TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Image:  Designed by rawpixel.com / Freepik Recently I had cause to visit the after hours clinic in the emergency ward of my local hospital. Don't worry, I'm fine, thanks for asking. I'm not dying, or even at risk of dying (apparently). Anyway it was a Saturday morning and I was there for a few hours sitting in one of several patient bays all divided by curtains but with the entrance completely open. What I noticed is that everyone of the staff seemed to talk to each other like they were standing in a field, raising their voice just to be heard by the next nearest person (probably standing quite some distance away). Now I get that in a busy emergency ward it's important that staff can be understood and communicate clearly but I know this morning wasn't busy because one of the staff said as much in a phone call... "No, it's not busy, just a steady stream so far." I also know that the patient just down from me came in as a result of an allergi...

Photo: Powering Forward Website Following on from last week's article, Nuclear Power Won't Reduce Your Electricity Bill Like You Think , the Australian Government launched a new initiative and website called Powering Forward . The site serves two purposes, the first of which is to prompt individuals to take action over reducing the cost of their own electricity bills. Often individuals will simply stay with their current energy provider despite receiving impossibly high bills because it's perceived that changing providers is just too hard. A situation that energy companies definitely exploit, knowing that a good percentage of their customers won't take any action to find cheaper alternatives. Along with assisting individuals to find cheaper providers the site also lists government rebates and other schemes people may be entitled to if they're experiencing financial hardship. The other key function of the Powering Forward website is to outline the Governm...

Cooling towers of a nuclear power station. Photo: Petr Kratochvil Australian energy consumers are currently in a crisis, receiving some of the highest power bills in the world, making us a prime target for the nuclear energy vultures who claim their industry will bring the cost of electricity down. It's a smoke and mirrors argument when you consider the cost of actually producing electricity isn't the main reason for Australia's ever increasing consumer electricity prices. Hypothetically, even after the cost of installing nuclear power plants, the actual cost reductions won't be as dramatic as the nuclear energy industry would have you believe. According to this article,  A high price for policy failure: the ten-year story of spiralling electricity bills by David Blowers, published in January 2018, the two biggest factors are the cost of the network (transporting electricity), and the retailer margins (cost of billing and servicing the customer). These are...