Newspoll: 52-48 to Labor

The latest result from Newspoll lands slightly at the upper end of the government’s recent form.

Courtesy of The Australian, the latest result from Newspoll records Labor with a two-party lead of 52-48, down from 53-47 in the last poll (which was three weeks ago rather than the usual two, owing to Easter). Labor and the Greens are both down a point on the primary vote, to 35% and 9%, with the Coalition and One Nation steady on 36% and 10%. Malcolm Turnbull is up two on approval to 32% and down two on disapproval to 57%, while Bill Shorten is up one to 33% and down one to 53%. Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister shifts from 41-32 to 42-33.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,209 comments on “Newspoll: 52-48 to Labor”

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  1. Player One @ #1197 Wednesday, April 26th, 2017 – 10:35 pm

    Obviously, if the take up of electric vehicles is too fast then most of this increase will have to come from burning more coal, or (if we are lucky) possibly gas, leading to increases in C02 emissions.

    Burning more coal and/or gas, but less petrol and/or diesel. You only get a net increase in CO2 emissions if small ICE engines are more efficient than large-scale coal/gas generators, in terms of grams of CO2 emitted per usable kWh produced.

    So you’d have to put some numbers to it. You need the typical efficiency of a small petrol engine, which appears to be around 35% for modern models. And the typical efficiency for coal-fired plants, which runs from 36% at the low end to 48% at the high end, so probably about 40% is a fair average (sidenote: gas generation is up to 60% efficient, so yes, would be better than coal by far). Then you need the energy density of both fuels, which is ~9 kWh/liter for petrol and ~8 kWh/kg for coal.

    Then you can work out how much of each you’d need to produce the equivalent of the 110 usable kWh you’re putting into the EV. Which I get as ~35 liters of petrol vs ~34 kg of coal. Which appears to give ~82 kg of CO2 emissions for the petrol engine vs. ~78 kg from the coal.

    So in other words, it’s basically a wash (in the worst-case, where all the power is coming from relatively inefficient coal-fired generation). And edges towards favoring the EV as more efficient generation sources are used (even if they’re fossil-fuel based, and even if the chosen fossil fuel is coal).

    With an energy mix that includes even a small (5-10%) proportion of renewables, the EV gains a clear advantage. Moreso if you have rooftop solar (and timeshifting batteries, since you’ll probably want to charge your EV at night).

    I think the concern about EV’s leading to a massive spike in CO2 emissions is unfounded.

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