THE Rudd Government is prepared to stare down a demand to compensate power producers for the effects of the carbon trading scheme foreshadowed in its review of climate change policy.
Power producers say that without structural assistance the value of their assets will fall sharply and investors will be reluctant to commit to new plants, causing power shortages.
The Australian, ‘No to carbon payout claims’
SINCE May 2002, when interest rates again started to rise, home loans in Australia have grown to about a trillion dollars today. Business borrowing has now passed $700 billion.
Were interest rates 3 per cent lower today, as they were in 2002, the national annual interest bill would be about $50 billion less. And although there may now be signs of changing buyer behaviours, such sustained lifts in interest costs have had little observable impact upon the appetites of households and businesses for debt, so far.
In the same period, petrol costs have increased by about 10 cents a litre per year. Were petrol prices the same today as in 2002, the national fuel bill would be $25 billion lower each year. Yet we are buying more cars, travelling further and using more petrol than ever before even as petrol prices continue to lift.
The Australian, ‘Helping neighbours is key to cuts’
STRIKING greenhouse gas reduction deals with big developing countries, particularly our trading partners, might be a better method of dealing with climate change than pursuing a plan focused on imposing increasing costs on domestic energy users.
Writing in the opinion page of The Australian today, leading corporate figure Ziggy Switkowski questions whether relying solely on a gradual build-up of energy costs is the most effective strategy for achieving reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
Dr Switkowski’s entry into the debate comes as the Rudd Government formulates Canberra’s response to climate change, with its adviser Ross Garnaut arguing that the planned carbon-trading scheme should not compensate coal-fired power stations.
The Australian, Greenhouse deals ‘beat carbon trading’
Reminder: New Paper from the Virtual World: Stabilizing Climate Requires Near-Zero Emissions
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Remember that it is dangerous being right about matters on which government is wrong.
Australia won’t build nuclear power plants.
Australia won’t compensate generators for any carbon trading regime.
Australia won’t have enough electricity within 10 years .
I feel like Cassandra.
Australia won’t have enough electricity within 10 years .
Yes we will we’ll all have photovoltaic cells on the roof and have to turn the fridge off to turn the lights on.
Doug Lavers – “Australia won’t have enough electricity within 10 years .”
Well we will just have to stop wasting so much won’t we?
Jan – “Yes we will we’ll all have photovoltaic cells on the roof and have to turn the fridge off to turn the lights on.”
Yes Jan and it will be all the fault of us lefty communists that hate the Australian way of life and want us all to live in caves. Do you really need a fridge in a cave?
They are trapped in the arrogance of ignorance and wont admit they have been shilled.
The more the evidence piles up the louder it will get. I’ve seen it before but never on this scale
I agree in the interim before people can back down gracefully that helping with the neighbours deforestation thing will help species habitats, but it’s backdoor environmentalism.
Ziggy is essentially saying that we’re a small number in the global inventory, it’s too hard to mitigate at home and why bother anyway – easier to help Asia in terms of energy efficiency and Oceania deforestation issues – and we run business as usual, and throw another log on the aluminum smelter barby.
Sort a variant on the Kyoto Australia Clause fiddle Mark I.
Better get Motty to run the ruler over it though. Sayonara to getting a carbon credit on his wood heap but he probably didn’t want to inventory it anyway.
There’s still ocean acidification John Van K – be alert for a stealthy change of focus onto the next big scare.
Ziggy also advocates a viable , technologically feasible, zero emission solution to our current and future energy needs Luke but funnily enough nearly all the oh so rational , non-political , defenders of consensus science are so reticent on this.
No politics involved at all!
I know from previous posts that you’re quite rational about nuclear energy Luke – so present company excluded!
We were looking through an established solar assisted home up the road during Easter so I asked our host “how much” for their rig. $26,000 was the quick answer.
It was his smile that gave it all away. Co-generation was in their favor most of the time and our utility did all the minding.
So what say we build nuclear power stations in China so we can make a real impact on global CO2 emissions. Let’s go thw whole hog and provide China with cheap (free?) nuclear fuel.
With Chinese labour we might have some tens of these stations in by 2030 and hundreds(?) by 2050.
Of course we will have to do with the old coal power back here on Oz. No probs! We have helped save the world while China powers on (pun intended) to being the next superpower.
PM KRudd will no doubt be some sort of Chinese Diety by then (to his enormous self gratification).
BUT what if Luke et al are wrong and the bloody climate keeps on keeping on regardless of all our puny efforts in playing around with CO2.
Better take a leaf out of KRuddy’s book and learn mandarin I guess.
But then; Luke could be wrong? Nah perish the thought.
Where does anybody get the idea that power
producers will be paying carbon tax. It will be the consumers. The power producers will pass the cost along as all bussiness do.
Only then will Kev find out the true cost of spinning Kyoto.
You can’t go past Ken Parish for stupidity though. He’s making donkey of the year a one jack-ass race. Acted in a totally unmanly way towards Jennifer and the dummy still thinks its just an air and colour show.
So stupid he didn’t even take into account accumulating and decumulating joules in the ocean.
Here is what he says:
“…..You can, however, see that the last two years have registered very slight falls in average temperature. Does that mean Marohasy has a genuine point?
In fact, if anything it reinforces the fact that human-generated greenhouse gases continue to exert a significant upward impact on global climate.
The last two years have seen the combination of a significant La Nina event (which has a downward impact on global temperature just as an El Nino has an elevating impact) and the bottom or solar minimum of the 11 year sunspot cycle.
These are two major drivers of climatic fluctuations, so you would expect to see a major fall in global average temperatures back towards the 1960s average if, as the denialists assert, increases in human-generated atmospheric greenhouse gases are having little or no impact on climate……”
Science sure aint his strong-suit.
This ignores the cumulative nature of the heating and cooling. The massive number of extra joules that can shed or be absorbed by the oceans and planet.
Ken Parish is treating it as if it were just an air and light show. A matter of instantaneous equilibrium like in bad neoclassical economic models.
Just unbelievable.
Why would the average air temperature fall back to 1960’s level????????
????? when the imbedded joules in the ocean haven’t even fallen back as far as 1999 levels?
Its a ridiculous idea. Since all through the 90’s and at least to late 2003, the oceans were absorbing truly awesome amounts of energy.
The imbedded energy has only just plateaued for the love of stupid lawyers everywhere.
Just plateaued, and my understanding is, its dropped only a relatively small amount, and for a short time.
But since this dumb lawyer never listens he still thinks its all a light and colour show.
You are doing a great job Jennifer. And don’t worry about this here lawyer.
Parish is full of shit.
Upward impact on climate?
Ken Parish definitely has problems understanding the physical sciences.
Joe the Gadget Man rides again!
Seems as tho Ender is admitting that he is a’leftie communist who hates the Australian way of life’.
A true confession? Or ‘tongue in cheek’, maybe?
Meanwhile huge sea-ice calvings in antarticia to balance the even huger build up of ice in the interior of that vast frozen land. And further late spring blizzards and crippling snow across many NH areas.
All part of natural climate variability.
Speaking of carbon, this just in:
http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/33451
Guess we rationalists were right all along. The IPCC scaremongerers don’t have a clue! It’s a zero sum game folks. If black carbon is causing more warming than thought, then something else is causing less. Could it be they overestimated the effects of increased CO2 levels? Nah! I’m sure the IPCC brain trust will lower the role of the sun even further. Pretty soon it’ll be relegated to a climate role equivalent to that of a kerosene lamp! It’s unbelieveable the insight those people have!
Yeah you were right all along Mark but where were you? I’ve been out there bashing these guys day in day out and I never had any backup.
When these lefties like Luke start getting uppity and having dreams of world domination you have to get out there and grab them by the neck and never let go even long enough to get a better grip.
The fact is that only 5000 more people doing what I’ve been doing would have been able to bring these people down before the bodies started piling up.
And they have started piling up.
There’s barely a website I haven’t been banned from trying to get this message out.
Man we oughta just throw a street party or something. There’s got to be civil disobediance over fuel taxes. And mass-sackings of anyone on the public tit that pushed this racket.
We could have a mass pilgrimage out to Jennifers new place in the Blue Mountains or something.
But these programs are already in train. They’ve already done us enourmous damage. And we must follow through with the retribution and trashing of anyone on the public tit who pushed these obvious lies.
Garnaut has got to go. Lambert has to be sent to Centrelink. Quiggin must lose his fellowship and be put out on the street peddling his ass for a dollar. Nick Gruen must lose his cushy job with Tanner. Bahnisch must be banished and must never be allowed to lie to children again.
Its got to be a society-wide de-nazification.
And from here on in people like Jennifer ought to have her pick of the top jobs.
Mark,
The article you link to points out a couple of problems: it says the models failed to account for the warming in the upper levels caused by carbon black and failed to account for the combined effects with sulphates. So the models have some bad assumptions which must mean the outputs are wrong.
Also if the effect of particulates is warming this must cast doubt on the theory that it was aerosols that caused the cooling from 1945 to 1975 despite large increases in human CO2 emissions(small in real terms compared to natural ones though.)
GMB:
Keep it up. Never give up. With any luck the current cooling trend will continue long enough that the emperor will be seen to be naked. Then it will be time for revenge and let’s make sure it is comprehensive.
Otherwise I can see the world sliding into a new age of unreason – a green led dystopia. Carbon will have the same status in an energy starved society as sacred cows in a protein starved society.
“Fallen Angels” (Pournelle, Niven and Flynn) was meant to be satire when written only 17 years ago. Now it merely looks prescient.
Look we can rule out particulates in warming right from the getgo.
They get in the way of the sun punching energy deep into the ocean.
Anyone that fools themselves into thinking that particulates warm rather than cool is still mindlessly going along with this light and colour show view of the situation, as opposed to a strata and heat budgets approach.
Yeah I will keep it up.
But where were you all as I went from blog to blog kicking people in the throat?
To be sure we cannot go soft on people. We have to make sure post-modern, taxeating, global governance, energy-depriving, liars have to be taught a lesson.
We’ve got to name names and have these guys contemplating their own magnificence and importance at home or while at Centrelink.
I tell you people there is no substitute for mass-sackings.
oooooo – we’re all soooo scared. Blog to blog. Boy that’s committment.
This is a bloke who wouldn’t even run in Dobell and is worried about his overtime – have an AWA sandwich instead – you don’t need overtime.
What a waddling armchair windbag. We have a referendum on uber noobs like you last year – get back in line or we’ll nationalise ya.
But let’s not that disturb our discussion – have you been to the Bruce Cobb school of alliteration perchance. And for the record – which one is you – http://www.best-horror-movies.com/images/shaun-of-the-dead-zombies-small.jpg
GMB – “To be sure we cannot go soft on people. We have to make sure post-modern, taxeating, global governance, energy-depriving, liars have to be taught a lesson.”
So lets round us up a posse and get ourselves a hanging. cue duelling banjos
Nail them up I say – nail some sense into them.
“BRIAN: What’ll they do to me?
BEN: Oh, you’ll probably get away with crucifixion.
BRIAN: Crucifixion!
BEN: Yeah, first offense.
BRIAN: (incredulous) What?
BEN: Oh yeah. If we didn’t have crucifixion this country would be in a right bloody mess I tell you.
BRIAN: (who can stand it no longer) Guard!
BEN: Nail ’em up I say!
BRIAN: (dragging himself over to the door) Guard!
BEN: Nail some sense into them!”
Here’s an interesting anecdote/piece of gossip i’ve encountered a few times in my work:
Hazelwood power station is an example of a big, old Victorian brown coal power station, must be near the end of its life.
I heard that some old power stations could be being kept up and running til emissions trading was brought in, in the hope that the Government would bestow upon it a certain number of emissions permits for free, instead of running an auction process so that the power companies have to buy an allocation of permits.
IF, say, a power station like Hazelwood is bestowed with permits or compensation by the government at no cost, it can then be shut down, and the power company would proft from millions in grandfathered emissions permits that they could sell, since they would not need to retain those permits themselves becaues the power station had been shut down.
Unfounded gossip to be sure. However, it seems commercially sensible and plausible, so i hope that in addition to being wary of the potential negative economic impacts on the power sector from emissions trading that get highlighted in articles like the Australian’s “No to carbon payouts” article, that readers here will also be equally wary and skeptical of the motivations of the power producers themselves.
Australia can and should learn from the European ETS, where permits were handed out for nothing.
Also, that article quoting Switkowski. Surely Ziggy is aware that the PRIMARY reason for having a scheme like emissions trading is to find least cost abatement? If an international trading regime is set up, then it would bo both possible and sensible for Australia to contribute to reducing emissions by funding cheap and effective projects overseas, and retaining the credits.
Hi talk about ‘deals’ seems like a great way to either evade responsibility, or ensure that the solutions we come up with are a result of the govt trying to pick winners instead of the market deciding what is best.
There has to be a mass-sacking movement on the go. Mass-sacking no redundancy. We’ve seen what taxeaters get up to when they think they can get away with it. We don’t need to see any more.
Now that the fraud has been exposed to more people we have to get with the program of nuclear and coal-liquification. Because you cannot be truly free without access to cheap energy.
Probably only for people who need overtime like GMB. What happened in the election after all your bragging anyway – piked out we assume?
I made it pretty clear I wasn’t going to campaign this time around. In the first place I’ve got to lose a few pounds. And that just from my face.
But I don’t consider the main problem being the politicians in any case. Yes its true that they are generally rotten people up to no good. But its a system dominated by non-defense taxeater. And so to correct matters there is no substitute for mass-sackings.
I have you on record on this site Luke?
You are supposed to be a scientist who goes where the evidence falls. Are you now willing to concede?
I mean you didn’t have the evidence in the first place. And an objective view of the situation would have told us the overall feedback would have to be strongly negative. But now Jennifer comes back from New York with news of the direct evidence.
Is it not long past due that you conceded and admitted that I was right and you were wrong?
After all I had worked out what Jennifer has just reported INDUCTIVELY:
“WATER VAPOUR AS THE OCEANS SWEATING.
I would say that we need a massive increase in the planetary heat budget. Since I view water vapour as akin the the oceans “sweating”.
So we don’t want a static picture of spectroscopy to tell us why the water vapour goes up and down. Rather we want a narrative which explains why the earth itself, right down to the core, starts gaining and losing energy. And it is the upper oceans specifically, that we need to be warm in order to produce all this water vapour…….”
http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2007/05/20/the-goddard-institute-the-curse-of-the-lone-paradigm/
Come on Luke. Time to concede to your betters. Than I’ll stop clogging up this blog again.
Water vapour as oceans sweating eh. Thanks we’ll get back to you. Just don’t move. We’ll call. Promise.
And next time please campaign heavily. Spend heaps.
No thats just a fact. Its just a simple fact on account of the latant heat released when water-gas turns into water-solid.
See you are no scientist Luke. You never could be.
Ok?
So you are a science-WORKER!!!
Whereas the Doctor you ludicrously affect to criticise is a SCIENTIST.
Of course the distinction is likely beyond your ken. And thats really just another example of the problem I speak thereof.