Last night Australia’s Prime Minister, John Howard, announced an inquiry into a possible carbon trading scheme for Australia. He was speaking at the Business Council of Australia Annual Dinner in Sydney and the Ambassadors of both the United States and Indonesia were present. Towards the end of his speech, which was very much about Australia’s economic outlook, he said:
“I do want to say something about the related issues of climate change and energy security. And I very deliberately link the two of them because you can’t think of the reaction of relevant countries to climate change without understanding the importance to them of energy security. And some of the heightened concern about climate change issues in recent months – indeed in recent years – are very directly related to energy security. And we need to understand some fundamentals about the two of them, put bluntly, there is no way that a country is going to embrace climate change measures or responses to the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, which in anyway imperial the energy security of that country. And this is particularly so of countries such as China and India, countries which are for the first time in four or five hundred years reclaiming, particularly in the case of china, reclaiming their position in the world economy, enjoying extraordinarily rapid economic growth – economic growth which is very largely fuelled and supported and facilitated by cheap suppliers of energy from countries such as Australia, but also from their own and from other sources – and to expect a country like china to embrace change in relation to the climate, which in some way imperials the energy security, just at a time when it is beginning to enjoy the fruits of economic growth and remarkable rates of economic growth, is to expect the unachievable and the unrealistic.
I think it is important to keep the challenge of climate change in perspective. I share your President’s view that it is happening and although I have been accused and continue to be accused of being somewhat of sceptic on the issue, the truth is I’m not that sceptical, I think the weight of scientific evidence suggests that there are significant and damaging growths in the levels of greenhouse gas emissions and that unless we lay the foundation over the years immediately ahead of us to deal with the problem, future generations will face significant penalties and will have cause to criticise our failure to do something substantial in response.
The debate of course is about the intensity and the pace of the damage being done by climate change and there will continue to be very intense debate about that. We’ve made it very clear that we won’t ratify the Kyoto agreement – we took that decision some years ago because we feared that ratifying that agreement in the form in which it then and still largely exists, could have damaged the comparative advantage this country enjoyed as a result of our abundance of fossil fuels and the importance of that abundance to Australia’s export and general performance – and nothing has happened to alter that fact. In the meantime, however, we have committed ourselves to achieve the target of 108 that was given to us at the Kyoto meeting in 1997 and we are on track to achieve, or as near as dam it, achieve that outcome within the time stipulated.
I think it’s very obvious, both from what Michael Chanay said, and from what others have said in recent weeks, that we do need to find, call it what you may, a new Kyoto. We do need, as a world community, to try and find a new global solution and that global solution must include all of the major emitters. And we have to understand some of the fundamentals that drove the original Kyoto. The original Kyoto was largely fashioned, I don’t say this critically, I hope I say it objectively, it was largely fashioned to accommodate the environmental goals and position of European countries. It was built with not sufficient regard to the position of a country such as Australia, a highly developed country which was a net exporter of energy, and therefore I think the formation of AP6, which includes in aggregate, almost 50 per cent of the world’s emitters, also close to 50 per cent of the world’s population and also close to 50 per cent of the world’s GDP, that particular grouping can provide an extremely sure foundation for the development of a new international covenant or new international understanding on this issue.
It is imperative from our point of view that as we look at such issues as an emissions trading system that we fashion here in Australia, and see fashioned globally, a trading system that protects the natural advantages that this country has. This country does have enormous natural advantages of our resource industries, not only coal and gas, but importantly uranium as well. And let me say that, something I’ve said on a number of occasion in recent weeks, and that is that there is no one single solution to the global challenge. We need to maintain the profitability that our great abundance of fossil fuels has given us, we need to accelerate the development of clean coal technologies, and the like, that were identified two and a half years ago in the Energy White Paper, we need to recognise that at the purifier, but not as a contributor to base power load generation, renewables, such as solar and wind can make a valuable contribution and we also need to recognise the capacity, particularly as we develop clean coal technologies with the inevitable consequences they have for pricing, we need to examine and keep on the table the nuclear option. It is some years off but in a couple of weeks time Dr Ziggy Switkowski ’s committee will report and it, will I hope make available in a very objective fashion, the analysis of nuclear power, both in terms of safety availability, supply and the economic of it in the whole climate change equation.
I’ve indicated in the past that I do not intend to preside over policy changes in this area that are going to rob Australia of her competitive advantage in the industries that are so important to us and I repeat that commitment tonight. I do welcome the contribution that the Business Council has made and many other people in the business community have made to tackling this issue. Many of you will know that over the past few weeks the Government has reiterated its broad approach and later this week I will meet some significant business figures, some of them are in the room tonight, who are involved in the resource sector to discuss aspects of the Government’s response to the climate change challenge.
I want to indicate to you tonight that the Government will establish a joint government business task group to examine in some detail the form that an emissions trading system, both here in Australia and globally, might take in the years ahead. I think it is important to involve the business community in an analysis of this issue because decisions taken by the Government in this area will have lasting ramifications for Australia’s business community. I think we all recognise that we have to examine in the time ahead how we might devise an emissions trading system which properly cares for and accommodates the legitimate interests, and therefore maintains, the competitive advantage that this country enjoys in the industries that are familiar to you.
We do not want a new Kyoto that damages Australia. We need a new Kyoto that includes Australia but includes Australia on a basis which is appropriate to our interests and our needs. So therefore I indicate to you tonight that we will be establishing, in discussion with the Business Council of Australia and other business groups and individual business leaders, a joint government business task group that will examine, against the background of our clearly identified national interests and priorities, what form an emissions trading system, both here in Australia and globally, might take to make a lasting contribution to a response to the greenhouse gas challenge, but in a way that does not do disproportionate or unfair damage to the Australian economy and the industries which have been so enormously important to the generation of our wealth and the development of our living standards over the last 10 or 20 years.”
The annoucement would have caught many commentators by surprise. Indeed just yesterday the Australian media was reporting a possible rift between the PM and his Treasurer, Peter Costello, on climate change because over the weekend the Treasurer had publicly endorsed the idea of a carbon trading scheme for Australia post Kyoto, from 2012. No doubt he knew the PM would announce the same, officially, last night.
Its all good timing with Ian Campbell, Australia’s Environment Minister, over in Nairobi at the United Nation’s Climate Conference. The government appears to be branding its new approach to climate change the ‘new Kyoto’.
According to ABC Online:
“The president of BP Australia and member of the Business Roundtable on Climate Change, Gerry Hueston, has told Radio National Breakfast it is a welcome initiative.
“It’s important now that the big emitters like the US and China and potentially India come on board because their involvement is the thing that’s going to actually make the big difference,” he said.
The executive director of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Don Henry, has also welcomed the announcement.
He says the Government should now set a target for reductions in carbon pollution.
“The crucial thing in any emissions trading scheme is first and foremost what cap, what reductions in greenhouse gas emissions you’re going to require,” he said.”
In a recent column for The Land (26th October) I wrote that there is a place for government policies which promote carbon sequestration with particular reference to logging trees, woodland thickening and also biochar:
“Actively growing trees sequest carbon dioxide and harvesting this timber moves the stored carbon from the forest to the wooden product, be it a railway sleeper or bridge girder.
Rates of carbon sequestration slow as forests age with old growth forests storing but not sequesting carbon.
But environmental activists don’t much like the idea of actively managing forests as this involves cutting down trees.
So we end up using materials like concrete, steel and aluminum whose production involves lots of energy – and lots of carbon dioxide emissions.
Indeed, early this year, the Federal Government supported the Australian Rail Track Corporation’s decision to no-longer use timber railway sleepers.
In the future, the 400,000 railway sleepers it buys each year will be concrete, which according to Mark Poynter from the Institute of Foresters of Australia this will result in an extra 190,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year.
At the recent Australian Environment Foundation conference, Mr Poynter put this in perspective by explaining that while the Victorian government has promoted wind farms as part of its renewable energy strategy (estimated to be saving 250,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year), about 75 percent of this saving has, in effect, been negated by the decision to use concrete rather than wooden railway sleepers.
While every bit perhaps makes a difference, the really large carbon savings are in our rangelands.
Well known ecologist, Dr Bill Burrows, has calculated that grazed woodlands in Queensland alone sequest about 35 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year.
Indeed if woodland thickening was including in Australia’s official Greenhouse Inventory we might not need any more wind farms.
Incredibly, because of the way the Kyoto Protocol is framed, Australia’s national carbon accounting system counts savings from the banning of broad-scale tree clearing, but not carbon savings from regrowth or woodland thickening in western NSW and Queensland.
What about counting the carbon in woody weeds converted into biochar – a charcoal with soil ameliorant properties – created through the type of low temperature patchy burns once practiced by Aborigines?
It is perhaps time for environmental activists as well as state and federal governments to open both eyes when it comes to global warming and start accurately considering all the opportunities and costs of carbon sequestration in our forests and rangelands.”
It’s certainly time for the bureaucrats to start consider all the big mechanisms for carbon sequestration, if the PM has really rolled over on the idea of a carbon trading scheme.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Commenters taken by surprise? Not this little black duck: all predicted, even right down to the change in semantics FROM whether GW is happening TO the nature of the GW that’s happening. I told youse the PM would do a backflip when he caught up with voter sentiments (thank the marchers & letter writers) and when it dawned on Aussie businesses that $$ can be made. And I told youse yesterday there’d be a spread of overlapping trading schemes. Youse ‘oud do well to pay attention.
Sceptics don’t despair yet, the PM is just talking about ‘some’ink should be done’ afterall. He’s not actually doing nothin’ for yonks. He’s still relying on the old furphies such as potential economic ruin from Kyoto (what’s his source for that claim?) and pretending Aust has done something effective to meet Kyoto targets anyway.
For all his weak tea attempts to paint a comparison with China, they’re far ahead of Aust in terms of creating structural change in the energy sector. We’re dragging our feet as usual and will fail to realise economic opportunities or move much of our exports beyond volatile commodities.
Now shall we discuss the updated IPA partyline? We predicted that one too…
It’s about time. IMO carbon trading is the best possible solution as it allows the market and industry to come up with the best solution. The approach of the government ‘picking winners’ wasn’t going to be effective. Carbon needs to be priced so the market can respond by finding the most cost effective solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
With the Government talking of expanding Kyoto (rather than sinking it) I think the government is finally on the right track.
It will be interesting to see how the carbon trading scheme will work – will we join an extended European market or will there be new regional markets set up.
Anyway, it’s good to see the government moving in this direction and that serious discussion are now taking place instead of the token ‘projects’ announced previously.
How depressing – nothing more to fight about.
Great. Australia has an historic and natural advantage in carbon sequestering. Frequent, mild prescribed burning, as done by Aborigines for millennia, will sequester billions of tonnes as charcoal. Let’s do it.
Davey we already have a lot of carbon sequestered in Australia. Its called coal. Perhaps the first step should be to find alternatives to its use esp since this is the greatest source of emissions in oz.
And as SimonC says, better that the market sort it out instead of relying on the Howard Government to pick the winners.
So far the Howard Govt are overtly picking clean coal (expensive and not for 15 years), nuclear (expensive and not for 15 years) and solar (very expensive), and doing their best to downplay wind energy (expensive, but no more so than the others, and available NOW), which, in the short term (ie next 5 years), is the probably one of the best choices.
Yes, enough government winner picking, more carbon trading. bring it on.
With regards to opportunities for carbon sequestration in the bush, you’d need to constructively engage, rather than simply using the concept as a debating point to whinge at “the greenies” and “the bureaucrats”. IF you want to be constructive, try the NFF – they recently put out a discussion paper on opportunities for agriculture from emissions trading. I’m sure they would be interested to hear these ideas, and are probably ready to champion the idea that farmers and rural industries need to be part of the discussion about what we do and how.
One shouldn’t get overly excited about carbon futures for the bush. Just because something is now a sink of carbon won’t get it up as a carbon trading object. We haven’t found Jack’s beanstalk.
It has to be “new” sequestration compared to some baseline – say 1990. Why – because existing activities – forestry, savanna fires, woodland thickening are part of the “background” activity already. We already have a background of fluxes from the biosphere – emitting and sequestering. To make a difference you have to sink carbon above that background level. The international community won’t give us a credit for business as usual.
The other issue is that you have to verify your tree sinks – accurately mapped, annually inspected perhaps and has to be protected against fire. We could do a lot with soil carbon – minimum tillage, saltbush plantings – but if it’s soil carbon down below and out of sight – you’d have to be able to prove that it’s there and stays there as the world warms up and as the soil microbes become more active and release more CO2!
Woodland thickening or woody weeds could be massive sinks. But I think you’ll only a credit for any increase in the RATE of thickening. Jeepers – an increase in the “rate”. How would you measure and justify that?
So this is why new tree plantings on new non-forestry land is about all that gets up.
Those who might negotiate Kyoto II will be well experienced looking for loop-holes and workarounds.
“clean coal” is his other big furphy
previously called “cleaner coal”
Framing occurs in incremental steps from A to B to C as the PM well knows
Imagine what kinda scheme we’d be lumped with after industry group input. Whose interests would it favour? Australia’s lobbying industry is a $700 m annual business (approaching $1 bn by some reports).
There are moves in WA to create a register declaring the interests and connections of lobbyists who approach govt. Journalist Fitzgerald wrote a book LOBBYING IN AUSTRALIA You can’t expect to change anything if you don’t speak u:
“Lobbying, often undetected and unreported, has become an increasingly important part of the political process in the national capital.
“The argument over whether lobbying is a good or bad thing for government appears to be over and decided in favour of the lobbyists. Even calls for regulation of the industry have fallen on deaf ears.”
concluding
“A fast-growing and unregulated lobbying industry should not be allowed to continue…A start has to be made soon, before the lobbying industry becomes so powerful that it can defeat any proposals to regulate it.”
“and as the soil microbes become more active and release more CO2!”
A cure for nutrient tie-up by buffel grass coming up then?
As I understood it soil microbes in rangeland areas are “always hungry because of a lack of both moisture and nitrogen”.
I haven’t seen a promise of more of both of these with GW, so we may be waiting a while.
all this talk of lobbyists would make some sense if wasn’t for the fact that, ( like political donations ), politicians accept money, and advice, from all sides of the debate, and then make up their mind according to their own political judgement, which is (all too often, some would say ) driven by simple electoral considerations…and as for regulating it!
yes there are interest groups on all sides but no they don’t all have the same resources, concentration of interests, potential for shared gains and they don’t all take the same approach. Not all interest groups lobby govt and certainly not to the same extent. Insider groups get consulted by govt but some outsider groups avoid or minimise direct involvement with pollies. Some exercise direct influence over pollies, some instead aim to influence public awareness who will then exercise their votes.
Direct influence over pollies is a more effective direct approach between elections if you can get your foot in the door. This is the preferred approach of closed-door lobby groups like the IPA who’ve mastered political choice theory. The logic underlying this favoured approach of industrial lobbyists goes:
* low costs of organisation: narrow area of concern and smaller numbers in the group means high commonality of interests (public membership groups have comparatively high costs of organisation and diffuse interests)
* industrial members have more wealth and more influence per member (versus public members of relatively diffuse public interest groups)
* outlay is relatively small % of business revenue
* most influence is exercised and benefits gained over time between elections (voters only get a small window of influence at each election)
* benefits concentrated on the few and costs borne by the many: policy benefits for a small number of corporate members of industrial lobby groups are funded by tax payers (with high costs of organisation and low returns per member if they want to protest)
** equates to a high return on investment for big business so it’s a very effective strategy hence its growing popularity.
Concentrated interests rule. Money talks.
Money does talk,
According to Givewell, the ACF has $45,353,830 in Assets and in 2003 an income of 6,768,285, the Wilderness Society over $9 million in income in 2004, WWF $11million in 2003. There is the $10 million donation to set up the Climate Institute.
Even the Federal Government is supportive providing tax deductibility for donations and Grants to volunteer environmental organisations.
Yes, money does talk!
these are assets & income of publicly accessible groups, and not large sums if the lobby industry is between $700 m and $1 bn p.a.
public interest groups, whatever their cause, are an important feature of democracy. Private lobby organisations do not strengthen democracy, they push narrow interests
The ACF has $3,580,000 in net assets as of June 30, 2006. You can check this by looking at their annual report.
Public interest groups might be good for democracy but business generates the income to pay the bills.
Now that honest John has given the thumbs up for carbon trading it has been good to see all the greenies happy – or are they?
Maybe having to be happy will make them unhappy, not their normal comfort zone.
Can greenie happiness be sustainable?
Will the emissions caused by wildfires be counted in this new Kyoto.
For example, would the emissions from a future fire the size of the 2003 Alpine fires be included on the CO2 balance sheet for Australia and what penalties would apply.
Could we see the States being penalised if their National Parks release their stored carbon?
Hopefully the economic imperitive will make argument for careful broadscale Hazard Reduction,like that in the Tropical savanna, easier.
Excluding fires from all these new ‘carbon sink’ forests will be no easier than excluding fire in existing forests.
What will be the guarrantee offered by the managers of these ‘carbon sink’ forests if they prematurely release their newly stored carbon?
Who will bear the cost of protecting these forests,the manager,the carbon credit certificate holder or the State?
As for politicians and money, you still need a good argument to convince them of your point of view.
Remember what happened with the Snowy Hydro sale,the big end of town could not compete with the electorate in that argument.
Well there is a view to get away from “special rules” and go “wall to wall” and count absolutely everything.
But is it feasible to do this?
In the end it has to be fairly simple, transparent, measurable, verifiable and no side effects – or it won’t work. And it has to do something about CO2 reductions – being given a credit for business as usual defeats the purpose.
Well I’m pretty happy. Carbon trading is the way to go. With regards to Allens comments:
Should carbon sinks be included at all in an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)? I agree that on a greenhouse gas inventory they should but I could see arguments against their inclusion in a trading scheme. The current one in Europe excludes sinks and the ETS there only includes ‘large’ emittors. The ETS here could also be similarly constrainted. The goal of the ETS should be to reduce GHG emissions from industry as part of the overall effort to reduce Australia’s GHG emissions.
Also John Howard has only launched a inquiry so really nothing concrete yet but is a step in the right direction.
All I want is a carbon tax on everything we use including all items in those glossy cattle dogs we find stuffed in the mail box.
The US National Academy of Sciences will be publishing a report which found that if you measure timber volumes, biomass and captured carbon things arent nearly as bad as they seem – global bad boy the USA is actually gaining whilst Nairobi is a bit of a worry.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6143514.stm
Allen,
As I understand it burning off forest litter is CO2 neutral – the regrowth will pretty smartly take it up again. Charcoal arising from mild controlled burning is sequestered good and proper – potentially for thousands of years. Burning coal releases carbon (and other things) which have been stored for millions of years – quite a different matter. We should be debited for burning coal and oil (unless it can be made genuinely ‘clean’), and credited for creating charcoal.
Forest fires can be a carbon source or a sink depending on intensity. The more intense ones (i.e. after decades of crackpot fire exclusion) create more ash than charcoal. They also kill many animals, incinerate seed banks, pollute water catchments, and can permanently degrade soil. They kill humans, destroy houses, and produce dense black smoke for weeks. Milder ones (at short intervals, or in mild weather) create more charcoal and less ash. They germinate native seeds, provoke many native plants to flower, and are easily avoided by native animals, which benefit from the fresh green pick. Mild fires benefit the soil by raising pH, and releasing scarce nutrients locked up in senescent or dead vegetation. Smoke is minimal. A human can step over them. Most eucalypts need them.
It seems blindingly obvious to me what we should do, given that forest fires are unavoidable in the long run. The trouble is we have to unravel decades of misinformation about the ecology of bushfire, by those who are historically ignorant, and may never have actually had to fight a bushfire. They may well have published a hundred academic papers, refereed by people who know no more than they do about bushfire, and may not be all that good at spotting statistical garbage. Sometimes such people are invited, as ‘experts’, to write reports for government inquiries into disastrous bushfires – so long as they exonerate the politicians ultimately responsible for the disaster. Not guilty, yer honour, it was the Global Warming.
yes gavin, a tax on cattledogs and a plague on all your houses with extra rooms.
carbon trading rules might be more susceptible to distortionary influences (corruption) than a tax. eg permits that carry over time periods or never get cancelled out, caps with a 960cm brim, and all the special concessions under the sun. Not to worry about such details though, Howard could never be accused of pioneering leadership, he’s simply buckling to public sentiment but his govt will not actually do anything concrete to introduce carbon trading. You can hang yr cap on that certain prediction.
Be sure pinxi, a carbon tax will take longer to implement than our GST but I bet Costello would luv the job of setting it up. I don’t trust Howard to set up fair trading based on his record so far. Then there is Kim and Kyoto. Both will run out of steam.
See? – never happy
stay off the hydro rog
Latest from the Rockefeller University, enough to make you weep
http://newswire.rockefeller.edu/?page=engine&id=549
Boulder, Col. just introduced a carbon tax on energy. 1st US city to do so.
Hi Davey,
MY high school chemistry is not good enough to answer this question but:
Isn’t charcoal (carbon) a byproduct of combustion when consumption is incomplete?
That is, won’t you get a lot of carbon monoxide production (a more intensive greenhouse gas than co2) when you produce charcoal? that might cancel out some of the benefits of the stored carbon.
Does anyone know about this stuff?
The problem with a carbon tax is that the tax rate must be continually adjusted to create the right behaviour – i.e. reduction of emissions to the desired level.
The advantage of a trading scheme is that once the government sets the cap, the tax rate (permit price) automatically adjusts to create the behaviour necessary to meet the objective.
Neither is ideal, but on balance I think that the carbon trading system is less worse.
thanks Tim. A cap still has to be set with an understanding of market forces and price responses, similar to a tax. Should a cap be progressively tightened too then? Not too restrictive to begin with, more restrictive as businesses innovate.. If Howard thinks Kyoto is too restrictive than it follows that he proposes a system that’s looser or less comprehensive or … voluntary!?! which is the AP6 talk v’s Kyoto.
Steve,
I am not a chemical wiz, but I don’t think carbon monoxide is a greenhouse gas, although it may be involved in the buildup of methane, which is. As far as I know large amounts of carbon monoxide are produced (and always have been) by the oceans, and wetlands. It is naive to regard carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide, as ‘pollutants’. Both play an important role in the atmosphere. Without carbon dioxide, plant life (and hence animals) would be impossible, and carbon monoxide, although fatal to us in sufficient concentration, may also have benefits. I think charcoal is a more stable sink for carbon than wood, which will decay, or burn, or feed termites, which produce a lot of methane. Charcoal resists decay, and I don’t think termites would relish it – probably tastes terrible. There is a simplistic tendency, by some, to identify environmental ‘villains’, but often a substance or process can be good, bad, or neutral, depending on dosage and cicumstances. Bushfire is a good example.
Another view on carbon taxes etc at
http://www.lowyinstitute.org/Publication.asp?pid=497
Davey,
My father had to keep his wood charcoal for blacksmithing out of reach of termites – there may be tastes and tastes.
Davey – interesting point. I didn’t really know. Apparently CO is a weak greenhouse gas but has some other interesting interactions.
http://www.ghgonline.org/otherco.htm
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/gases.html#co
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gases
But agree it’s annoying that CO2 is called a “pollutant” when it’s an integral part of the biosphere. It just also happens to be a key component of the radiation balance.
CO perhaps a bit more tricky being directly toxic but natural given it’s produced by forest and savanna fires worldwide. Of course botulism and anthrax are also “natural” and may be “organic” too for that matter.
Thanks Ian,
Did the termites eat charcoal, or just contaminate it with mud? Maybe they ate it to reduce flatulence – hurray, another greenhouse credit!
Luke,
Thanks for the info. How do you manage to Google so fast and furiously? My ISP has some wierd ‘shaping’ formula, so as soon as I get hot on the trail of a topic, it slows right down. Very frustrating, it gives me chronic hiccups.
Davey – in order to poon Rog and Louis like the newbs they are one has had to evolve lightning fast Google-ocity.
Motty though is much more difficult – requires knowledge of the deep web, pre-internet papyrus, one used bankcard statement envelope – tattered right edge, a slide rule, and “phone a friend”.
Bealey of course cannot be defeated by normal weapons as he is “at one” with the savanna and seeks spiritual strength through the wetting patterns of cryptograms – only a drinking session with special herbs at the Corones Hotel in Charleville can neutralise his ecological knowledge base.
No I was just curious about CO actually. I didn’t know.
He..he…he! I’m originally from Charleville and have known Bealey since I was a little kid. Don’t think he’d recognise me now I’m all grown up, though.
And I have rellies there too. You’d think Bealey would give us more respect then. Jeez horrid thought – maybe we’re all related !
termites’ hive wisdom has them self-medicating with charcoal? I can see ads for it in the communal termite ‘SignPost’:
“Get rid of creosote arsenic etc.
Restore your gut flora.
Charcoal brings back the C..C..Crunch”
Davey, Ate the charcoal as I remember
Howard’s strategy is all making sense now.
media report that Howard has just urged us all to “consider the forthcoming report which is expected to find that nuclear power will become more economical as the cost of reducing greenhouse emissions makes coal-fired electricity more expensive.”
Meaning? The outcome of Ziggy’s nuclear report is a foregone conclusion, directed by Howard.
Howard is lining up his ducks with his CO2 trading proposals to engineer a financial assessment that makes nuclear apparently just economical enough to support. There’ll be heavy discounting too, we can be sure!
Who’s behind the nuclear drive then? There are $$ flying all over the world into political coffers to push the nuclear agenda.
Pinxi, it’s being driven purely by environmentalists. See, here’s proof:
http://www.aefweb.info/media787.html
Media also reports that Howard met with business leaders to discuss his new trading scheme, involving fossil fuel & commodity businesses, but he has no plans to include scientists, environmentalists and energy consultants.
Planning a business-based trading scheme then, not an evidence or science based scheme. What a surprise.
Bloody corrupt. Until donations to political parties are done way with we can only except increasingly narrow concentration of power. But instead, the Howard govt reduces the requirements to publicly report donations.
“driven purely by environmentalists” – purely my arse
some enviros are welcoming investigations, but they’re not funding the bloody industry or lib party and they certainly won’t be campaigning for high discount rates and loose safety measures. “The AEF is committed to ensuring that the energy debate is conducted on the basis of facts and scientific and technical analysis”
They’ll call for independent and balanced assessments, and I support that, but that’s not what we’re getting. We’re getting a politically engineering outcome, driven by business.
A proper business case will factor in likely costs from protests, delays, NIMBYs, technological mishaps and budget blowouts on commissioning, transport, storage and decommissioning because history tells us this is the NORM not the exception. And how to factor in a price for the ‘improbable’ possibility of a major mishap with widespread effects? A balanced financial assessment will allow lots of room for such standard occurrences, not downplay them.
Pinxi, that was my attempt at irony.
yeah did get it, was just on a furious rant, hence I didn’t insult you or offer you any Nigerian money orders my little half dozen of chicken necks
I once knew an old lady who ate charcoal to reduce flatulence. Don’t know what it did to her teeth.
What’s wrong with a nice nuclear reactor. Better we brew it than get it back in a missile from some of our neighbours. But it won’t happen. Public will go nutz. But I’d like a reactor in my electorate – might make land prices more affordable.
Anyway remember that ruminants being foregut fermenters belch the methane, not fart it.
I guess termites produce lots from their hindguts by millions of little nano-farts.
Davey,
Double duty perhaps – I think you’ll find charcoal used to be used for cleaning teeth
Ian,
I had heard of salt as tooth powder, but not charcoal. Live and learn. Judging by the apparent prevalence of false teeth in bygone times, I don’t think charcoal was very good, or perhaps it was too good, and ground ’em away. I wonder how many tons of charcoal are sequestered on grasstree stems and black stumps and logs around Australia? Would the Bushfire CRC fund a study? I reckon we have done our bit for the planet. We can rest on our laurels and wait for the Chinese to catch up.
charcoal is an ages old technique for cleaning teeth
Luke you should pay more attention to Hans-Peter Durr. (Exploding it in bombs may be the most effective way to minimise the risk of ‘unplanned radioactive events’.)
Praps we need a few more generations of the technology 1st. Wait a bit & leapfrog. Forget NIMBYism, I’d rather wait until we have desktop reactors.
If only the world had pumped as much $$$$ investment & admin & R&D support & lobbying $$$$ into advancing benign renewable energy sources as it has nuclear
Well exactly how risky is a modern reactor.
Again Luke you should pay attention to Hans-Peter Durr! What point is there trying to estimate of risks for such an occurence – is there a standard distribution curve for catastrophic reactor explosions? What use risk guesstimates for a once-off severe widespread impact? Not like a dice role and not on the scale of Russia roulette either.
Hey, another of my predictions comes true in the same week: trade barriers against nations who don’t limit their GHG emissions. France intends to tax imports from nations who haven’t signed up to Kyoto. Typically French, it seems to be driven by nationalistic motives, not a desire to penalise the US & China
I reckon they are totally safe.
Oh, well that’s good enough for me then. You should have said so earlier.
No don’t be like that. How risky do you feel they are – would you be really worried. Mainly that some overly tense nutter would fly a plane into one probably worst scenario.
Not to downplay the effects of a catastrophe or a dirty bomb, etc, but I think that general radiation dangers are showing themselves to not be as dangerous as medical science intially feared. NB: if a reactor blows near you, just eat brown rice, seaweed, umeboshi & charcoal.
I’m mostly suspect of the underhanded politics and the corporatisation of government. There are inherent risks in all the difficult choices that society has to make and I’d be much more accepting of those risks if the issues were discussed and decided in a stronger democratic setting.
“Boulder, Col. just introduced a carbon tax on energy. 1st US city to do so”.
Hot off the email –
You are a Coloradoan if …………..
2. You know what the “Peoples Republic of Boulder” means.
“Mainly that some overly tense nutter would fly a plane into one probably worst scenario”
I got an inside look at Fort St Vrain. The containment vessel was reinforced concrete, so it might have had a sporting chance.
Bealey it was a democratic majority vote by Col residents, not a centrally imposed policy.