My RE agent told me that he is getting a lot of enquires from WA investors and they bid against each other at auctions, making clearance rates at their highest. He believes they are the only driving force in current Adelaide RE market.

Difficult to buy a good value, but as for my properties, they are going up.

Gamay

I agree with you Mpayne that modern coal fired power plants can be 45% efficient, Combined Cycle are even better: up to 65% efficiency and on natural gas. The point is: the old dirty brown coal generators will still be here for years.

Australian average industrial site is extremely inefficient and improving this side of the problem will generate significant GHG eduction, so we might not need to build next 45% efficient coal fired plant. Energy is too cheap in this country and the more you consume the less you pay for it, this is why there is no sense of urgency in the industry. We need finacial drivers and I believe the carbon trading on the international scale will fix the current price distortion.

I also agree that power plants don’t produce oxygen (I don’t know Mpayne where you got it from??), they actually do quite opposide, they consume oxygen, which then reacts with carbon, which we dig from the ground in order to generate heat,… the rest is simple. The point I am making: by locking CO2 under ground we are also locking oxygen, which are taken from the air. OK it is 20% compared to only 380 ppm, but as we already know, even small disturbance in the earth atmosphere can generate inrreversable changes. With less and less forests oxygen depletion can be significant. (Gaia, remember?)

Maybe we should simulate trees and build solar powered oxygen producing plants, then we stock pile carbon and store it under ground or burn it again, hence making no more contribution to GHG. Or maybe just plant more trees so they can suck more and more CO2, but probably there is not much free land left.

The bottom line is: if we only concentrate on the generation end ignoring consumption, we will never solve the problem.

I am not against nuclear, but why such a headache in Australia? Japanese or French would probably never built nuclear if they had plenty of other resources. But on the world scale, particularly for China and India I don’t see much alternative. Australia can sell yellow cake and make heaps of money.

Regards

Gamay

Hi all. This is interesting discussion.

There is a scientific proof that CO2 plays a vital role in regulating our planet temperature. There is also a scientific data that the amount of CO2 in the earth atmosphere has increased dramatically during the last century. Attached is the link to the Earth System Recearch Lab data:

http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.php

I am still in the process of forming my own opinion on the global warming/cooling issue. There is an opinion that air pollution is also causing the “global deeming”, which reduces the amunt of the sun radiation reaching the earth surface and in a sense compensating CO2 warming effect.

What I don’t see in any discussions about the global warming is the amount of heat discharged into the air by fossil fuel power stations, which is probably contributing to the temperature rise. Take for exemple coal fired power station 1000 MW capacity, which generates at around 35% efficiency, minus transmission/distribution losses, at the consumer end the final efficiency is 30%. This means that for 1000 MW of useful energy delivered to consumer, power plant needs to use around 3000 MW of fuel (more for brown coal). Out of this 2000 MW is discharged into the air as heat. In addition coal fired plant evaporates huge amounts of water in cooling towers to cool down back end of the steam turbine. This is just the way thermodynamic cycle works. This water vapour also creates “blanket” and causes warming effect and helps trapping the heat generated by power plants.

In addition all useful power delivered to consumers is in the end converted into heat one way or the other. So basically all 3000 kW of fuel heat eventually ends up heating the air.

Nuclear plant works pretty much in the same way as coal fired, only uses nuclear reactor to generate steam instead of coal fired boiler. It would generate very little CO2, but more heat (it is less efficient) and more water vapour. Does this solve the global warming problem? I don’t think so.

Will renewable generation help to reduce the global warming? Yes it will, but with the current consumption there is no way renewables can replace base load coal fired generators. There is just not enough renewable resorces and their generation profile requires back up by fossil fuel generators, ie wind farms can generate only 30 – 40% of the time and the wind tend to stop blowing when you need it most.

The problem needs to be addressed from different directions and first of all from the consumption side. Reduction of every 1 MW of electricity will reduce fuel consumption by 3 MW. Regardless of the global warming improvement in consumption efficiency makes a lot of sense.

Energy waste in many industries in Australia is shocking. Some companies are actively addressing this, but most of them are not doing anything because large consumers buy energy very cheap.

There are ways to dramatically reduce emissions with virtually no cost to the economy, in fact significant benefits can be generated. One of this solution is distributed or imbedded generation (it is usually called cogeneration), where electricity is generated next to large energy consumers and the waste heat is recovered and converted into the useful energy like steam or hot water, thus eliminating the need of using extra fuel for steam raising. Efficiency of such system can get up to 80%, no transmission/distribution losses. No need to develop addtional transmission and distribution infrastructure.

OK I think I got too technical. Anyway, do I believe it is warming up? I am not sure yet. Do I see the climate is changing? Yes, I do. Can there be a natural cause for the climate change ie unusual sun activity? Maybe. But I still believe there are a lot of common sense things we can do to reduce our energy consumption rather than trying to satisfy ever increasing demand by building more and more power stations.

Regards

Gamay

Check their current refund policy. When I ordered this course two years ago they had 12 months no questions asked refund guarantee. I found the course very basic and all about how easy it is to make maney out of CF+ properties. Do not think that this course will actually help you to find these CF+ deals. I got my money back in the end, no questions asked. You can try the same.

Regards

Gamay[rolleyesanim]

Check Kazakhstan, the former USSR Republic. You can buy 2 br apartment for US$40 – 50K. Rent is US$450 -$500/month, usually paid 1 year in advance. Fully furnished will get you $600/month. You can probably find the local finance @ around 15% interest rate, so paying cash is a better option.

Petrol price now is 40c/litre (converted to $AU).

Plenty of oil discovered in the country, new pipelines being built including one to China. Huge potential for the economic growth.

Title registry is ok inluding foreign ownership, but be aware of corruption and bureaucracy.
Carrying cash even relatively small amounts is dangerous not from the point of losing money, but life.

In Banks they have mafia informers: you take the cash, they know it in a second and wait for you around the corner with your full description.

When in crowded places or in public transport, keep your hand on your wallet very tight all the time.

It is a beautiful country with very nice people living there.

It is an old risk vs return dilemma.
Good luck with your overseas investment.

Regards

Gamay

Tina, don’t waste your money. You will find similar information in books and on this forum.

Regards

Gamay

Late last year I found a number of cf+ properties in Whyalla and even made a couple of offers 30% below asking price and both were accepted.

My decision however was not to invest in Whyalla at that stage.

Be particularly careful with semi’s, they have relatively high vacancy rate.

Regards

Gamay