That's quite some revisionism you're engaging in there, mhaze.

//I stopped posting when my point had been fully established and you began your little games to try to extricate yourself from the corner you'd talk yourself into.//

You titled a thread "The great unravelling", made broad claims about climate action collapsing, then stopped engaging once those claims were challenged with evidence. Saying "my point had been fully established" doesn't make it so. It's just a post-hoc description of a skedaddle.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=10726&page=0

Pure projection and assertion.

As for scaling, no one here claimed this UNSW result "changes everything". That framing is yours. Materials research only ever matters once it scales, and everyone knows that. Pointing out early-stage progress isn't hype, it's how technological development actually unfolds. Calling every such result "a dime a dozen" avoids engaging with whether the underlying constraints are being reduced.

And regarding evidence, I didn't say you deny warming. I said you repeatedly assert that evidence for action is lacking, while treating political retreat as if it were evidentiary retreat. Those aren't the same thing. The Axios article you linked makes that distinction explicit.

You're free to track political shifts. But politics changing doesn't retroactively invalidate the physics, the economics, or the direction of technological improvement. Conflating those is the sleight of hand here, not a lack of subtlety.

Subtlety still eluding you.

"I said you repeatedly assert that evidence for action is lacking,"

Well actually you didn't. I said that and you've retreated with alacrity.

But then, in the same post, you assert that I "retroactively invalidate the physics, the economics, or the direction of technological improvement."

I suppose if I pointed out how wrong that assertion is you'd starting looking for some wording to retreat without acknowledging it. But just for the heck of it, I don't 'invalidate' the physics, just the hype, nor the economics, just emphasis economics you'd prefer to ignore, and don't think technology has a direction.

Quick JD, I'm sure you can find some wording in there to mispresent.

No retreat required, mhaze.

//Well actually you didn't. I said that and you've retreated with alacrity//

You're just arguing about phrasing instead of substance.

When you say the case for net zero is "weak and largely political", that is asserting that the evidence for action is lacking. You're free to prefer that wording, but the position itself hasn't changed.

And I didn't say you deny physics or economics. I said you treat political retreat as if it were evidentiary retreat, then backfill that with claims about "hype", selectively framed economics, and an insistence that technology has no direction. That's not subtlety, it's re-framing after the fact.

If technology had no direction, costs wouldn't fall, efficiencies wouldn't rise, and deployment wouldn't follow learning curves. Yet that's exactly what we observe across energy technologies, including solar. You can dislike the hype without pretending the trajectory is unknowable.

At this point, the pattern is familiar: assert collapse, shift to politics, dispute wording, then accuse others of misrepresentation. I'm not interested in chasing that loop.

If you want to discuss which economics matter, or which constraints remain unresolved, that's a substantive discussion. This isn't.

"Quick JD, I'm sure you can find some wording in there to mispresent." - mhaze

Heh. Theatrics are fun, aren't they?

Something with precedent would land more effectively, though.

"In a major milestone for Australia's energy transition, the National Electricity Market (NEM)—which supplies electricity to the eastern and southern states—achieved over 50% renewable energy generation for a full quarter for the first time in history. According to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), renewables supplied 51 per cent of total demand in the December 2025 quarter."

As he emerges from his cave, for his daily hunt of a dinosaur meal, the neanderthal knuckle draggier claims that research is really a waste of time and money, he personally discovered fire by accident. Maybe the NKD believes everything comes about by accident or chance, or through the work of the gods.

If technology had no direction, costs wouldn't fall,

Meanwhile...

"Annual Goods inflation was 3.4 per cent in the 12 months to December, up from 3.3 per cent to November. The main reason for stronger annual Goods inflation in December was Electricity, which rose 21.5 per cent in the 12 months to December, compared to a rise of 19.7 per cent to November. "
From the ABS December Qtr release.

Don't you just hate it when the real world doesn't measure up to your fantasies.

That's a category error, mhaze, not a rebuttal.

You're citing retail electricity prices in a single inflationary period, not technology costs. Those are different things, measured differently, driven by different factors.

Retail electricity prices reflect fuel prices, wholesale volatility, transmission costs, market structure, regulation, and post-COVID inflation shocks. They are not a direct proxy for the cost trajectory of generation technologies.

When people say solar technology has a direction, they mean this: the levelised cost of generation for solar and wind has fallen dramatically over time due to learning curves, scale, and efficiency gains. That's been documented repeatedly across decades. A short-term spike in consumer prices doesn't negate that any more than petrol price spikes negate engine efficiency improvements.

If technology had "no direction", costs wouldn't fall at the technology level over time. Yet they do. What you're pointing to is a temporary price signal in a stressed market, not a refutation of technological trajectories.

Confusing CPI movements with technology learning curves doesn't make the "real world" bite back. It just mixes up levels of analysis.

Try again.