EV Landcruiser

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Originally Posted by Phideaux

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** It's not too hard to imagine our red centre peppered with combined solar/wind/battery off-grid charging points.

Phideaux.

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The Outback is already peppered with solar / battery off grid installations, In the form of Telstra repeater stations, which are pretty much redundant with the roll out of the NBN , the tech is 30 years old retrofitting with modern efficient panels, & adding charging points will be cheap & Easy.

Obviously not sufficient for EV saturation , but its a start . My DIY Landy EV has a practical range of 80km , I could easily cross the continent at the moment hopping from Caravan park to Caravan park (charge via 15Amp outlet) & then repeater station to repeater station , oops , did I forget to hand my Telstra keys back ??

This is interesting

Telstra unveils its big battery - it's nearly 10 times bigger than Tesla’s : RenewEconomy

Solar powered charging stations will solve the outback touring range issue.

BTW coal is only cheaper because coal power stations and railways were totally taxpayer funded so were 100% subsidised, never having to repay the cost, and then sold off for a pittance, so the true cost was never recovered. Factor in the original cost and they are unviable.
They were sold off because it wasn't financially viable to update them.
It's also not financially to lend the money needed to build new coal power systems, which is why none of the banks will lend to coal. There isn't a viable business case.

Britian just ran for 2 days for the first time in 136 years without using any coal in their power stations. Britain goes more than two days without using coal power for first time in 136 years | The Independent

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Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Solar powered charging stations will solve the outback touring range issue.

BTW coal is only cheaper because coal power stations and railways were totally taxpayer funded so were 100% subsidised, never having to repay the cost, and then sold off for a pittance, so the true cost was never recovered. Factor in the original cost and they are unviable.
They were sold off because it wasn't financially viable to update them.
It's also not financially to lend the money needed to build new coal power systems, which is why none of the banks will lend to coal. There isn't a viable business case.

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I thought they were sold off so the Gubmint could balance the books (on paper)! The new owners now bleed the end user dry, whilst also getting great wads of taxpayer's dollars.
No way should any nation hand control of it's vital assets, like power, water, and transportation infrastructure, over to a corporation whose sole aim is to increase the value to shareholders.
Anyone who says that privatisation of any asset will lead to lower costs for users, is as stupid as the people who vote for them.

Stations like Hazelwood and Liddell were decrepit.

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Originally Posted by donh54

I thought they were sold off so the Gubmint could balance the books (on paper)! The new owners now bleed the end user dry, whilst also getting great wads of taxpayer's dollars.

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They were most probably sold off as the government knew what a liability they would become. So they sold them whilst they were still economically viable but had been written down. So saved money in upgrades and made money on sale.