JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
Greetings from sunny South Devon. It’s rather nicer than when we last came, in early December 1924, when it was horrible; cold, wet and windy. The countryside looks beautiful.
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1924?
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The wind in 2024 was so strong it blew the date backwards.
PROOF: certain politicians want to revert to ideas occasionally seen in 1824.
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2024! I am very tired after all the driving but that was a ridiculous typo…apologies.
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I live in south Devon. Which part did you visit
Are you hoping to get up to dartmoor?
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Unfortunately not; we have an old friend living next to Dartmoor but very limited time for sightseeing. We hope to see great grandchildren tomorrow (Mon), our friend on Tues and other friends in Hampshire on Wed and Thurs, so I’m afraid Dartmoor will be a’wave and keep going’ time…sadly.
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I know Annie sounds like quite an old name, but if you can remember 1924, you must be at least 107!
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You have a terrific memory.
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Great to hear you’re of good health and sound mind at the ripe young age of 100+?? and able to have vivid memories of your visit in younger years 102 years ago.
[Misspelling in your email tossed 2 comments into the bin. Fixed both. – LVA]
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Seems to have cooled a bit in the British Isles.
The scary heat dome is done gone!
100
Slid sideways, onto new victims.
The damage from the scale of the heat and strength of relentless sun is still coming to light in my garden.
I think a lot would survive to harvest, like the pears, all the sun facing leaves have scorched, there’s enough left but….
It looks like another heatwave could be building as soon as next weekend. Already talk of 40C+, but it’s far too early to say how hot it will be.
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It’s about 22c. It is very hot in the strong sun though.
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If you want strong sun, try Australia. Capitals 42 South in Hobart to tropical 12 South in Darwin. Barcelona to Nigeria in latitude. My cousin in Kent misses the brilliant blue sky of Adelaide. And given the predominantly British population, we have the highest skin cancer rates in the world. Given the similarities in people, what is very hard to understand is the alleged medical disaster of a few hot days in the UK. Surely Italy and Spain and Greece are far hotter? Or in winter the operational disaster of a few cm of snow.
120
There is another heat dome forming off the eastern US which could bring record-breaking 4th of July temperatures and make playing football pretty unpleasant. If this El Nino is as big as forecast, the world will get a teaser of what a typical year in the 2040’s will be like.
340
“the world will get a teaser of what a typical year in the 2040’s will be like.”
..is that from the same people who can’t get next week’s weather right? I think we’re safer to take Rickwill’s ideas on board.
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No, it’s from the same organisations that correctly forecast in the 1980’s that global surface temperature would increase by about 0.20 °C per decade.
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Scary! Do you seriously think the world would be ruined by 1C? Humans have trouble guessing the temperature to better than 5C. Because it doesn’t matter, does it?
And that’s just air temperature, not water temperature. The enormous mass of water on the surface is 350x that of the atmosphere. Water temperature and current and the sun control our planet and our climates. All the rain and storms are from the ocean, not the thin air above which moves violently about 20C per day anyway at most latitudes. It’s only hot near the ground. Where aircraft fly it’s -60C.
So what’s 1C in a peak temperature of a few days in summer? Armageddon?
221
Correctly forecast? The global average temperature has only increased by less than 1.5C in the last hundred years. Unless my maths is wrong, that’s doesn’t equate to a rise of 0.20C per decade.
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your maths is wrong
011
Obviously!
30
That’s not what AI says. It advises that the average global temperature increase over the past hundred years is 0.06C 0.07C per decade I.e., 1.1 to 1.2C total. That was what I stated.
So you drop in, seagull-like, with a short statement but no proof. Typical.
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it is still wrong. You’ve just taken all years and divided by the change. The rate of change has not been constant though. So, wrong.
03
They always claim the temperature rise since 1855, when it was a cold year and the whole Southern Hemisphere was represented by ONE thermometer** in (what is now Indonesia).
And that wasn’t a Stephenson because it wasn’t invented yet.
And by the way, the temperature between 1899 and 1941 went up, but from 1942 to 1981 it went down, even as CO2 climbed.
And we haven’t seen the 20 foot rise in sea levels, no more snows on Mt. Kilimanjaro by 2016, nor the end of glaciers in Montana (around 30 years ago in 1924, 50 years ago then, and now real soon now. And more hurricane hitting the USA and polar bears being extinct.
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The pile of unrealised climate disaster predictions is getting bigger yet no climate change alarmist is willing to acknowledge it.
In the timeline of the Earth’s existence, the AGW theory acts like a microscope being used to focus on a freckle. Focus on the freckle- everything else happening in the body is irrelevant.
30
Is that prediction on repeat? What’s wrong with 2026? Why 2040s? We have been hearing this imminent disaster story for nearly 40 years now, since 1988. You forgot to say all the penguins and polar bears will be dead and most coastal cities under 50 feet of water. At what point do you start to doubt? And you left out ‘some scientists say’.
310
TdeF, nah, its 97% of scientists agree…
00
‘ … another heat dome …’
More commonly known as an Omega Block or blocking high. You could ask Grok AI does CO2 cause blocking?
‘If this El Nino is as big as forecast …’
Highly unlikely, it has all the hallmarks of a Modoki El Nino.
‘ … a typical year in the 2040’s …’
Maybe, I’ll have a look. We should discern something from the oceanic oscillations which (as you know) are cyclic and non linear.
51
My thinking is that the AMO will be negative, which may effect the NAO. To know what is coming we have to look back.
https://chaac.meteo.plus/en/climate/amo-index.png
31
Weirdly, nearly every temperature record in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains was set in the 1930s, nearly 100 years ago. Even if the 2040s breaks those records, we’ll be fine. Unlike our ancestors from the 1930s, today we have this thing called air conditioning. No matter how hot it gets outside, we can keep the temperature inside as cool as we wish.
It’s more of a problem for Europeans, who for some ridiculous reason refused to accept modern cooling technology because it is a ‘climate sin’. Or because their rickety electric grids can’t handle the added load of allowing the hoi polloi to cool their homes. Which is why European heat-related deaths (175K annually) absolutely dwarf American heat deaths (4K annually). It’s particularly galling that even European hospitals and retirement homes don’t have air-conditioning. They could cut their heat death by half to three-quarters just by providing AC in those particularly vulnerable locations.
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max ≠ mean
111
Or a repeat of what is was like in 1876 to 1878. Arguably the strongest El Niño in recorded history that resulted in an estimated 50 million deaths. Or 1895 to 1902 resulting in wide spread famine in Brazil, India and Southern China. Now obviously in the late 19th century all this was down to man made climate change – NOT. Clearly as case of back to the future for Simon.
100
Or the 1930s that saw the hot dry period that led to the Oklahoma dustbowl (it wasn’t just depletion of artesian waters), droughts and famines in China, droughts in India, failed monsoons in the DEI, droughts in Australia, droughts in Argentina, etc., etc.
With CO2 much lower than today.
20
I’ll be 100 in 2040 so I’ll make sure I check my thermometer wherever I am. Oh! Wait a minute, it might be even hotter if I fail the entrance test for balmy weather and 70 virgins!
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PeterPetrum,
Now, now. You won’t be laughing when it turns out the one true religion wasn’t the mediaeval one promising 70 virgins, but the modern one of climate armageddon, with the holy writ of The Science and Al Gore its profit (Peace Prize be upon him). Repent, or you will find yourself banished to exponential warming for your blasphemies.
Mind you: Paradise, with its never-changing temperature, might be a bit dull to spend eternity in.
90
The weather is much more fun now we can talk earnestly about heat domes, polar vortexes and Godzilla El Ninos. It makes wild assertions sounds much more credible.
60
its the same sun
160
With different levels of moderation from cloud and duration and elevation and cooling.
Zero cloud coinciding with maximum elevation and 16.5 hours of daylight and very high ambient temperatures reducing surface cooling.
Same reason pavement only gets to freezing in midwinter or 65C in a heatwave.
70
Yes, the sun shining continually without clouds for 16 hours a day is very unusual. Add in that over the
Last 50 years sun hours have increased 15% and sun brightness the same and that’s a powerful combination
The real killer though is the uhi. Britain has twice as much built infrastructure than 50 years ago so the heat can’t escape.
240
Ah! But Bill Treuren this is the new hotter sun with built in extra heat from carbon dioxide (and reports from the Met Office from super-duper accurate Stations** with “accuracy” of about 5C).
** i.e. if anyone can find them. Check out Ray Sanders on tallbloke.wordpress.com
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That ancient sage Heraclitus would have contested talk of the “same sun”.
20
The sun is fairly constant, but we have little control over the natural variables here on earth. The great dimming ushered in the dark ages.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/colossal-volcano-behind-mystery-global-cooling-found
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The Sun is, like all stars, a polycyclic variable, with multiple different level cycles which sometimes peak together and sometimes hit their minimums together.
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Good catch, our sun is a variable star, but there is also a solar constant which has varied less than 0.2 percent in the past 400 years.
11
FWIW
“The EU’s Green War on Farmers Never Ends”
“A post on X on Tuesday by Dutch commentator Armand van Westen that has been circulating revisits the nitrogen debate in Dutch agriculture. Responding to a video by physicist and science journalist Arnout Jaspers – author of De Stikstoffuik (The Nitrogen Trap), the 2023 book that became a number-one bestseller in the Netherlands – van Westen makes a point that’s as simple as it is explosive: there is no real stikstofcrisis.
‘Stikstof’ has become shorthand for this entire heated debate about nitrogen pollution from farming, EU nature rules and the clash between environmental protection and agricultural and economic interests. The Dutch Government aims to reduce nitrogen deposition on ‘nitrogen-sensitive’ Natura 2000 protected areas (part of the EU-wide network of nature sites) so that it falls below ‘critical loads’, with targets set in national law following EU obligations. The subtitle of Jaspers’ book says it plainly: “Politicians in thrall to the eco-lobby.” ”
More at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/06/28/the-eus-green-war-on-farmers-never-ends/
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Nitrogen pollution?
At 78% of the earth’s atmosphere? Yes. Keep it out of the soil and whatever you do don’t breathe in.
Next the idiots of the world will worry about oxygen pollution. After all that’s 20% of the atmosphere.
And then there is the lethal dihydrogen monoxide.
250
1-in-a-100-year storm, Mel Brooks, celebrated becoming a centenarian yesterday, sharing his birth-date with Elon Musk, a youthful 55-year-old.
After all these decades History of the World: Part 1 still holds water, a rollicking jaunt poking the proverbial out of all sorts of wacky beliefs, for example The Spanish Inquisition with synchronised swimming nuns and narrated by Awesome Welles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR7hp0613QY
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Greg in NZ
I’ve just bought a bluray of several Mel Brooks films, including that one. Rather pricey but I wanted very much to get The Twelve Chairs (Chekov play early 1920’s – very hard to find).
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RlmzULjaTE
‘Prisoners of Love, Blue skies above …’
Any wonder Climate Change is an EMERGENCY>
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FWIW
Odds of it being banned in Oz?
“JOHN NOLTE: Citizen Vigilante Review: Cathartic Rebuttal to the Amoral One Battle After Another.”
https://instapundit.com/806752/#disqus_thread
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FWIW
“Boeing’s Starliner Is Such a Disaster That We Don’t Even Have Words”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/boeing-starliner-disaster-don-t-145100243.html
https://instapundit.com/806605/#disqus_thread
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Boeing absolutely destroyed one of the greatest engineering firms in the world by putting a bunch of MBAs who didn’t know the first thing about building engines in charge of the company. Their focus was on maximizing profitability on quarterly reports and driving up stock value while ignoring product quality and fostering engineering excellence. Then they compounded their problems by going all-in on DEI and concentrating on hiring the best ‘people of color’ they could find rather than the best engineers they could find. Now the company is a laughingstock and no one trusts their product.
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When lawyers or accountants are put in charge of technology companies, it doesn’t take long for the company to spiral downwards towards oblivion. Have worked for three tech companies that had built up from just an Australian base to developing great innovative products that were selling well around the world. All three companies went broke with stupid, silly CEOs that didn’t understand the business, and only saw it through dollars. Never understood that their key assets were the brilliant staff that came up with these new ideas.
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That is exactly what happened with my last employer, one of Australia’s larger pest management companies. It was sold by the family owners to a large French company, that had no experience or expertise in our field, and they sent out the accountant, who negotiated the purchase, to run it. I spent the next two months, under his command, firstly firing or making redundant over half the accounts staff (probably not too bad!) and then he insisted that I fire 13 of my technical staff, including my secretary (who was an amazing organiser). It was the worst year of my life. Eventually he suggested that I might like to take redundancy. I accepted!
Sure cut costs, but the company came to a complete standstill, lost clients and was eventually sold to a company that managed to resurrect it. I moved on.
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Decades back I played hockey with an absolute top flight forensic accountant who worked for one of the Big 4 multinationals, and was on $500k a year in the ’80s.
Her comment was that you shouldn’t put accountants in charge of anything or anybody other than other accountants, and that accountants were there to tell you how much many you had, how much you were owed, how much you owed, and how fast it was flowing. No decisions on that should be taken by accountants.
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In my earlier manufacturing business executive career I was employed by a subsidiary of a large well known multinational company that was located in Sydney and locally was head office for several companies. The head office people were all accountants and finance degree holders with no business management experience managing people and production, and they were almost impossible to deal with as they had no imagination, no appreciation of sales, marketing and manufacturing.
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Well, this looks a good read-
“At this particular moment in history, how much faith do you, personally, retain in people’s rationality? Overseas, we have seen wild myths take hold – the birther conspiracy around Barack Obama, the insanity of QAnon, the anti-vaccine movement. In Australia, you could add the increasingly popular Hansonian delusions: that by cutting migration and renewables you can magically fix the economic plight of Australians. How big a bet would you be willing to place on facts being an effective challenge to these ideas?”
Of course the nice thing about a press release is that the Govt can lay out anything as a fact. The partisan optimism of the writer is clear-
“Given the fact Labor has been in power four years and looks likely to govern for another five at least”
..its a shame he couldn’t realise that Labor have done nothing about these problems in their 4years, and they don’t want to. They will be keen on wealth redistribution, not creating wealth!
“When it began talking about a broken status quo, it focused on housing and tax. Albanese recently broadened this observation to encompass the entire economy. On Sunday, Chalmers said the “status quo is not working for people” in both the economy and society.”
We won’t get the smaller Govt we need, the freer labour laws, the ability to build our own wealth unhindered, we will get more borrowing, picking of winners and handouts to mates!
Mind you, he is deeply embedded in the Labor Party, so the SMH think he’s an expert.
“Sean Kelly is a regular columnist and was an adviser to former Labor prime ministers Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.”
https://smry.ai/www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/brick-by-brick-albanese-is-finding-faith-that-voters-will-see-reason-20260628-p60aoa.html?smryFrom=home
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Delusion? No!
It would go a long way to cut the costs for governments, businesses and the people.
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On the subject of thick as a brick:
https://centrist.nz/swarbrick-accused-of-undermining-nz-exporters-by-taking-climate-fight-offshore/
Last week I made mention of the Green bent brick narking to the UN about NZ’s failure to fall down and worship the anti-human Paris (non) Agreement: on further reading it became clear she/it complained to the European Union Trade Commissioner over the govt’s reluctance to totally destroy our tiny economy … guilty of adding 0.17% to the minuscule, minor, trace gas necessary for life on Earth.
[SNIP]
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‘They will be keen on wealth redistribution …’
That is what democratic socialists do for a living.
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There is no such thing as a “democratic” socialist.
You have two people.
One steals money from the other, just like the Government. You have one “winner” and one loser. 50% of the people are unhappy.
That’s not democratic. That’s dictatorship.
Coercive collective control over the means of production or wealth transfers relies on force regardless of voting.
“Democracy” doesn’t magically make taking someone’s earnings non-coercive or moral, it just spreads the coercion. A majority voting to expropriate a minority is still force. It’s no different to two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Socialists_of_America
Imagine a world where people are replaced by AI robots doing all manner of things, the DSA has some good ideas worth discussing.
02
Yesterday I actually heard a Democrat Congressman on one of news banter shows say that the Democratic Socialists of America aren’t really socialists, just normal traditional Democrats concerned about equity and fairness.
Then again a woman is really a woman even if she’s (he’s) a man.
And Warming causes more snow.
I only graduated 15th grade, so I am not capable of operating in modern sophisticated intellectual nuanced thought processes.
BTW, are the Russians still Communists?
I was given then impression they stopped and Western Capitalism triumphed in that Cold War thingy thirty years ago.
It occurs to me, that way things are going, pretty soon the Russians might end up being the only non-Communists around.
Ya’ never know until the fat trans lady sings.
I’m thinking of forming a group called Poor Dumb People of America.
Then by modern political and cultural standards I will be rich and smart.
Finally.
50
‘ ….are the Russians still Communists?’
No, the Kremlin is full of gangsters and fascists.
01
Ah, the old Communists characterization of Capitalists.
Thanks for answering my question.
Cliche never dies, just becomes stylish again.
An oldy but goody.
Cold War … good times.
I’d be for the return of mini-skits if not for the new trend of tattoos.
60
The have not sold out their state owned enterprises to western companies. This upsets the west. How can western oligarchs be expected to wield influence there without buying everything up. They are capitalists but still have some state owned enterprises.
10
Just ONE data centre can do this
Will Binney on the OLD(!!) NSA data centre:
“They would have plenty of space with five zettabytes to store at least something on the order of 100 years worth of the worldwide communications, phones and emails and stuff like that.”
The infrastructure for total surveillance is not coming. It is already here and expanding at breakneck speed. These facilities do not just store data. They enable real-time tracking, retroactive searches, and AI-powered analysis of every aspect of our lives. They will collect information from all the cameras at every intersection (such as Flock Safety license plate readers), every Ring doorbell and home security camera, the entire Internet of Things (smart thermostats, watches, appliances, lights), smartphones and apps, social media platforms, financial transactions, cell towers, public WiFi, smart city infrastructure, drones, and countless other connected devices, creating a comprehensive digital picture of everybody’s daily lives.
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2026/06/28/data-collection-off-the-tracks-old-nsa-data-center-vs-new-hyperscale-ai-data-centers/
So *ONE* new US govt data centre can monitor every single communication and gizmo and store a century’s worth of information for everyone on the planet.
Why not just have everyone query that one data centre and forget all the others then? 😎😎
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Nah, set them up and let them go! Herd all the politicians into one building, all Govt bureaurats into another and anyone who wants to rule over others, hook them all up… They can govern our alter-egos in the machines as they go about their daily business, interacting with other imaginary people, driving imaginary cars past imaginary cameras and committing imaginary crimes… The ultimate Matrix, a real version of The Sims.
Then we weld the doors shut.
50
Sounds like a scene out of Hitchhikers Guide, where the bureaucrats were all “sent ahead” to a distant planet, to make the plans for everybody that was “going to arrive real soon” from planet Earth. They were still there, still formulating meetings, setting up conferences and committees, and wondering when they would be joined by the rest of the population.
50
Graeme4,
Important nitpick: the B-Ark people were sent ahead *to* Earth (from Golgafrincham). That we are their descendants was Douglas Adams’s explanation for why Earthlings are so pathetic.
40
Ahh, thanks Robert, I stand corrected. It’s been a very long time since I saw the series.
10
Was that when the dolphins were running the planet, or do I have that wrong as well?
10
Graeme4, in case you look in:
Dolphins weren’t running the planet, mice were. Dolphins came into a fun philosophical point, where humans claimed to be smarter than dolphins because they did all the modern society things whereas dolphins just splashed around and had fun. The dolphins claimed to be smarter for those exact same reasons. The dolphins ultimately proved smarter, because they escaped the Earth when it was about to be destroyed (their goodbye note being “So long, and thanks for all the fish”).
A little pathetic that I remember so much of it. The radio serial played on 2JJ on Saturday evenings in the late ’70s and my brother and I would listen as we worked on the motor bike in preparation for the next day’s ride or race. Happy associations. Later read the books. Watched the TV series too. Much later watched Disney’s awful movie of it. Maybe not a coincidence that that’s my order of merit of the various forms, best to worst: audio play, books, tv serial, and don’t bother with the movie.
00
‘Older voters and those who have attended TAFE who are not university educated are more likely to back Senator Hanson.”
Should I take offence at this statement made in todays News.com?.
After all I grew up in an era when many people left school at 14, I made it to 16 but only went to a lowly technical school, TAFE had yet to be invented. While not leaping to conclusions , this appears to be a slur on the intelligence of people that did not, could not go on to tertiary education.
Why do those who “think they know” stoop to denigration as an argument. If its the best they have got, no wonder opinion polls about politics are so often wrong.
160
I’ve met some really dumb so-called “educated” people.
Just because they have a PHD after their name does NOT mean they are smart.
And the aspect of the educated elites talking down from on high never goes down well.
That sentence could just as well be…
‘Older voters and those who have attended TAFE who are not university indoctrinated are more likely to back Senator Hanson.”
280
finally! Someone who knows that dumb has a b.
010
In the modern world, PhDs are amazingly easy to get, which makes them near worthless. As someone said to me, they could have obtained a PhD but didn’t have the money or the time!
This did not apply to Dr. Jim Chalmers, Dr. Andrew Forrest, Dr. Kevin Rudd and a host of self appointed geniuses. Then you add all those gift PhDs to politicians and rich people who donate.
And our very own Dr. Tim Flannery who managed a Science PhD from a degree in English! Or Melbourne University Professor Bruce Pascoe.
150
I was very sorry for one Physics student in Melbourne, straight A’s and still did not qualify for PhD entry. Those were the days of hard cutoffs. The University was not run on a business model then. He went on to excel in Biophysics, building a huge business in the US. Politicians don’t have to build anything and can retire in indexed luxury.
120
That is not how you qualify for doing a PhD. You do a research honours year which is not graded by ABCDE. Access to honours is merit based but acceptance is still discretionary depending on the topic and the wherewithal of the supervisor to take on student.
The honours mark, any papers that ensued and personal references are the guide that the PhD supervisor will use to accept a particular student. There is not, nor has there ever been, a hard cut off. And I mean ever. The main thing is whether the supervisor has money for a project, time to supervise a student and likes the student.
Access to a scholarship is mark based and is competitive at whatever level (federal, state, local) among the applicants.
And no, what you wrote was not a Melbourne Uni thing.
28
Completely disagree, as usual. The research honours year was the determination entry point. Clearly you were not there.
40
you don’t get into a PhD because you get honours. And no, none of what you wrote was right.
04
And I will also take offence. It was funny to see freshly-minted “ginger-beers”,straight out of uni, turn up at the workplace and try to tell the old hands what to do.
And the experienced young tech folks, who in most cases never went to uni, that I provide with additional training are doing a great job running the complex sections of our industries. My faith in the young folk of our country is always invigorated when working with these very good tech folks.
120
A similar statement –
The survival of newly minted lieutenants is about proportional to the notice they take of their sergeant majors
50
Those who are university educated tend to believe in global warming and have faith in the scientists. They are up themselves.
Old guys and tradies may vote for Hanson, but they’ll keep it under their hats.
72
I’m pretty sure that you are pre Whitlam. In our day rich dads paid for uni for the sons* (girls married doctors). Many bright people didn’t get the education they deserved.
* Why doctoring was a family business.
30
No, there were Junior Government scholarships, Commonwealth Scholarships for Secondary and Commonwealth Scholarships for university. Lots of doctors did not have rich parents, quite the reverse. In fact almost everyone at university was on a Commonwealth Government Scholarship so Whitlam’s move cost him nothing. Which was handy as under Whitlam and Cairns, as today, the government was broke.
But the universities exploded soon after that increasing in size x5 and x10 and many more came from nowhere, often old converted Technical schools and Institutes of Technology rebranded and packaged for Government money and unlimited students. And technical schools vanished as did apprenticeships. It was a pattern in the UK as well. Mechanics Institutes became Institutes and Polytechnics which became Universities and soon everyone was a philosopher with zero practical skills. Nurses courses became degrees. In fact all tertiary training was converted to degrees. And what that did was strip a workforce of basic skills and create a large number of government dependent and politically very active leftist institutions totally dependent on government handouts and then foreign students while standards collapsed everywhere.
50
In Picking Winners News:
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has announced up to $45 million in funding to support Sicona Battery Technologies (Sicona) to demonstrate manufacturing of its advanced silicon-carbon battery anode material, SiCx®.
ARENA CEO Darren Miller said the project supports the development of next-generation battery technologies and strengthens Australia’s role in the global battery supply chain.
https://arena.gov.au/news/arena-backs-next-generation-battery-technology-to-boost-ev-performance/
Oddly, 12 months ago the Sicona CEO was justifying licensing it’s technology to Indian chemical company, Himadri, for use in India, on the grounds that startups in Australia are too tough:
In the long term, Himadri’s plan to build its own manufacturing facility producing Sicona’s product will form the blueprint for the Australian company establishing its own facility elsewhere, most likely in the US.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-29/sicona-technology-faster-battery-storage-licensed-to-himadri/105329758
Last month Himadri increased its stake in Sicona via a $15m placement and an exclusive licensing agreement.
A cynic might think that ARENA is actually spending $45m of my money strengthening India’s role in the battery supply chain.
Meanwhile in China, battery giant, Ganfeng, is spending $billions on its own high performance silicon/carbon electrodes. Ganfeng will obviously respect Sicona’s IP as published in their patents.
70
If this technology is so good, why does the taxpayer have to fund it?
Surely there are plenty of rich, woke Leftists who would love to invest a small part of their fortunes into it?
What is the Government even doing playing games with our hard-earned taxes like this, trying to pick winners? Let the marketplace decide.
Indeed. Just like the Government gave $1 billion of our taxes to the California quantum computer firm PsiQuantum. Why? If the huge US venture capital industry couldn’t fund it, then it probably isn’t worth doing. Plus “investing” in numerous other ventures like “green” hydrogen – not the job of government.
150
DM I’d give you a bagfull of green thumbs if I could, the whole argument is in your reply.
Govt is very poor at picking winners, but very good at throwing our money away on harebrained schemes of persuasive scam artists.
If an idea is any good, private investors will put money into it.
You will find the owners of the business with new yachts and private jets, while selling the whole thing overseas in a year or three. If it crashes and burns, they won’t return any money.
With the Indians making it for a fraction of the local cost, its worthwhile having a ‘show pony’ factory here that runs purely on Govt subsidies and keeps management wealthy. If you hire enough janitors you can cry that the job losses will be horrendous if you have to close it down when subsidies are threatened. After all, it will return a profit ‘just down the road’…
Yet people vote for this sort of stuff!
90
Sounds very similar to another Australian battery technology manufacturer, who was at first going to setup a battery manufacturing plant in Qld, then a plant in New York. The battery was supposed to charge an EV in minutes. The QLD govt invested $3.1 million in the company.
30
Plus “investing” in numerous other ventures like “green” hydrogen – not the job of government.
Green hydrogen should give any serious Australian palpitations.
Commonwealth and State
investmentsgifts currently total between ~$8billion and ~$15 billion, depending on whether you include the Hydrogen Production Tax Incentive.Probably unfair to include it, because there is no commercial Green Hydrogen production, nor any sign of it.
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01
You can get 17/1 that Hastie will be the next PM.
11
If not Hastie then labor and you can put away your pom-poms for another few years.
21
01
Get Labor out of power, with or without ON, and it’s going to take ON, and then sort yourselves out.
As it stands if the conservative Parties don’t cross preference each other but go for the throat they are just going to hand Labor more years in power and more time to bribe the electorate and totally screw the country.
The Liberal Party has got itself into its current situation by being wishy washy Labor lite, me tooing all sorts of stupid leftard ideas instead of keeping the so called “moderates” aka Labor infiltrators, well away from the levers of power within the Party.
Far too many senior Liberals over the last 25 or so years have been nothing but Laborites wearing blue ties.
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Andrew Hastie was summoned to give evidence in court as part of his role as a witness, which is a formal requirement for individuals who have information relevant to a case. If summoned, he must attend court unless otherwise informed by the prosecutor.
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I was very surprised to read your comments yesterday in reply to mine regarding Captain Andrew Hastie, supporting a political party should not be in the gutter, despite the Union Labor gutter tactics so often used against their political opponents.
Captain Hastie served our country, he does not deserve the treatment he is receiving from One Nation and note the sources mentioned in this link;
https://citynews.com.au/2026/one-nation-targets-hastie-over-roberts-smith-affair/
02
Plus “investing” in numerous other ventures like “green” hydrogen – not the job of government.
Green hydrogen should give any serious Australian palpitations.
Commonwealth and State
investmentsgifts currently total between $8billion and $15 billion, depending on whether you include the Hydrogen Production Tax Incentive.Probably unfair to include it, because there is no commercial Green Hydrogen production, nor likely.
30
Bonus second post.
Sorry.
10
FWIW
“Heat Dome Halts German Trains After Track Sealant Liquifies”
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/heat-dome-halts-german-trains-after-track-sealant-liquifies
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