VincentRJ

Okay! I'll try to explain it to you. First, I have never written that I think it is okay for humans to wreak destruction on the planet. The word 'wreak' relates to large amounts of destruction, usually resulting from anger, rage, revenge, hatred, and so on. The point I'm trying to get across is that the amount damage that has been caused to this planet, throughout its history, from natural events, has been far, far greater than any damage caused by humans. The most obvious example is that extinction event which wiped out the dinosaurs around 66 million years ago, possibly caused by a single asteroid hitting the planet. It is estimated that the damage resulted in the extinction of at least 75% of all species on the planet. How does that compare with the damage resulting from WW2, or the damage resulting from human-produced plastic waste in the oceans? I'm not claiming that it is okay for humans to pollute the environent. I'm just presenting an objective, unbiased perspective to get things in proportion. Also, I'm not aware of any other species on our planet that is so concerned about the wellfare of the planet and the survival of other species, as certain humans are. When the whales became close to extinction due to over-hunting, most countries created a ban on whale hunting, and the whale populations are now thriving. (Although off-shore windmills do appear to be a continuing problem that harm the whales. ) Can you think of any other carnivorous species on the planet which would stop eating another species because the numbers were diminishing? Whilst it's true that human activity, over the centuries, has resulted in the extinction of a number of species, due to over-hunting, landscape changes, and the introduction of invasive species such as cats and rabbits in Australia, for example, most of such extinctions are not directly caused by humans, but by the natural invasive species gobbling up the other natural species which have not had sufficient time to evolve protective strategies. You might claim that it is not natural for us to cut down forests for timber resources and to create agricultural land for food, but the fact is, all forms of life have to compete and gather resources to survive and flourish. This is a natural process. However, some creatures are better than others, at certain tasks. For example, humans are very good at recycling huge quantities of coal and oil that are buried deep in the ground. When we burn these fossil fuels, we recycle the Carbon Dioxide which was sequestered millions of years ago when forests thrived because of very high concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere. The following study provides some amazing information. (My apologies to any 'climate alarmists" who might suffer extreme anxiety when reading this. ) "From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25. An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States." https://www.nasa.gov/technology/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth-study-finds/#:~:text=Karl B.,Hille&text=From a quarter to half,Climate Change on April 25

Is there an excuse for the world-wide devastation from frequent Earthquakes, Volcanic Eruptions, Hurricanes, Cyclones, Tornadoes, Forest fires from lightning strikes, massive flooding, massive pandemics which periodically kill millions of people and hundreds of millions of other animals which we may not be aware of? When damage and loss of life results from the above-mentioned events, we tend to focus only on the effects on humans and their habitats. However, the damage is far more extensive. Sometimes endangered species might become extinct, and certain pathogens might cause enormous numbers of deaths of certain species that are below our radar, and many areas which are not inhabited by humans will experience severe damage. The total of all this damage, caused by natural factors, might be thousands of times greater than the amount of damage caused by humans, who are a natural product of natural evolutionary processes.

"LOL. One man with a chainsaw can destroy more trees than natural causes, and one man driving a bulldozer can do more damage than a million years of weather." You're beginning to sound like a 'Climate Change Alarmist'. In a location with unusually benign weather for a certain period, it's true that one man with a chainsaw could destroy more trees than from natural causes in that area during that period. However, in another area, in dry conditions with windy and hot weather, a simple lightning strike could result in more loss of trees in just a few days than a man with a chainsaw could destroy in a whole lifetime. Likewise, far less than a million years of changes in weather resulted in North Africa becoming the Sahara Desert. A mere 10,000 years ago, what is now the Sahara Desert, was a flourishing grassland with lots of wildlife. Nobody with a bulldozer could make such a change. "Humans evolved from a lower species, and used their brains to become monsters. If we can't treasure the planet, the source of our life, we do not deserve to inhabit it." There's nothing that the worst of humans do that is not already being done as a matter of course in nature. For example, a certain species of female spider will eat the male alive, after copulation, to provide food for its offspring. Even Jack the Ripper didn't eat the women he killed, although he did mutilate some of the corpses If you were a cow, would you rather be dragged down and torn apart by a Lion, or would you rather be successfully stunned by a bolt gun, so you are unconscious before being torn apart in the slaughterhouse?

Humans are natural beings. We evolved from ape-like creatures and developed a capacity for abstract thought and complex language, which gives us some advantage over other species, but we still have difficulty combatting invisibly tiny creatures, such as viruses and bacteria, which can cause more damage than a world war. More people died as a result of the 'Spanish Flu', during and after WW1, than were killed in combat during the war. As countries become wealthier, their populations tend to decline. I doubt we will ever reach 16 billion, but even 16 billion humans would weigh far less than the total mass of earth worms in the ground. Let's get things in perspective.

C'mon now! The damage done to the planet through natural processes, has far exceeded the damage done by humans during our entire history, including all the wars, atomic bomb explosions, nuclear accidents, toxic waste and general pollution. Consider all the damage done by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tectonic plate movement, asteroid strikes, lightning strikes combined with wind and dry weather which have burnt much larger areas of forests in the past, without the presence of human intervention, and natural viruses and bacteria causing widespread pandemics, and so on. Whilst you've probably heard of the 5 mass extictions that are claimed to have occurred during the past 500 million years, degrees of extinction rates are a continuous process of natural evolution. The following article provides some details. "There’s a natural background rate to the timing and frequency of extinctions: 10% of species are lost every million years, 30% every 10 million years, and 65% every 100 million years. It would be wrong to assume that species going extinct is out of line with what we would expect. Evolution occurs through the balance of extinction – the end of species – and speciation – the creation of new ones." https://ourworldindata.org/mass-extinctions#:~:text=There have been five mass,history - Our World in Data

Very amusing, Sunmaster. Did you draw this? It's quite a bit different from the Michael Angelo painting in the Sistine chapel.

The tax money should be spent on preventing the flood damage occurring, by building more dams and creating better drainage systems. We have the knowledge and technology to do that. But instead, there is this absurd political idea, supported by scientisits on the gravy train, that we can prevent the flood damge occurring by spending trillions of dollars, world-wide, on reducing atmospheric CO2 levels. 🤣

"The funds should be allocated to a dedicated account aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to changing climate conditions, supporting both production sectors and the public." Adapting to changing climate conditions is very sensible, but spending resources on reducing emissions of CO2, which is a clear, odourless gas, essential for all life, is very foolish. That money should be spent on reducing the real pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, mercury, and in particular the particulate matter from the burning of crop residue and forests that occur every year in Thailand.

"ICE buyers have cool and smart transport..." Wow! So you're not aware that ICE vehicles generate a lot of heat? 🤣

For those who are in denial about the advantages of the electric vehicle, following is an informative article about the benefits. "According to the Department of Energy (DOE), in an EV, about 59-62 percent of the electrical energy from the grid goes to turning the wheels, whereas gas combustion vehicles only convert about 17-21 percent of energy from burning fuel into moving the car. This means that an electric vehicle is roughly three times as efficient as an ICE vehicle. Needing less energy to power your car also helps bring down the cost." https://www.nrdc.org/bio/madhur-boloor/electric-vehicle-basics#:~:text=This means that an electric,helps bring down the cost

Those record temperatures were in cities, urban areas, and close to airports, where the Urban Heat Island (UHI} effect causes higher temperatures that sometimes break previous records in the same location when there was less development, that is, less concrete structures, pavements, and black asphalt roads absorbing lots of heat. Likewise, measuring the severity of extreme weather events by estimating the cost of the damage to human infrastructure and homes, is nonsense. As the population expands, more houses tend to be built in flood plains. A current riverine flood might be the same height is was 50 years ago, yet there are probably 4 times more houses built in the vicinity of the previous floods, resulting in a record cost of damages. Nevertheless, pretending that reducing human CO2 emissions can make the climate benign, which it never was, is a great religious/political idea to motivate the development of new and better sources of energy. Not only is CO2 essential for all life, affordable and reliable supplies of energy are essential for modern civilizations to flourish. The development of the electric vehicle is a poitive outcome of this 'climate alarmism' propaganda.

I should begin by stating that I am not convinced that reducing CO2 emission will have any net benefit for the environment. CO2 is the 'gas of life' and the increased quantities in the atmosphere, due to human emissions, have helped to green the planet and increase crop production. In general, warmer climates are better than colder climates, for humanity to flourish, provided there is a sufficient supply of water. However, I'm objective enough to appreciate the benefits of electric vehicles, regardless of climate change issues. My understanding is that BEVs are far more efficient devices than ICE vehicles. If all the petrol used in domestic ICE vehicles were used instead to produce electricity from a large generator connected to the grid, the amount of electricity produced would be far greater than that required to fuel the same number of BEVs driving the same number of kilometres. BEVs are also less expensive to service, excluding the rare accidents that damage the batteries. The way forward is to use our energy supplies more efficiently. The following article addresses the efficiency issue, but it also assumes that CO2 emissions are a problem, so maybe the site is not complerely reliable. 😉 https://www.energycouncil.com.au/analysis/evs-are-they-really-more-efficient/ “recent studies that include the complete life cycle of different types of vehicles, as well as their well to wheel data have revealed that even with fossil fuel-based electricity generation and power losses during transmission from electricity generation to filling the battery, electric cars were found to have lower levels of greenhouse gas production … even on the coal rich Australian grid, EVs produce 40 per cent less GHG when compared with equivalent ICE vehicles. In fact, their well to wheel calculations show that to drive 1km in an average petrol vehicle uses 1.36kWh/km while the average figure for electric cars is just 0.28kWh/km – an energy use figure close to five times less than for petrol cars.”

The main disadvantages of the BEVs, for most people, excluding the very wealthy, are the initial high purchasing price, plus the charging difficulties for people who live in apartment buildings in the city. For those who live in individual houses in the suburbs and have garages, and perhaps solar panels on the roof, the main disadvantage is the initial high cost of the EV. But it seems that is about to change. A Chinese company, BYD, has introduced an affordable EV hatchback, named the e2, which will soon be available in Australia for possibly less than A$30,000, which is no more expensive than an equivalent ICE vehicle. The following site provides the details. https://motowheeler.com/au/electric-cars/byd-e2-12920

The following article from 'Time Magazine' addresses very well the point I was trying to get across. https://time.com/6175734/reliance-on-fossil-fuels/ "Modern economies will always be tied to massive material flows, whether those of ammonia-based fertilizers to feed the still-growing global population; plastics, steel, and cement needed for new tools, machines, structures, and infrastructures; or new inputs required to produce solar cells, wind turbines, electric cars, and storage batteries. And until all energies used to extract and process these materials come from renewable conversions, modern civilization will remain fundamentally dependent on the fossil fuels used in the production of these indispensable materials. " As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I think it's sensible to search for alternative sources of energy because fossil fuels are a necessity for many products that are required for populations to flourish, and eventually the reserves will become depleted if we don't find alternative sources of fuel. In other words, we should save the fossil fuels for the essential products that renewable electricity cannot produce.

"Once again, you've been claiming that China's has an edge in the cost of power because of coal consumption and that's why autos are cheaper to manufacture. Now you're claiming that power costs more in China because of renewables and therefore autos aren't cheaper to manufacture because of that?. Make up your mind." No. I didn't claim that. I claimed: "If you look at the attached graph, you will see that China's increase in fossil fuel use far exceeds the increase in 'so-called' renewable energy." Fossil fuels include oil and natural gas which are actually more efficient at producing electricity than coal. Coal is used for many products other than electrical energy, such as Steel and Cement production, Paper, Aluminium, Chemical and Pharmaceutical products, and plant fertilizers, and so on. "Also, you're confusing capacity with usage. China has built lots of wind power fields but hasn't connected them to the grid. That's what happens in the socialist sector of the Chinese economy." No. It's not me who is confusing capacity with usage, but possibly the articles on the internet. I can only get such information from the internet. I don't rely upon the Masss Media because of their bias is towards alarmism. "Also, you're mistakenly assuming that renewables refers basically to solar and wind. Actually, renewables also includes hydroelectric power. But if you just take the percentage of how much wind and solar contribute to China's economy it was 11.75% in 2021." No. I'm well aware that hydro electric is an important contributor to renewable energy. In fact, in certain areas which have a regular rainfall and a landscape suitable for dam construction, the combination of wind, solar and hydro, could produce all the electricity required. But such electricity cannot produce all the products that modern societies require. Refer attached image of the numerous products that require oil and natural gas; from the following site. https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/11/f68/Products Made From Oil and Natural Gas Infographic.pdf

"It seems that energy costs in the US for example, where coal makes up a far smaller percentage of power provided, rates *have been mostly less than in China." We should distinguish between 'total power generated' and 'electricity'. The percentage of total energy in the form of electricity tends to be around 20% of total energy. The articles you linked in your post do not suggest that electricity cost in China are higher. Refer attached image of "Household electricity prices worldwide in March 2023, by select country (in U.S. dollars per kilowatt-hour)" The current retail price for household electricity in China, at 8 cents per KWh, is less than half the price of electricity in the USA, at 18 cents per KWh, according to your linked articles. However, household retail price is not the same as industrial retail price. Your linked articles shows the rise in US industrial electricity prices since an extreme low in 1970, before the alarm about Global Warming began. Refer attached graphic images. It seems the industial retail price in the US, as of 2022, is only very marginally more expensive than the domestic price of electricity in China. I couldn't find a reference in your linked articles to the industrial price of electricity in China, so I searched the internet and found the following site. https://www.ceicdata.com/en/china/price-monitoring-center-ndrc-transaction-price-production-material-electricity "Electricity for Industry: 35 kV & Above: Beijing data was reported at 0.800 RMB/kWh in Aug 2023." 0.800 Chinese Yuan = 0.112 US-Dollar, which is just about 11 US cent. In other words, the current price of electricity for industry in Beijing is higher than it is in the US. That is strange. How can that be? After further research, I came across the following site, showing the current electricity prices, on average, in China in 2023. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1373596/business-electricity-price-china/ "Business electricity prices in China 2019-2023 Published by Statista Research Department, Oct 6, 2023 Electricity prices for businesses amounted to 8.8 U.S. dollar cents per kilowatt-hour in China in March 2023. Business electricity prices decreased in the country from over 10.4 U.S. dollar cents per kilowatt-hour in June 2020. Household electricity in China was cheaper, amounting to 7.6 U.S. dollar cents per kilowatt-hour in March 2023." I also searched for the percentage of electricity in China and the US that is generated from renewables. The results were revealing. "Renewable energy generates about 20% of all U.S. electricity." https://www.energy.gov/eere/renewable-energy#:~:text=modernize the grid.-,Renewable Energy in the United States,that percentage continues to grow. However, China's installed non-fossil fuel electricity capacity exceeds 50% of total. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/chinas-installed-non-fossil-fuel-electricity-capacity-exceeds-50-total-2023-06-12/ Any higher price of electricity in China, if there really is any, could be attributed to its greater use of renewables to produce electricity. Agreed? ????

I don't dispute that. China is the leader in the production of many products, especially solar panels and now electric cars. As I've mentioned before, they are able to rapidly expand the production of these products because they have the intelligence to refrain from restricting the availability of cheap fossil fuel, and they also employ cheap labour. If you look at the attached graph, you will see that China's increase in fossil fuel use far exceeds the increase in 'so-called' renewable energy. I say 'so-called' because I think there is a distortion in the claimed percentage figures for renewables. For example, when a claim is made that 17% of China's electricity is generated by renewables, I don't believe that the 17% takes into consideration the amount of fossil fuels that were used in the construction and installation of the 'so-called' renewable devices, such as windmills and solar panels. If it takes, say, half the lifetime of the renewable device to produce the equivalent amount of electricity that the fossil fuel, used in it's construction and installation, could have produced from a coal-fired power station or gas generator, then the true percentage of actual renewable energy would be half of 17%, that is, 8.5%. https://www.iea.org/countries/china

Thanks for your response, Placeholder. I do understand, as new technology is introduced into the market, the initial price tends be very high, then gradually falls as production methods improve and expand. The introduction of the digital camera a few decades ago, is a classic example of this process. I hope a similar process occurs with regard to electric cars. That would be fantastic. However, the issue I'm addressing is the necessity for the continued use of fossil fuels in this process. Ask yoursef, why are all products that are imported from China much cheaper than similar products manufactured in Europe and the US. Do you not understand that the major, essential reason, is the availability of cheap energy from the use of fossil fuels in China? As the Chinese economy grows, so does the use of fossil fuels Another major reason is the lower salaries that are paid to the workers in China. This actually reduces the indirect role of fossil fuels in the manufacturing process because the workers, with less money to spend, will buy fewer products that require fossil fuels, so their 'carbon footprint' is lower than the equivalent worker in Western countries. The actual price of everything is both directly and indirectly related to the energy used to produce and market all products. Consider an example of the same product which is sold in different shops at different prices. The cost of producing the product in the factory is the same, and requires the same amount of energy, but the same product sold in a fancy shop at a fancy price, results in more energy being used because the owner and/or the workers in the fancy shop are able to spend more money as a result of higher profits. Here are some relevant quotes regarding China's energy supplies. "China approved more than 50 gigawatts of new coal power in the first half of 2023, research by environment group Greenpeace showed, with the world's top carbon polluter focused on energy security rather than cutting fossil fuel consumption." https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/chinas-energy-security-push-drives-up-fossil-fuel-approvals-research-2023-08-03/ "The new analysis shows that China’s CO2 emissions grew 4% in the first quarter of 2023, compared with a year earlier. This means first-quarter emissions were the highest on record, exceeding the previous peak reached in the first three months of 2021." https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-hit-q1-record-high-after-4-rise-in-early-2023/#:~:text=The new analysis shows that,first three months of 2021.

Great news, Placeholder. ???? Now all you need to do is explain why BEVs cost so much more than ICE vehicles. Is it because their construction involves the use of very expensive renewable energy sources and equipment, like battery-operated cranes, earth-movers and trucks, to mine and transport the scarce metals.? ????

I don't think it's true to claim the technology has been ignored. The major problems with hydrogen as a fuel, are safety issues, plus the additional expense of producing hydrogen from renewable energy. From the following site: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016236122001867 "80% of the whole hydrogen produced is by 'steam methane reforming' (SMR) at an energy efficiency of 74–85%. However, steam methane reforming and other fossil fuel based technologies are neither green nor sustainable. Hydrogen, could only be counted as a renewable and clean fuel if the required power to produce hydrogen comes from a renewable source such as wind or solar power." This issue of the 'additional expense' applies to most, if not all renewable forms of energy. Can you give any example of a 'renewable energy' device which is not dependent on fossil fuels for its construction? If one always recharges one's BEV from electricity produced by solar panels or windmills, one might feel virtuous because of the delusion that one one is not using fossil fuels. However, all these devices, such as BEVs, windmills and solar farms, require massive amounts of fossil fuels for their initial production. The reason why a BEV is so much more expensive than an equivalent ICE vehicle, is because the BEV requires much more energy for its production, and most of that energy is from fossil fuels used to mine, transport and manufacture the materials used to build the car and its batteries. As a rough estimate, I would suggest that before the buyer of a BEV has even begun to drive the car, he has already used, in terms of the purchase price, the amount of fossil fuel that an equivalent ICE vehicle would use after having been driven more than 100,000 km, including the fossil fuel used during the construction of the ICE vehicle. This is the major problem that technological development has to overcome, in order to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. In other words, it all boils down to 'efficiency'. The more efficiently we use our fossil fuels reserves, the longer they will last.

As I've mentioned, Placeholder, I don't want to get into endless discussions about the claimed harmful and beneficial effects of CO2. Too much of anything can be bad. People have died from drinking too much water, but water is essential for life. Likewise, people can die when CO2 levels are extremely high, but CO2 is essential for life. The real problem is excessive consumption as countries develop economically. About 2/3rds of the population of many developed countries are overweight or obese, due to too much consumption of food, which is just one example. As people become wealthier, they spend more and more on unnecessary items, such as expensive cars to boost their ego, luxury clothes which eventually end up on the scrap heap, unnecessary large and expensive houses, and many other expensive but unnecessary items which all require the use of energy in their production. The drive towards renewables will curtail that over-consumption, as energy prices rise. It will be interesting to see if the majority of the populations in developed countries accept their static or falling living standards in order to fund the change to renewable energy. In Australia, I've never seen petrol prices as high as they currently are. I recently did a comparison between the current cost of my KIA Cerrato ICE vehicle and the equivalent KIA Battery Electric Vehicle. I calculated the initial extra cost of the KIA BEV would never be recouped even if I could recharge the battery with free elecricity from my solar panels. It will probably take a few decades before BEVs become an affordable option for most people. However, I think it makes perfect sense to attempt to develop alternatives to the gasoline car. I'm all in favour of scientific and technological progress. Potentially, a BEV with an affordable, lightweight, safe and durable battery which doesn't rely upon scarce materials, would be a great achievement. It might never happen, but at least we should try.

Wow! I've just discovered this long thread about climate change. It reminds me of an even longer thread about the existence of 'God'. I don't have time to read all the comments, so I hope I'm not repeating issues that have already been addressed. Whilst I'm skeptical about the claimed significance and contribution of human CO2 emissions to the current warming period, I think human activity in general must have some effect on climate. However, quantifying that effect in any precise manner is impossible because of the complexity and chaotic nature of climate. There cannot be any certainty, only degrees of probability based upon computer models which are fed incomplete data. However, there are environmental issues about which we can be fairly certain. We know that CO2 is the 'Gas of Life'. Without it, nothing lives. We know, from satellite images, that the planet, as a whole, has significantly greened during the past 30 years or more, due to the increased levels of CO2. We can measure the significant effects of increased levels of CO2 on plant growth in 'real' greenhouses. Whilst I don't believe that the current emissions of CO2 are a problem for the environment, I do believe that the increase in the use of fossil fuels could present a future problem which could be disastrous for the world economy. Our prosperity and well-being is fundamentally dependent on the regular supply of affordable energy. Fossil fuels are a limited resource. At the current rate of usage, we probably have hundreds of years of reserves, much of which has yet to be discovered, so no need to worry about that. However, why would anyone presume that the current rate of usage would remain constant, as undeveloped countries become more developed, and developed countries raise their 'working class' to the 'middles class', and everyone becomes wealthier, consuming more energy. I did an internet search on the current world consumption of energy, and found the following site. https://ourworldindata.org/energy-mix The attached image of a graph shows that fossil fuel use has continued to rise significantly since the alarm about CO2 emissions began. As of 2022, the percentage of energy from nuclear, wind, hydro, solar, biofuels, and othe renewables, is less than 20%, but the rise in the use of fossil fuels, since the alarm about CO2 emissions began in the 1980's, has risen far greater than 20%, more like 60%. Since 1950, the graph shows that fossil fuel use has increased by around 600%. Imagine what would happem if there were no scare about the devastating effect of fossil fuel use on the environment. Imagine a future scenario, say in a hundred years time when fossil fuel consumption was 1,000% greater than the current usage, and the Arctic and Antarctic were close to depletion of their oil reserves, and energy prices began rocketing. Wouldn't it be too late to begin research on renewables? The economy would collapse disastrously, far worse than any previous economic collapse. The purpose of the scare about CO2 emissions is to motivate the development of alternative and additional sources of energy, which are hopefully cleaner than fossil fuels. Nuclear power is an obvious contender, but has the problem of toxic waste and potentially dangerous accidents. Fossil fuels are not only needed for the energy to drive our economy, but also for many essential products that we use every day. Here's a list of 6,000 products from a barrel of oil. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/partial-list-over-6000-products-made-from-one-barrel-oil-steve-pryor If we develop alternative, effecient, and renewable sources of energy, then we will never run out of fossil fuels, which can be used for essential products that can't be produced from renewables. Makes sense?

From my quote from the article, the resolution is up to 50cm, which means any object smaller than 50cm will not be recognised.

Read the full story. "Operated by GISTDA, THEOS-2, will be capable of capturing detailed colour images of Earth with a resolution of up to 50cm. The satellite will transmit data to a ground station, covering about 74,000 square kilometres per day, providing current, but not real time, accurate information for various sectors in Thailand. The data will have significant applications in emergency response, agriculture, water management, disaster management, urban planning and natural resource management."

From the full story: "The house in question actually belongs to a transport tycoon in Udon Thani, but is leased to Surachate for his subordinates."