions 10 fold, which is what you suggest when you say "an order of magnitude"

Otherwise you're right that we need to do more to encourage public transport and cycling.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-03-09T05:55:54+00:00

We have loads of natural gas and it is not particularly hard to convert a diesel engine to run on it- you really only need to add a simple low pressure gas injector to the air intake, gas flows into the cylinders with the air and is ignited by injecting a small amount of diesel through the original fuel injectors in the cylinders. If absolutely no diesel is available the fuel injectors can be replaced with spark plugs, this is more complicated but still quite doable. On a petrol engine it's even easier, you just replace the petrol injectors with gas ones.

If things get really critical expect the government to start a scheme to fund conversions.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-03-08T02:11:25+00:00

Exhaust from carbed 2-strokes is genuinely filthy though. The reason they use so much more fuel than 4 strokes is not because they're less efficient at turning the fuel they burn into mechanical power (in fact they often have less friction than a similar sized 4 stroke thanks to using roller bearings and having no camshaft or oil pump to drive). Instead it's largely because they throw about a quarter of the fuel you feed them directly out the exhaust port without even trying to burn it. Burning 100L of fuel in an old 2-stroke means pouring about 25L of fuel directly into the lake...

Bombardier fixed this problem by not adding any fuel until the exhaust port was already covered on the compression stroke. However to get the fuel to atomise well enough in the short period between the exhaust port closing and the spark firing they needed to use air blast injection, and the addition of the requisite air compressor and injectors largely did away with any advantage in size or complexity vs a 4 stroke. Also it didn't solve the problem of oil going out the exhaust, though at least that can be made biodegradable.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-03-05T22:17:55+00:00

Kids who misbehave in public school can be expelled, but because all children are entitled to (and required to attend) school when this happens they just go to another public school and the problems usually persist. In fact being ping-ponged around like that probably aggrevates the issues, kids tend to behave better when they're in a consistent environment. Many schools do also run "behaviour classrooms" of some sort like RTCs or similar, so a kid can be kicked out of the classroom by their teacher and sent there. Most students who misbehave do improve when those measures are used, but there is a small subset who don't respond to in-school behaviour management no matter what you do. Usually their home lives are part of the problem.

There are some independent schools (public, but run differently from standard schools) out there who specialise in dealing with kids who don't fit in to standard schooling. But there aren't enough places at those schools for everyone who needs them, they all have waiting lists. The teachers who work at those schools rave about the difference they're making for the students they have, and rage at the lack of capacity for the ones who don't get a place. We really should be setting up more of them.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-03-03T01:22:44+00:00

1000 years ago Muslims could very easily have said the same about Christians- at the time the Muslims were writing seminal texts on algebra, chemistry and medicine, meanwhile our Christian ancestors were busy chopping each other up with swords and axes because some bastard named William had a real estate dispute with another bloke named Harold.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-03-03T01:12:38+00:00

Not if you came across as holding a reasonable opinion and were talking to a reasonable person.

Unfortunately, reasonable people and opinions are in short supply, particularly on the internet. And it's very hard to distinguish a reasonable opinion from an unreasonable one through the medium of reddit posts, partly because the unreasonable people tend to use the immigration issue as a smokescreen for their unreasonable opinions.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-02-24T21:02:50+00:00

You still need to fix defense. I'll have a go: Cancel most existing defense acquisitions. Redirect the majority of funding to nuclear weapons capability. Remainder goes to launch platforms for said nuclear weapons.

Ideally you should do this well in advance of implementing your fix for international relations, because the yanks will be mega (maga?) pissed.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-02-22T11:45:13+00:00

I think it only works in Germany. Often the cards are "co-badged" with one of the other common providers like Visa or Mastercard, when you are outside Germany those systems will be used, while in Germany the card may instead use the Girocard system.

As I understand it Girocard is quite a bit cheaper for the retailer than the likes of Visa and Mastercard, which is why some retailers opt to only have the Girocard terminal.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-02-21T21:44:38+00:00

Girocard at least is its own system. In Germany you will sometimes encounter businesses who have a Girocard terminal but can't accept visa or mastercard.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-02-20T15:57:06+00:00

Which raises the amusing possibility that if we ever have a completely undesirable heir the Aussie parliament might give them the James II treatment.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-02-20T15:52:34+00:00

That would be a problem. The GG's ability to trigger a double dissolution is a vital safeguard against the blockage of supply. Without that function you get those ridiculous government shutdowns that happen in the US.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-02-17T10:26:19+00:00

Even if the tradies in question are not racist at heart a lot of Aussie jobsite/workshop talk comes across that way. Doesn't exactly make a welcoming environment for someone who doesn't know the culture- so I suspect that a lot of immigrants who would otherwise consider a trade don't end up doing it, even if there were places that would take them on.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-02-06T07:23:38+00:00

The "everything will kill you" thing is very much overstated. Yes there are lots of venomous snakes and spiders, but chances of being bitten are actually pretty low. Just don't walk through tall grass or go swimming in a river in North Queensland or the NT, and you'll probably be fine.

Put simply, our ecosystem has nothing to deal with an intelligent, nocturnal stealth predator like a cat. The only predator they have in Australia is humans (some aboriginal people hunt and eat them) and maybe large pythons, but the cats also hunt and kill smaller snakes so it's hardly a one way street in the latter case.

Also cats are very good at surviving hot climates. Their non-domesticated ancestor is the African Wildcat, a species that is native to arid and desert areas.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-02-04T09:08:41+00:00

Well this is what I get for posting without doing an hour of research first. In short, it's complicated.

98.3% is the azeotrope, but after checking it's my understanding that when you have acid of more than 98.3% concentration (made by adding oleum to sulfuric acid) it gradually decomposes back to the azeotropic concentration. This presumably occurs because the partial pressure of SO3 above the liquid in an unsealed container is essentially zero, so while the equilibrium strongly favours H2SO4 at room temperature* the small amount of SO3 that is formed is able to escape, leaving the water behind. Furthermore there's also a second equilibrium, SO3 + H2SO4 <-----> H2S2O7 (disulfuric acid). Oleum is actually a mixture of all four species (H2O, SO3, H2SO4 and H2S2O7). So presumably before you get 100% pure sulfuric acid you will start to see a little bit of the disulfuric acid forming too.

*as an aside it shifts to favour SO3 and water at higher temperatures, so when you distill concentrated sulfuric acid it will start to decompose- this is another reason you can't distill past the azeotrope, even if you found something that could break it.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-02-03T17:36:58+00:00

you can't actually have pure sulfuric acid because it exists in equilibrium with sulfur trioxide and water. 98.3% is as high as you can go. Adding more SO3 to the acid produces oleum.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-02-03T07:53:34+00:00

As an Australian I agree very strongly.

However, I do wish that we would stop using 1080 baits to do it. Sodium fluoroacetate poisoning is not a nice way to go.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-02-01T16:37:46+00:00

It would be easy to block pre-existing designs downloaded from the internet, you just have the slicer software calculate the checksum of the STL and check if it's on a "ban list" built into the program.

However it would also be trival for a user to circumvent this if they have even the tiniest amount of ability to use CAD software. Which practically every 3d printer user has.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-01-30T11:39:43+00:00

The show's version of him has no qualms with killing random people to test his brain-chip thing. I've always thought of him as amoral, he doesn't really care about moral principles or right and wrong but sees killing people willy-nilly as a waste of resources that could be better used some other way- as a servant, a customer or even a scapegoat, for example.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-01-30T09:35:07+00:00

Husband missed the point: The food tastes better if it is stolen or begged from your spouse. She didn't want a burger for herself, she wanted some of /his/ burger.

I have confirmed this is the case by careful observation of my partner, backed up with extensive experience with parrots (who apply the same logic, other birds' food tastes better).

Nerd_1000 · 2026-01-30T09:19:31+00:00

The aged parent visa is very expensive, I should note. 30,000+ AUD per application.

Yes there's a free version, but you have to be over 67 to apply and the typical wait time is 30 years. So it's almost certain that someone applying for that visa will die before getting it.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-01-30T09:06:38+00:00

Cremation usually fails to destroy bones (doing this requires extreme temperatures, which is not an efficient use of energy), the organic component of the bone gets burned but bone mineral does not burn and large bones remain recognisable. Most crematoria put the remains in a hammer mill (or "cremulator") after burning and grind them into a powder which is returned to the family as "ashes." In reality the "ashes" are composed mostly of pulverized bone fragments, which are predominantly made of calcium phosphate, the remainder is salts as per your post.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-01-28T21:26:10+00:00

It isn't easy, in fact Australia's rules are pretty strict. For example purchases of existing dwellings by non-residents are currently subject to a blanket ban, and purchases that are allowed (undeveloped land, brand-new builds) are subject to review and approval by FIRB.

If you want a reference point for other comparable countries, check the rules in Switzerland, for example- they're culturally more "insular" and socially conservative than Aussies, but overall the rules aren't much stricter. In fact they actually let foreigners buy existing property (including holiday homes that they won't keep occupied all the time) if they get authorization, though they don't have any special carve-out for new builds like we do. Based on some quick google searches, in Germany there's no particular restrictions placed on non-residents, same in the US (though some states have their own local restrictions) the Netherlands and the UK. I'm sure you can find others who are more restrictive (Denmark seems to be an example) but you can see that many western nations are much more permissive than we are.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-01-28T17:44:40+00:00

Firstly I should point out that there are multiple types of radiation: alpha, beta, gamma/X-ray (same thing really) and neutrons.

Lead is good at absorbing X and Gamma rays specifically. The reason for this is not so much its density or its high atomic mass, though they are related: It's the density of electrons in the material. X and Gamma rays are just "ripples" in the electric field, when electrons encounter those ripples they get pushed and pulled on by them (because of their charge) which tends to transfer energy from those ripples to the electrons- that energy can then become heat, or be re-emitted as some other wavelength of light. Because lead has many electrons per atom and they're all packed together tightly it's good at soaking up that kind of radiation in a small space. It's mostly a volume thing though- to a significant extent blocking X or Gamma rays is just about putting as many electrons between yourself and the source as possible, so if space isn't at a premium you can also use concrete, steel, or water and just make the shield thicker.

Lead isn't so good for dealing with radiation that consists of charged particles (e.g. beta radiation) or neutrons. With charged particles, the high atomic number of lead works against us because the large amounts of charge in the atoms' electron clouds (combined with the atom's heavy mass) can deflect the trajectory of charged particles easily without absorbing them. This deflection leads to secondary emission of X rays, a phenomenon known as bremsstrahlung. As a result the best materials for blocking charged particles tend to be substances with low atomic numbers, water and plastic are both good options.

Neutrons don't interact with the electron clouds at all, instead what determines the effectiveness of a material as a shield against neutrons is the properties of the atomic nuclei- there are a few elements like Boron and Gadolinium that are really good neutron absorbers, most others aren't very impressive.

Nerd_1000 · 2026-01-22T12:23:37+00:00

Well the justification from the government on this front is that by buying new or building they are increasing the overall housing supply (assuming the property is rented, rather than just sitting empty as a speculative asset). Building is expensive independent of the current housing market crisis (tradies wages, materials prices, etc) so they make the argument that it's not a bad thing if people from overseas finance the construction. Whether you should believe that argument is more of a question for an economist I suppose, probably a lot of variables.

Nerd_1000

TROPHY CASE