Everyone wants a free lunch, and some people even believe it exists. Julia Gillard is playing to that crowd, offering the impossible. Somehow, we will cool world temperatures while using some of the most expensive forms of energy we can find, and, wait for it, most Australians will become better off too. It’s money for nothing.
Why we didn’t do this years ago?
Quotes from wise men tell us that there is nothing new under the sun, and those who forget history are condemned…
……
…..
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
Possibly, Alexander Tytler (circa late 1700’s)
….
……
“Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.”
Henning Webb Prentis, Jr., President of the Armstrong Cork Company 1943
…….
….
Are we at the “apathy stage” or is this “dependence”?
Faced with paying $500 a year per house for no measurable benefit, only a few percent of the population seem to realize that it’s worth investigating the reasons, the evidence, or taking the effort of actually protesting. Few large businesses will benefit from the “tax” (aside from the financial broking houses, and the renewable industry) and those businesses that are about to be whacked are waking up slowly, but ought to have been fighting this last year.
The cost of this ill-begotten fairyland plan is estimated by Lord Monckton to be 22 times the maximum estimate of the welfare loss from doing nothing about the climate. It’s got all the good value of paying $220,000 to insure your $10,000 car. Only a socialist could call this a free market solution. Only a Green could call this an investment: Greens deputy leader Christine Milne said the dedicated funding represented the biggest single investment in renewable energy Australia has ever made.
Remember the deadly price of “opportunity cost”? The ALP are effectively taking $10 billion from schools, roads and medical research and pouring it into renewables “clean” schemes. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Unelected bureaucrats will be redistributing your wealth
The Government plans to set up another “independent” agency to promote renewable energy. The price on carbon is not enough to actually help those pathetic uneconomic technologies, so the “free market” fans in the government have to do some artificial subsidizing as well. And if they hand those decisions to an “independent” body, whatever that means, it means you and I won’t be able to vote those “managers” of our tax funds out of office if they pink-batts-it-up. The government is supposed to be responsible for the decisions. This way, if it’s a wild success they will take the cred, but if it fails badly, Gillard and co will blame the agency. Handy way to avoid accountability.
The high frequency traders are partying
Andy Semple at Menzies House notices another “fixed” fake part of the “free market” we have to have.
What isn’t getting a lot of attention is the fact that the Government has also set a Minimum price of $15 per tonne of Carbon Dioxide once the ETS starts. In other words, the Government is guaranteeing a Put option of $15 for the first 3 years of the ETS.
Just imagine the amount of speculation in NAB shares if there was such a government price guarantee.
Semple also notes the arbitrage possibilities given that the current Euro scheme price is so much lower that our $23 per ton.
Just watch the Martin Place Wizards construct some derivative contract that will allow them go short the Australian contract price and long the ECX futures contract. If there is a way to arbitrage even a penny, these dudes will find away.
No wonder all the four big banks are drooling about futures trading
“The Clayton’s Emissions Market – “the Market You Have When you’re Not Having a Market””
Avoiding the road to bondage
The quoted passage from Prentice is known as “the fatal sequence”, and the only good news is that we don’t have to stay on the road to bondage. The message about the real science and economics is spreading from BBQ to BBQ, dinner to dinner, through letters to the editors, and through phone calls to radio stations. Information is our friend, and when it comes down to it, we can do it without the lamestream media, and the ABC. They can rubber-stamp the government PR, and union sponsored activists can try to cancel speeches that might reveal the truth, but these distant messengers don’t come between family and friends.
Word-of-mouth spreads the story with an exponential growth curve. There’s a one way stream of people leaving the “carbon faith” and shifting to skepticism, there’s virtually no flow the other way.
Sooner or later the hard rock meets the immovable force and when 70% of the country know that the tax is a lie, based on deceit, wallowing in corruption and plastered with vested interests it will be all over — all over for the tax, all over for Labor Party credibility, all over for the witchdoctors who think they can change the weather.
Cast your online vote in the Courier Mails Plebescite.
The late science fiction writer Robert Heinlein famously wrote, TANSTAAFL, in a novel. “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.” — from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, 1966. It probably wasn’t original with him but he surely put it on the map.
It’s ironic that while the UK (not to mention the EU) is finding out that there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, Australia, a part of the British Commonwealth, is trying to get one. One does not even need history to learn from. Current events will do.
I am so sorry to see it.
Do keep fighting. All politicians are devout cowards and the threat of losing an election is powerful medicine.
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I might add that if they don’t get the idea and go ahead anyway, you simply do toss them out.
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When a scientist enters politics, his opinion is as good as that of any citizen. In the political field, the prejudice of a misguided scientist has no force against common sense This places informed citizens on unassailable ground against those who invoke the higher authority of a scientist in subjects that are political, while masquerading as scientific.
It happens when UN climate reports, which only refer to peer-reviewed articles, are quoted as a substitute for rational thought. To imagine peer review as approval by higher authority is an anti-scientific stance since science acknowledges no authority above proof established by systematic observation, measurement and mathematics. Who peer-reviewed the work of Newton? Nobody; Newton has no peer. Who peer-reviewed the 500 articles Einstein published over 50 years? Again, nobody. To reject Principia and Relativity as irrelevant for lack of proper credentials exposes the intellectual shortcomings of the rejecter.
The academic world may deal with complex phenomena subject to uncertainty in observation, measurement and interpretation. These include weather forecasts beyond a horizon of one week, the behavior of markets and stock exchange quotations, long term economic predictions, demographics, ocean currents and long term climate change. They are known as chaotic phenomena, in a mathematical sense. In this setting, contending hypotheses are essayed in search of relationships of cause and effect, with their supporters and adversaries engaged in normal, mostly speculative, academic debate.
If a hypothesis is hijacked by a commercial interest to advocate restrictions on economic activity (for benefit of a monopolist or an ideologist) the debate slides from the academic plane to the plane of politics. In this case the degree of uncertainty of long term forecasts is such that no responsible public policy may be based on a claim of scientific certainty that cannot exist. To do so is fraudulent. The debate must then be treated as a political confrontation of opposing interests. “In the alley, after school, there just ain’t no Golden Rule”; not even the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury apply in a conflict with squalid interests.
Such is the gist of the thought of an eminent scientist, Prof. Hendrik Tennekes, stated in mathematical terms 25 years ago, as director of research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute: “there exists no sound theoretical framework for climate predictability studies” used for global warming forecasts. Tennekes demonstrated to my satisfaction that funds are wasted when invested in more weather stations, more powerful computers, sophisticated computer models, in expectation of improving weather forecasts beyond one week, and time has proved him right. Uncertainty did not diminish. Certainty in climate change issues has been a chase of the foot of the rainbow.
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Its hard to believe that Australins voted these people into power. There must be something wrong with the education system there.
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We are getting ever closer to the point at which all the available wealth has been confiscated and consumed AND the point at which the willing victims have become no longer willing. It will be a very interesting turning point.
If things continue as they are, neither we nor they can avoid the turning. It will happen unless adults take over their own lives and toss the thuggish political elite out of power. In the past, the ballot was sufficient to do it. Sometime in the future it will take a lot more than ballots. Hopefully, ballets still have an edge over the ugly unintended consequences of any alternative. The question is, for how long?
When you are backed up against a wall with a choice of dying or fighting with everything you have, what do you do? I say, don’t go quietly into that long dark cold night. Your life is your highest value. Fight with everything you have. It is worth the price.
He who is free, never submits. He who submits, was never free.
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Requiem for a Nation
We were very saddened to hear of your suicide.
No person expected this tragedy.
Everyone was convinced you would see through the green dream.
Why? Why did you do this to yourself?
As always, those of us left are hurt more than you.
You could have asked us for help.
You could have told someone close to you the seemingly unsolvable problems you faced.
You had so many friends you could have looked to.
You had the potential to be a long lived democracy.
The communist green dream is all that’s left.
Goodbye
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Having had a look at Julia’s fantasy, the only way of paying for it all is by QE, also known as trashing the currency. The UK has been brought to it’s knees by a socialist government that ran out of money, please don’t let the same thing happen to you.
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The ability to bring our Pollies back to reality with the Balloot Box is all that keeps our Democracy functioning, much as the Pollies may actually hate & fear that aspect, it’s all that protects us from much more painful methods of getting rid of leaders who’ have got over used to power & have outstayed their benefit to society.
In Europe though they’ve managed to set up this supra-national power base which doesn’t have to suffer elections. More & more powers are being stealthily ceded to that bureaucratic, centralist institution and more & more pollies are realising , here’s a way to sidestep the ballot box, if only they can be seen as worthy to become appointed, so they play along too, on both sides of the political spectrum, frittering away sovereignty, because they are first & foremost politicians.
The moral, of the EU experiment, if there is one, is don’t allow pollies to tinker with the mechanisms of their power, the electoral systems, as they will always tend to neutralise the very aspect which keeps their excesses in check, the ballot box. When they start after that it’s already past time for them to go.
While you cann’t trust politicians , it works as long as you only have let them be in charge for a limited time.
Australia & the USA are the last great bastions of this functioning democracy. Don’t expect any faceless supra- national institution to emulate them. Cherish what you’ve got & boot out any pollies that don’t.
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Maybe a: God save the Australian people from the Juliard climate communist hippies are in order, but then again, God helps those who help themselves.
Why would a countries ruling politicians want to introduce costs to “its” own country during a financial crisis that is still on going? Do they really believe that US will introduce these taxes while their economical situations is as it is? Probably EU wouldn’t have been as mental to try it during a crisis neither.
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To feed that furnace, crushed coal is forced in with air. In those large scale coal fired plants, the crushed coal is being burned at the rate of one ton every four and a half seconds.
Anything less than that, and the plant stops. Full stop. No correspondence entered into.
On average, as each one ton of coal is burned, 2.86 tons of CO2 is emitted.
So, the plant either emits what it always does, or it stops.
Looking at it another way:
Tonnes coal per 4.5 seconds 1
Tonnes per second 0.22
Tonnes CO2 emission per tonne 2.86
Tax per tonne of emission $23.00
Tax per second $14.62
Tax per minute $877
Tax per hour $52,624
Tax per day $1,262,976
Tax per year $460,986,240
Have I got this right and your government is stark staring mad?
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Fij should be FijiDave, blast it. How did that happen? Mods please fix.
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1DandyTroll@ #9
I’m afraid Europe kept right on funding these madcap schemes right through the financial crisis, as if nothing untoward was happening. It’s the cost of being seen as worthy to be appointed to the classe politique, that privileged elite that they all aspire to, living comfortably on public funds without the irritation of elections.
That’s why they’ll see that the public funds are committed to support it while in a position to do so.
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The lunatic climate zombies have a second wind this morning. “Professor Karoly says basic maths suggests Hazelwood will cause the annual flooding of 10,000 people,” The Age’s resident zombie Adam Morton reports as the Greens escalate their campaign to shut down Victoria’s Latrobe Valley power generation industry. David Karoly is as extreme as America’s No.1 climate zombie, James Hansen, of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, and a key backer of the IPCC’s religion.
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Doesn’t a free market to a modern, urban socialist mean one where you don’t have to pay for anything. Their only concept of a good deal , is one that someone else is paying for, never mind how much, they’re just numbers. ‘Investment’ & ‘funding’ always come from someone else.
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I suppose CCCP missed the courage-to-liberty stage around 1946. Is this an advantage?
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Marcia:@4
This may sound like an odd thing to say.
But I believe we are now in a situation where a lot of people have been educated beyond the level of their intelligence.
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Enjoy the backlash. She’s gone.
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Can someone tell me where I am wrong.
It seems to me that Gillard has locked the Govt. into a “trap” by linking this tax to adjustments in personal tax. If we assume that the tax works in terms of emmissions reductions then as they reduce ( by whatever means) then the tax revenue from it reduces but the compensation or reduced tax income from individuals remains –that is the shortfall which already exists according to some commentators gets bigger.
What am I missing here ?
Also I wonder if the Govt. will get a shock after the first year or so in the same way the Europeans did. Over there the companies over reported their emmisions in the years prior to the start of the scheme so they “over collected” on the free credits given in comprensation. They then sold the extra for a windfall gain ( before the market woke up ) and then started reporting properly , showing “reductions” in emmisions to make themselves look good ( and also so when auditing started it was all above board).
Is this where you say “let the games begin ” ?
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The biggest enemy of our democracy is not the members of parliament it is the power brokers in the bureacracy, the socialists and communists who infest our universities and the mainstream media. The Political process has been captured by these groups to a large degree and the politicians have less freedom to move than we think.If you really asked most of the academics and media people like Tony Jones, who they would really like to vote for they would most likely say Karl Marx if he was available.
If you go and have a look at the courses of study for economics, for example, in our univestities they are mainly focused of Marxist and Keynesian economics. Free market economics is touched on only in a historic sense and not really as a field of study. I asked one such student in second year about Frederick Hayek and they said, “Who”. Is it any wonder that economists is Australia are so clueless.
This is also true with some science courses, particularly environmental science. Most of these courses are not teaching basic science but are really teaching the dogma of the day as revealed by Greenpeace and The WWF. This dogma is now even being taught in primary schools. How you can think that such complicated subjects as environmental science and climate science, can even get proper attention at undergraduate level, before a good understanding has been achieved of basic science in Chemistry, Physics, and Biology, shows how misguided the whole system is.
It is these people who are going into the public service and providing advice to the politicians and unless strong action is taken to correct this then there is little hope of recovery. The first step is to remove the funding. Government funding for universities. All government meddling and subsidies for industries should also cease.
I could go on but you probably get the picture.
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most CFMEU members, who don’t even know CFMEU gave GetUp $1.2million, or that CFMEU took down a members’ poll on its website cos 79% were AGAINST a carbon tax, are SEETHING with anger over what their entrenched leader Tony Maher is doing and saying allegedly on their behalf:
CFMEU: Tony Maher’s Biography
Tony Maher is currently the National President of the CFMEU Mining and Energy Division. He has been an official of the Union for over 20 years…
In 2004, Tony was elected to the position of CFMEU National President which means he chairs the National Executive and National Executive Committee of the whole CFMEU…
Since 2006 Tony has led the unions work on Climate Change. In 2008 he was appointed chair of the ACTU Climate Group. He has been appointed to the Commonwealth Governments Carbon Capture and Storage Taskforce and the Prime Ministers Energy Efficiency Advisory Group. In 2010 he was appointed to represent unions on the Federal Government Roundtable on Climate Change…
http://www.cfmeu.net.au/infopages/2210.html
September 2009: The Australian: Sid Maher: Green jobs dopey, says CFMEU leader, Tony Maher
ONE of Australia’s most powerful union leaders has lashed out at the push for green jobs, labelling it a “dopey term”, and has dismissed environmental campaigns against some of the nation’s major export industries as “judgmental nonsense”.
The president of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, Tony Maher, said existing industries such as coal and steelmaking would have an important place in the nation’s future economic prospects and in producing a lower carbon future…
Mr Maher said much of the opposition to major industries – particularly the coal industry – was “well-intentioned naivete”.
“By mid-century we’ll be using twice as much coal and a lot more steel and plastic and concrete that aren’t the flavour of the month with environmentalists and green groups,” he said.
Yesterday he dismissed a protest at Victoria’s Hazelwood power station as “just silly”.
His rhetoric is at odds with ACTU president Sharan Burrow, who has embarked on a campaign to argue the benefits of green jobs, including joining the Southern Cross Climate Coalition, a joint group of welfare, union, research and environmental organisations that have been lobbying the government to do more to create green jobs…
Mr Maher played down any suggestion of a split with Ms Burrow, saying he chaired the ACTU’s climate change group. and that there was merely a “difference in emphasis”…
But Mr Maher said Australia produced the best-quality coking coal in the world, and this was used to make steel.
He said it was silly to protest against an industry that produced a substantial proportion of the nation’s exports.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business-old/industry-sectors/green-jobs-dopey-says-cfmeu-leader-tony-maher/story-e6frg96x-1225772463424
(pdf) June 2011 Issue of CFMEEU Hardhad Magazine, top “story”:
Pricing Pollution — CFMEU stands up for jobs and families
Don’t fall for Abbott’s scare campaign on jobs. Liberal leader Tony Abbott has never been concerned about workers losing their jobs in the past. There is no reason to believe his feigned concern now…
The CFMEU takes very seriously members’concerns about the cost of living and fears that jobs may be jeopardised by the move to a greener economy.
The Union’s response to carbon pricing is, therefore, that:
1. All revenue raised must be used to compensate households and
provide job security…
Don’t be taken in by the scare tactics. Weigh up the facts first.
http://cfmeu.asn.au/sites/default/files/downloads/nat/hardhat/hardhatexprjune2011finweb.pdf
2007: SMH: AAP: CFMEU launches climate change campaign
The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) has launched a million dollar ad campaign calling for Australia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and a 60 per cent cut in carbon emissions.
CFMEU national president Tony Maher said on Sunday reducing carbon emissions and adopting a clean energy target were essential to tackling global warming and ensuring the coal industry remained viable…
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/CFMEU-launches-climate-change-campaign/2007/07/29/1185647735470.html
6 August 2010: Fabian Org: Money & Power: How much is too much in corporate Australia?
Speakers include:
Tony Maher – President, CFMEU…
Bernie Fraser – Chair Members Equity Bank, former Reserve Bank Governor…
Andrew McIntosh – Assoc Director, ANU Centre for Climate Law and Policy…
Lee Rhiannon – NSW Greens MP…
Ged Kearney – President ACTU (TBC)…
http://www.fabian.org.au/985.asp?eventId=2501
November 2010: SMH: Tom Arup: Rebate for solar plan ‘favoured the rich’
The review by two Australian National University researchers, Andrew Macintosh and Deb Wilkinson, also said the rebate did little to foster a solar manufacturing industry in Australia, instead sending hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars offshore.
Mr Macintosh, the deputy head of the ANU centre for climate law and policy, said the rebate had been ”beautiful politics, terrible policy”…
Using documents obtained from the federal Environment Department, the researchers found 66 per cent of the solar panel systems installed under the program went to homes in suburbs with at least a ”medium-high” socio-economic status.
All the systems installed reduced Australia’s emissions by just 0.015 per cent, and cost up to $301 per tonne of carbon saved – hundreds of dollars more than the cost of emissions reductions with a carbon price.
Mr Macintosh and Ms Wilkinson also found that while the program drove a six-fold increase in the electricity generation capacity of rooftop solar panels across the country, the technology still generates only 0.1 per cent of electricity output.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/rebate-for-solar-plan-favoured-the-rich-20101110-17npf.html
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I totally agree with Ms Nova. It’s wonderful that we’ve finally moved past the bickering and onto actually doing something positive ($10B for renewables!) for the environment.
3 cheers for The Greens! Hip, hip…
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Marcia at #4
We don’t have an education system, we have an indoctrination system.
But the real problem is with our electoral system. Only madmen voted for this madness, and we’re not all fools except that we’re not organised to act in our own best interests. We trusted our system, and it has betrayed us.
Immediately, the government has to be changed. Ultimately we’ll get the system right.
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“When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
Benjamin Franklin
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Well, after wall to wall carbon tax on the news in the morning I was depressed and horrified, especially about the 80% reduction by 2050 thing.
Then I went out to collect paper, here is one of my neighbours walking dog at 7:30am. He is a retired painter on the pension, an ordinary man. I said to him, its a bit cold to be walking dog this early. We talked a bit, I parted company saying its still pretty cold to be out this early.
Then he made my morning. He said:
And he rolled his eyes.
I thought to myself, Ms Gillard you have a real real problem.
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This is a command economy proposal.
Anyone naive enough of history to verbalise the “what’s in it for me” thinking is going to get a complete ear bashing from me.
I understand that Mr Abbot failed to confirm that he would repeal this tax if it gets into place. Whilst he has said that it would be repealed before, he seems to be going much quieter of late. I really don’t understand why he isn’t properly standing up to the plate on this one.
I am forming an impression he sees this issue as a vote winner for him where the votes will simply fall into his lap without having to show any real leadership on this issue.
Until the coalition grow some kahunas and properly step up to the plate, the australian people will continue to feel more disenfranchised with the Canberra wealth sappers. The longer this remains, the more opportunity there will be for extreme elements to fill a void.
Maybe we should be looking at importing some european anarchists? Maybe that would be enough to get the canberra bludgers to actually be afraid of something?
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Only if you buy from the Euro market and sell into the Australian market… however the Euro market is rife with corruption and organised crime that you have no idea what you are buying.
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I wonder if the makeup Juliar Guillard is wearing contains carbon? What about her hairspray?
She wouldn’t be encouraging the use of carbon for vanity reasons now would she? because, well, wouldn’t that make her a complete and utter hypocrite?
Or maybe the truth is, she just sees this as an opportunity to push our economy closer to a command economy?
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Carbon DIOXIDE (PLANT FOOD) Tax Mark 4? A Stealthy Cancer………
Carbon Tax Mark 4 is flimsy but dangerous.
Because of public opposition to a new tax on everything, the tax has been gutted. The PM hopes to buy public support by giving exemptions to almost everyone and offering widespread bribes to voters. It is now feeble and ineffective.
But the Green-Gillard coalition is desperate and such people cannot be trusted. They will say or promise anything in order to get this new tax introduced.
Once on the law books, the exemptions will be whittled away, the tax rate will increase and the tax bribes will disappear. It is a stealthy cancer in the gut of the Australian economy.
The cost of electricity, food, fuel and travel will increase, but few people will recognise the root cause. Politicians will blame “Woolworths, power suppliers and Big Oil” for the pain.
This new stealth tax is the thin edge of the wedge.
It will have no effect on the climate, but is a fiscal weapon too dangerous to be left in the hands of green extremists.
Leaving Bob Brown loose with the vast powers of a carbon tax is like leaving the grandkids alone in the hayshed with a box of matches.
“Abolish the Stealth Tax” will be the next election slogan.
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Marcia @4- I voted Labor, after all, Julia Gillard unequivocally stated before the election “there will be no carbon tax under any government I lead”. If there is a carbon tax she will have lied.
Let’s all push for an election before the tax comes in under the slogan “make an honest woman of julia gillard”. If she wins she will be mandated to introduce the tax, just as little johnny was with the GST. There must be some level of civil disobedience possible which makes the country ungovernable until we get an election. Any suggestions?
And in the meantime how about a boycott of any product with “green” in its description? Let’s show our masters that the law of unintended consequences still applies!
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Tel,
Did Franklin happen to say how the game would end? It looks pretty grim if things go on too long as they are.
But thankfully we have a few left who have enough self-respect to want to avoid a government dole. We shall see.
10
I wonder if the person who is quickly doing a thumbs down on each post this morning is working on the taxpayers dime?
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According to Wikipedia, 18% by weight of Juliar’s body is filthy, black, polluting carbon.
If only we could remove that disgusting component, we would have a far more acceptable PM.
Any chemical engineers out there?
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Gnome @ 26
Perhaps one suggestion for civil disobedience would be to punish the MSM urgers by hitting them firmly in the hip pocket- if we pick a date for anyone with Foxtel to cancel their subscription en masse in protest at the carbon tax, this might just persuade them, one arm of the MSM, to give us some air time and a more balanced view of this iniquitous tax. We’ll be waiting a long time before Aunty or SBS will give us some air, but Fox is very vulnerable to us all pulling the plug simultaneously. Just one example off the top of my head as to how we can use what little influence we have – has anyone else any suggestions regarding ways to attack the hip pocket nerve of those who supply this zombie, mutant government with the life giving Oxygen and nutrients it needs to continue to flourish against all known laws of biology. I for one am open to any and all suggestions to lift the veil of community apathy and inaction.
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Winston,
With the free to air channels, simply having the discipline to not watch the channel for a week I am sure would hit their advertising revenue and get their attention.
I for one have decided that any TV adverts pitching JuLiars war on the Periodic table will result in the channel being blocked for a week.
If enough people do this, I am sure it would be noticed.
Any other ideas anyone?
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Looking at the bright side, I think this is a pivotal moment in the development of our democaracy. If we can claw our way out of this mess, we will be a stronger nation. The alternative does not bear thinking about.
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Strike at the root Jo.
It is only the government’s irredeemable debt that allows these nefarious schemes to flourish.
Your blog seems to have many readers, how many of them understand that Australian banknotes were once redeemable in gold coin at the Treasury?
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Words failed me listening to the garbage being spewed by the three amigos on Carbon Sunday… well words didn’t fail, but none of them were words that can be reproduced in polite conversation.
Fact is that we are at the apathetic stage … people are too busy paying their outrageous mortgages (housing is waaaay overpriced in Australia) to have the time to worry about the Government pilfering more money from our pockets to redistribute to their pet scams.
One thing I wish to point out is that Australians are apathetic about Bracket Creep (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_drag#Bracket_creep). I shall make a point of calculating (modelling if you will) the impact of bracket creep, which Joooooolya completely forgot to mentoion yesterday. Yes your taxes went up in 2010-2011 because of it, and will again in 2010-11. No one is talking about all those billions the Government pinched off you are they?
It is the complete dishonesty of the current Government and their supporting actors that leave me all but speechless.
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A L P – Australia Left Penniless
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The Fabians..
[from their site]
Our Statement of Purpose
Australian Fabians promote the common good and foster the advance of social
democracy in Australia through reasoned debate by:
a) Contributing to progressive political thinking by generating ideas that reflect
a level of thinking that meets the challenges of the times.
Fake climate change , fraudulent taxes.
b) Contributing to a progressive political culture by disseminating these ideas
and getting them into the public domain.
Cancelling debate on issues, brainwashing kids on climate change.
c) Creating an active movement of people who identify with, are engaged in
and who encourage progressive political debate and reform, and
Gathering individuals who ‘agree’ with the above and enforce it on the gullible serfs/subjects.
d) Influencing the ideas and policies of political parties, especially the Australian
Labor Party.
Forming the Australian
communistLabor/Green party.10
Ross @ 16
No, you’re spot on. By linking this into the income tax system (whatever happened to ‘revenue neutral?’) the government is setting itself up for the mother of all structural deficits. It’s bad enough that Howard locked in cash payments instead of income tax reductions (because income tax reductions hurt less in the long run) – here we have Gillard locking in cash payments and income tax reductions (but only for lower income earners, marginal tax rates actually go up, the first time since Hawke came in). These cash payments and income tax reductions are paid for with a combination of borrowing more money, and from carbon tax payments. However, when this converts to a trading scheme, it will be cheaper for companies to purchase credits from Europe, where the price direction is down. Every single trading scheme in the world is trading lower than projected. The market is flooded and rife with scamming. As JoNova says – how do you tell if 1,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide was actually abated? It’s not like you can go down to the docks and inspect the goods?
So, come 2015, the cash payments will still be coming out of the budget, but the tax collection will stop as companies purchase their carbon credits overseas. 100 million tonnes of them, in fact, going by the figures presented. If we pretend that the market will trade at the price expected, that will be $2.6 billion per year sent off overseas, with no value at all imported for it. At least when we spent $1.7 billion buying imported batts, they’re still in the rooves of houses. At least sending bilions in aid gives some hope that somewhere, a child gets access to a doctor or school or both. But these carbon credits – billions of dollars worth – will be sent overseas, each and every year, and the Australian government and the Australian people will receive nothing in return except for a warm fuzzy feeling of ‘it’s the right thing to do’. So either the government falls further into debt or they pull the compensation and leave us with the higher prices. And there is no guarantee – none, zip, nada – that these carbon credits will actually, you know, abate any carbon dioxide. Will Iceland have to purchase some if a volcano erupts? Will Russia have to purchase if a boreal forest fire gets underway?
And every day, the coal loaders will be shipping 10x as much coal to China so that it’s citizens can enjoy cheap power for it’s people and factories. But the answer to Australians is: no, you can’t have the same technology.
This whole exercise is as stupid as taxing people in the 1930’s to stop facism. Pretend there was a fascist tax levied on all goods and services. Then sent to Mussolini and Hitler in the form of ‘no fascist credits’, each credit a promise they won’t implement a fascist policy. Would that have stopped fascism? Would there have been any way of checking?
Here’s how it works:
1) Top 500 emitters pay tax after self-reporting emissions
2) Top 500 emitters put up prices
3) Consumers pay more for items
4) Government borrows money to pay consumers for higher prices
5) Government collects carbon tax
6) Government pays carbon tax back to industries for higher costs involved with carbon tax
7) Government gives billions to unelected, unaccountable committees to close working technology and replace it with experimental technology. Lights go out, people get cold.
8) Large companies shrug shoulders and move operations offshore to countries with no tax (which is every other country in the world)
8) ????
9) Sea level stops rising, Barrier Reef stops bleaching, cyclones,dust storms, floods and droughts cease immediately.
I repeat my challenge to the resident warmies of this site : do you really, truly support this policy? Do you think it’s in the interest of Australia, and do you think it will achieve this so-called ‘clean energy future’? Be honest – stop barracking for the team and give your true thoughts. I’m quite happy to rubbish the direct action policy of the coalition – this site is about petty partisan politics.
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Can’t help but feel cynical today. When I was a kid the injection vets used to put animals down was colloquially called a “Green Dream”.
10
Julia Gillard:
No there hasn’t! There has been a secretive, stacked climate change committee who was there to debate, not whether to have a carbon tax, but how big. If she wanted debate she would have released it a week ago when it was decided, not waited until the winter Parliamentary break.
The height of fraud is in the website with its modeling. That’s the confidence trick to persuade the gullible…and the selfish.
I’ve already gone over there and clicked in my numbers and I’m supposedly $250 a year worse off, but $300 better off. So, $50 dollars ahead.
But I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it because, first off it will be a “best case scenario”. But moreover it will have untold consequences. People losing their jobs can have an unpredictable effect on the whole economy. It will drive down demand and wages. And it will discourage investment.
The most shocking thing is how could Labor sell out to the Greens on their own voter heartland just to hold on to a few months more power? Is being in government really that good?
It can’t be the money. So, is the feeling of power really that good? Power must be like a drug to Gillard. Intoxicating and addicting. She loves when people say: PM.
Christine Milne is very ominous and scary. Like she’s got a death wish. She needs to punish wrong-doers.
We’ve always had people like her in society and occasionally they rise to power. Pol Pot, Stalin, George Bush are a few that come to mind. We must resist this evil.
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BRC@37,
I think you missed a couple of steps:
2a) Middlemen between the emitters and the consumers push up their prices (with a couple of extra percentage points while they’re at it)
and
3a) Increased wage pressures result in businesses unrelated to the emitters raise their prices (with a couple of extra percentage points while they’re at it)
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Another poll at the union site ‘your rights at work’. Definitely one for anyone who pays union dues:
Current leading ‘yes’ at 60/40 to ‘no’.
@madjak : a good inclusion. Also forgot the UN money and extra GST receipts.
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“Carbon Sunday?” — More like the “ashes” of the ‘Lucky Country’ !!
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Nothing will change unless there is massive protest. Apathy will win. Anything short of a Tea Partyesque surge will leave the politicians to continue weaving their disingenuous schemes.
Having said that I fully realise this will not happen in Australia… the electroate is far too gutless, apathetic, or generally lazy to do anything about this.
I don’t support the tax… merely calling the situation as a rational observer. Hence welcome to the New World Order Australian-style. Slow death by taxation and UN-like unelected committees showering largesse on progressives.
The scam is setting up so many departments and committees that it becomes a massive institution which is almost impossible to unwind. That is how bureaucracy slowly strangles economies. We have seen it in the failed European experiment and now Australia is leading the charge.
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The limitations on democracy are obvious, and no more so than in the USA, where they are paying the price for continually reducing taxation, without reducing expenditure.
I accept a certain amount of dishonesty from politicians. When elected, I expect them to not reflect “the view of the people”, but to do what is actually best for the country. The last thing I ever want is some sort of populist movement that actually delivers on promises, despite the harm to the nation.
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And another ninemsn poll clickety click..
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BTW, just looking at my last post, it seems I’m slagging off the Republicans and the Tea Party 🙂 – but what do you expect from an old lefty?
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But John – I thought Team AGW were sure that the people were all for this tax on the periodic table of elements.
Surely this must be a syntax error?
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I’ve missed a lot of the coverage, have the Coalition said that they will definitely rescind the tax? If so, they get my vote. If not, I’ll find an independent who’ll try and rescind it.
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“MadJak” (31),
Just DL any content you want to watch.
No ads and no BS…….
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There was talk yesterday of ‘a clean energy future’.
Combet also mentioned the ‘probability’ of closing Hazelwood.
Let’s then look at that clean energy future, and no ballparking here. Let’s use actual proposed costs shall we.
The three most recently announced renewable power plants are Coopers Gap wind farm near Toowoomba, Solar Dawn in Chinchilla, and the Moree Solar Farm.
Total cost for all three is $3.3 Billion, and half of that total cost is being subsidised by Federal and State Governments.
Hazelwood actually supplies right now 12,500GWH of power to the grid in Victoria.
Admitted these new renewables will not be supplying that same grid, but this is for the sake of equivalence.
All three of these new plants will deliver a (theoretical best case scenario) total of 2620GWH to the grids.
So that makes up 21% of what Hazelwood is already delivering.
Hence, you will need five times that renewable total to equal Hazelwood, but keep in mind it’s not really a true comparison, because Hazelwood delivers its power 24/7/365, and the best these renewables can offer is (again a theoretical best case scenario) for their power for 9 hours a day.
Now that five times factor is not five new plants, but five times all three of those plants.
That now comes in at $16.5 Billion, again half from Government subsidies.
Thos replacement plants for Hazelwood are not even at the thought bubble stage, and from the date of release of any proposal, you’re looking at five to seven years before any of them will actually be delivering power.
The Post at this link explains it in more depth and also has a graphic that shows the stupidity of even mentioning this in the first place.
Close down Hazelwood, and replace it with a (nyuk nyuk nyuk) ‘clean energy future!!!!!’.
Tell her she’s dreamin’
Tony.
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Yes Grumpy, Abbott will repeal this wretched tax, unless the darling of the doctors’ wives, Malcolm becomes leader then all bets are off.
But really you should vote for The Climate Sceptics, the only party in the world specifically set up to oppose this madness and to oppose stupidity generally.
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OK you heard me whinging about bracket creep. I took 10 minutes of my day to model it. Pump in ATO tax brackets in a spreadsheet, a couple nested IF formulas to calculate the taxes and then play with the input parameters.
Let’s assume (for simplicity) that your income rises at the rate of the CPI, which means that your income purchasing power did not change from 2010-11 to the current tax year 2011-12. I have assumed 2.5% CPI (and wage) increase from 2010-11 to 2011-12 (midpoint of the RBA target range of 2-3%).
Here’s the results of bracket creep based on a few different salaries:
What Jooolya does not address is that bracket creep will already be taking hundreds of dollars out of your pockets this year simply because Australian tax brackets are not automatically adjusted for inflation. Even if you got a raise this year (lucky bugger) that matched inflation or more, you will have lost hundreds of dollars in additional taxation because the tax brackets stayed put between 2010-11 and 2011-2012.
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John Brookes weights in with his confused thinking:
America was founded as a Constitutional REPUBLIC.
The problem is the never ending spending INCREASE.Liberal morons wants to raise taxes.Claiming it would help reduce the deficit spending.Suuuuure you would come up with this bullcrap.The problem still exist because after adding even a generous tax increase.There will still be a massive budgetary deficit.
Cutting taxes is actually good.But it eventually depends on having spending cuts.If they do not come.Then it make sense to stop cutting taxes.
I think we should NOT be passing a new tax cut anymore.And concentrate on spending cuts for the next 10 years.To bring it back in line to around the balance point.
What do you think Johnny?
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BRC in 37,
You forgot the step which inserts a GST price component, is the GST inserted before or after the Carbon TAX is applied?
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Wall street criminal banksters laughing at Australia and NZ and reeking in the money (yes any collected tax is sure to wind up elsewhere). After encouraging the greatest scam of the millennium (both this and last) the banksters in the EU and Wall street who have escaped prosecution because of a fraudulent president in power have got the UN patsies that started all this IPCC and the sucker Govts that fall for it as New Zealands ETS and the upcoming CO2 Tax here.
As many EU countries have dumped the idea of following such stupidity. Australia and NZ, south pacific suck-butts to the banksters. This Tax isnt Communist its Fascist.
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What is actually “best” for the country? Only the superior anointed class of rulers can say eh?
And that just sums it up doesn’t it John? You are waiting for a God to come save you. Someone who knows what you need better than you do yourself.
Those of us who do not grovel before others and give up our right to think, expect prospective leaders to be honest about the plan they offer and to explain why its the right plan. Then if we vote them in , we expect them to stick to their word.
“Populist” is a nasty way of saying that most people want it, (everyone except the ruling elite.)
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Crakar24 @ 54
I think that the system will have the GST excluded from the Carbon Pricing. So “the big polluters” will pay $23.00 per tonne plus GST. I think that’s why Juliar went away from the term Carbon Tax. It would be seen as unconstitutional to have 2 taxes one applied on top of the other.
The interesting thing about GST, it is an incentive for the government to allow prices to escalate and therefore earn (for the want of a better term) them more revenue. We will soon be faced with the real positive feedbacks of CAGW due to the GST portion of this.
It will not do anything substantial or beneficial to Australia it is a waste of resources. It is totally reprehensible and this Government should be taken to toll for it.
This whole sordid affair will go down as Australia’s worst moment in history.
Say YES to an Election now !!
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connolly:
July 11th, 2011 at 12:59 pm
Just a brief note on the steel industry “compensation”. This chaotic abomination just gets worse in regard to the steel industry. Gillard and the Greens have just killed domestic steel production in this country. The only argument between the ALP and the Greens is just how quickly the execution should take place. The ALP is proposing:
# four years of protection from the carbon dioxide pricing scheme.
# a $300 million steel industry assistance plan, shared between Bluescope (Wollongong) and One Steel (Whyalla). The split is Bluescope 60% and Onesteel 40%
# BlueScope will receive 94.5 per cent of its carbon pollution permits by subsidy and about $45 million a year, to help cover its carbon tax costs.
# Under the proposed “clean technology program”, the Government will contribute a third of all capital costs for “energy-efficient capital equipment and low-pollution (sic) processes. Bluescope will not be investing in carbon dioxide emission mitigation.
The Industry Assistance Plan was not part of the deal reached with the Greens and independents through the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee. It will have to make it through the Parliament under separate legislation and will only get through with the Liberals and Labor voting together. The Greens will oppose it in the Parliament. If this has any upside the Greens Party is now politically extinct in the steel regions.
BlueScope, is on track for a large loss for the 2010-11 financial year, and argued for assistance on the basis that it would have to borrow capital to pay the carbon tax.
So there we have it. What was until yesterday an internationally competative manufactury industry in a fiercely competative market is today totally dependent on Governmant assistance and subsidies for its survival. And has a “guarantee” for four years.
And when the election is over in 2012 and some of the union officials who have annointed this shameful sell out of thousands of workers jobs, families and their future have retired on hefty superannuation payments paid by their members or have been elevated into parliament (Howes, Maher) the steel industry will just begin to be moved off shore.
I am sorry to use this language but its difficult to contain the anger and disgust, perhaps we can be cut some slack today, but they – the ALP and the Greens are bastards. Just bastards.
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John Brookes.
I preferred your old gravatar…
The new one accentuates your leftist “head tilt”
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rjim385,
Not sure you understand my post, let me rephrase it. If i own a company that makes election campaign buttons for the Liberals which state “Gillard is a retard” “Brown is a fiscal clown”, “Vote liberal Dec 2011” when i charge the Liberals the cost of making the buttons the government whacks on a GST which is passed onto them. If under a carbon tax the cost of making the buttons increases then i will pass this additional cost onto the liberals, ergo if my price goes up so will the GST component. In regards to unconstitutional taxes? sorry but have a look at petrol, excise is applied at the refinery, then GST is applied at the pump nothing new about unconstitutional taxes my friend.
This TAX with all the full/partial/future compensation plus the taxation sleight of hand coupled with the Robin Hood mentality means that i am struggling to get a handle on it…….well until i heard Combet in an interview at lunchtime. The interviewer asked how can you claim food prices will not go up under the tax? Combet replied by saying food processors will recieve gov handouts to compensate. However when pressed he explained these were not to “compensate” but to “educate” them in producing more food using less electricty.
Anyway i have worked in government now for a few years and i have seen many catch crys over the years that have always failed when it comes to saving money etc. The most famous one was the “Work smarter not harder” slogan which i think is quite apt for naming what Combet was describing. As with all the government catch cry ideas i have seen fail so will this one.
Remember when the economy crashes think “canned foods and shotguns”.
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Pat@20
Update on the career of Tony Maher
Tony Maher – 201? ALP parliamentarian
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found this on WUWT. read it all and weep. Chevron in on the act too:
6 March: Los Angeles Times: Michael Finnegan and Gale Holland: Billions to Spend: Part 6
Grand dream loses sheen in glare of daylight
L.A. community colleges’ green energy plan proves wildly impractical. The blunders cost taxpayers $10 million.
The Los Angeles Community College District would become a paragon of clean energy. By generating solar, wind and geothermal power, the district would supply all its electricity needs…
These and other blunders cost nearly $10 million that could have paid for new classrooms, laboratories and other college facilities, a Times investigation found.
The problems with Eisenberg’s energy vision were fundamental. For starters, there simply wasn’t room on the campuses for all the generating equipment required to become self-sufficient. Some of the colleges wouldn’t come close to that goal even if solar panels, wind turbines and other devices were wedged into every available space.
Going off the grid did not make economic sense either. Given the cost of alternative energy technology, it would be more expensive for the district to generate all its own electricity than to continue paying utilities for power.
Weather and geology also refused to cooperate…
Eisenberg, the district’s executive director of facilities planning and development, conceded some mistakes but voiced no regrets. He cast himself as an environmental visionary and predicted that the college system would eventually achieve energy independence. “Somebody needs to be first,” he said. “If the great explorers really had a map and knew where they were going, maybe we wouldn’t have the result we have today.”…
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-build6-20110306,0,2339677,full.story
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CameronH@17:
I can see what you’re saying about the Austrian school of thought being MIA. However, my instinctive reaction was to disagree with your opinion that it is the powerbrokers and the commies that are the principal enemies of our democracy.
I would have said that generally the greatest enemy of democracy is the misinformed citizen. Not the uninformed citizen as is usually quoted, because an uninformed citizen is usually at least aware that they don’t understand an issue, don’t have the expertise, and that any opinion they give is prejudice or parroted. The uninformed citizen will seek someone else to appoint as their expert and trust whatever that person says. If the expert they choose has both a broad theoretical perspective and some practical experience then things might still turn out well for the populus.
I say the misinformed citizen is much more dangerous because they have certainty and faith without expertise or evidence. They think they know what’s best and are prepared to act on beliefs that may not be appropriate to the real situation.
On reflection we’re both right. The uninformed public can trust experts that have been preselected by a process biased to a single school of thought. That’s what has happened with the carbon tax. The government academics are biased. The powerbrokers simply want power and are only communist in effect because they are sitting in a government office instead of a boardroom. Being “informed on the issue” doesn’t exactly apply to them because the are focussed on a preferred action, not on understanding the problem.
The 15% to 20% of citizens that are misinformed about the basis for the carbon tax are the dyed-in-the-wool watermelons. Your average socialist may be uninformed of communism’s death toll but there’s a spectrum of socialism which doesn’t have to go as far as Stalin.
We should architect a Civilisation 2.0 with some immunity to the formation of a central technocrat elite, thus removing the risk of institutional bias, but the difficulty in removing anointed experts from decisions is in trying to ensure the majority of the public are not misinformed on any given issue. Is it even feasible to make everybody an expert on everything? Plus, at least 20% of the public are specimens low on the IQ bell curve, and there’s not much that can be done about that. Also remember that humans have an odd tendency to seek blame, even though it isn’t productive and can’t undo a mistake. One advantage of a small group of anointed experts is that they are publicly identifiable and (hopefully) accountable and certainly blameable. Decisions should ideally be made by the smartest people, but the trick is getting preferences and values represented in the decision.
The best compromise I can devise is a democracy where issues of significance are given enough time and public funding for communicating every major school of thought on the issue (or maybe just the top three), so the majority can’t remain uninformed and can’t have one side hogging the licensed broadcast media. A plebicite from a minimum of 25% of the voting population would be required on issues that meet certain criteria of cost and quality, but voting could probably remain anonymous. Certainly there is no point in communicating a case to the people unless the people are expected to DO something with that information. “Not protesting” doesn’t count as doing something.
It’s a solution similar to what was highlighted here last week with the $12M advertising budget for the carbon tax. Why is there a For case being taxpayer funded, but no Against case being funded? As a skeptic you have to admit there is a chance you can be wrong, even if all the evidence available says you’re probably right. The best we can ask for is a level playing field in the democratic discourse.
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just saw this shill on BBC Business. if u can bear watching the GE wind turbine ad, u can watch David tell BBC who will be the winners and losers:
10 July: BBC: Australia to tax carbon emissions
David Lennox, from Fat Prophets in Sydney, told the BBC it is a significant move in policy by the Australian Government…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/14101709
note ex FAT Prophets’ Shearwood connection here:
28 June: Adelaide Advertiser: Daniel Wills: Feasibility study bid for fuel project in South Australia’s Far North
A COMPANY wants backing for a $300 million feasibility study into converting a Far North coal deposit to diesel.
Central Petroleum and Allied Resource Partners has announced plans to use cutting-edge technology to exploit a deposit in the Pedirka Basin, straddling the SA-NT border.
Mineral Resources Development Minister Tom Koutsantonis yesterday said the project would “rival Olympic Dam” and could produce as many barrels of oil a year as Kuwait…
Mr Shearwood (Allied Resource Partners joint managing director)(and ex-mining engineer-fund manager-Fat Prophets director) said Australia’s looming carbon tax could make the project more competitive because less environmentally friendly fuel industries would be hit with additional charges…
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/feasibility-study-bid-for-fuel-project-in-south-australias-far-north/story-e6frea83-1226083143284?from=public_rss
not proven commercially, but so what:
8 July: SMH: Richard Hemming: Small company thinking big on coal
Small companies must think big, but I have never come across one that is thinking any bigger than oil and gas explorer Central Petroleum.
Last month, the company announced it would look for partners to convert a deep underground coal discovery into synthetic gas and then into synthetic oil. Its announcement in June said that if it was successful it would “help Australia become self-sufficient in liquid transport fuels, a national security imperative”…
The company issues about two ASX announcements a week with more geological references than 99.9 per cent of punters’ minds can handle. But it also happens to own the exploration rights over a massive amount of land in the centre of Australia – in the vicinity of 270,000 square kilometres.
While exploring, it stumbled onto an extraordinary amount of coal, which it thinks is in the region of 150 to 300 billion tonnes. The catch is it sits 150 metres or so under the ground.
This is the kind of find that represents zero value to many because of its depth. But a newly formed group called Allied Resource Partners, run by ex-mining engineer-fund manager-Fat Prophets director David Shearwood, thinks otherwise. His firm has been engaged by Central to take charge of the project, which means finding the money ($300 million for a bank feasibility study and then $7.5 billion for the stage 1 development)…
Historically, it has been used by groups cut off from oil supply, namely the Nazis in Germany and Apartheid South Africa. In these situations, the coal was liquefied after it was dug out of the ground.
These days, some (probably investors in the technology) are describing it as the next big thing in energy because there is no physical mining of coal, which reduces personnel, costs and the physical impact on the landscape. In short, it seems to tick a lot of environmental boxes and can be used for power generation, as well as chemical feed and liquid fuel…
(Johan Hedstrom, an energy analyst with Bell Potter: “It’s a nice concept, but has not been commercially proven,” he said.
Hedstrom said that there are specific conditions that need to be in place that cannot be controlled to make synthetic gas. That means the right mix of methane, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide. Clearly it is not a simple process.
This month, Queensland’s Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) laid charges against Cougar Energy (ASX: CXY) after a gas well ruptured at a site south of Kingaroy where the company was trialling UCG technology. The company is alleged to have contaminated the ground water.
Cougar’s shares now trade at less than 2 cents, having traded at 8 cents 12 months ago…
http://www.smh.com.au/business/small-company-thinking-big-on-coal-20110708-1h5jo.html
covering all the Govt subsidy bases:
7 July: Alice Springs News: Ultra clean diesel from Simpson Desert coal?
Mr Shearwood says interest from governments – Territory and Federal – is keen.
As the project could fit under either the extraction (coal) or petroleum (gas) legislations the company has registered the Pedirka Basin Clean Fuel Production Project under both types of laws.
Mr Shearwood says the sheer size of the project is a challenge for fundraising. Local fund managers prefer “thus far” to put pension money they administer into the top-100 companies, and Central Petroleum isn’t one of them – yet. Only about half the fund managers have a mining background.
“We want the best players around the globe to look at this,” says Mr Shearwood.
These are likely to include the world’s big oil and mining companies, he says.
http://www.alicespringsnews.com.au/index.html
folks be careful with your Super. some figure it’s best to keep it in cash for the forseeable future in case the CO2 bubble gobbles it all up.
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Connolly @ 61
Agree with all this – BlueScope and One Steel will be off shore in three to four years.
Here’s an email from Mr. O’Malley (via Hot Copper) to BlueScope employees. Only 60% of the CO2 Tax is covered in the first four years – then open slather for the government. Talks of providing solar furnaces and wind powerto make steel??? They have to go to Port Kembla to see the energy required to make steel for their windmills.
Email as is.
To: All BlueScope employees in Australia and New Zealand
From: Paul O’Malley, Managing Director and CEO
PRAGMATIC OUTCOME ON CARBON TAX ? BUT TOUGH CONDITIONS REMAIN
Today, the Australian Government announced details of its new carbon tax, including a sector-specific assistance package for Australian steelmakers, the Steel Transformation Plan (STP).
The STP is a pragmatic outcome for BlueScope after four years of negotiation. It is a substantially better outcome than was likely under the Government?s previous CPRS proposal. The STP:
? provides $300 million funding to minimise the impact of the carbon tax on Australian steelmakers for the first four years of the tax (BlueScope will receive approximately 60% of this funding)
? provides an independent review mechanism to monitor the carbon tax position of our international competitors
? signals the Government?s intention to limit the potential pass-through of carbon emission costs from coal miners onto steelmakers
The STP will commence when the Government?s carbon price mechanism commences. In addition, the Government will provide BlueScope with 10% increase in permit allocation relating to slab production commencing in 2016/17 for two years.
While the carbon tax legislation is still to be passed by Parliament, we believe this STP will materially reduce the overall cost of the carbon tax on BlueScope.
It effectively removes one significant financial hurdle the Company has been facing. However, other external factors adversely impacting our Australian business in the past few years remain, and continue to challenge us. I?m referring to factors you already know ? the high Australian dollar, high raw material costs, low domestic demand and low steel prices. As you are aware, these macroeconomic factors have played a big part in the recent financial losses of our Australian business, exacerbated by our large exposure to a depressed steel export market.
Mark Vassella and his BANZ management team are leading the Market First business strategy and are undertaking a consolidated review of our Australian business, to improve its cost base and assess the best operating model for a profitable business future.
We will continue to communicate with you as you build a sustainable BlueScope ANZ ? a business ready and able to make a significant contribution to BlueScope?s long-term future.
Whilst changes to strategy, structure and systems are inevitable during the transformation, one thing will not be changing, and that is our commitment to safety. Safety is our first and overriding priority, whoever and wherever you are in BlueScope.
We are a great Company, thanks to the contribution of our employees. But we face challenging times and will all need to be flexible, make the right decisions and look out for each other.
This will give BlueScope a four year period to proceed with their exit out of Australia plan.
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The pass-through costs have already started:
QANTAS STATEMENT – IMPACT OF CARBON PRICE
SYDNEY, 11 July 2011: The Australian Government’s introduction of a carbon price system from 1
July 2012 will have an estimated cost impact of approximately $110-115 million on the Qantas Group
in the financial year ending 30 June 2013.
Domestic airlines will be exposed to the full starting carbon price of $23 per tonne through an
increase in aviation fuel excise from July 2012 and will not have access to transitional assistance or
compensation arrangements. International aviation fuel will be excluded from the carbon price
scheme.
Following the transition to an emissions trading scheme in July 2015, aviation fuel excise increases
will be determined based on a six-month average of the market price for carbon.
In the context of the significant challenges facing the global aviation industry, the Qantas Group will
be unable to absorb the additional costs associated with the carbon price and there will be a full
pass-through to customers.
Based on the estimated additional costs, the Qantas Group expects that the price of a single
domestic flight sector will increase on average by approximately $3.50 in FY13. Fare increases will
vary depending on sector length and will be communicated transparently to consumers.
Issued by Qantas Corporate Communication (Q5150)
Media Enquiries: Tom Woodward M: 0424 245 265 E: thomaswoodward@qantas.com.au
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The Loaded Dog: #62
At least the new gravatar is less green – subliminal Freudian slip, do you suppose?
10
I hope you don’t mind if I’m a little sarcastic here.
What particularly impresses me about Julia announcement was the statement that this new ‘Price on Pollution’ (in the Newspeak) will save up to 160 million tons of, er, ‘pollution’ by 2020.
There’ll be a build up to that, so there is the ‘possibility’ this may mean the savings of around 500 million tons of CO2 from every source, you know, those 500 ‘big polluters’, between now and then, if everything goes to theory.
Man, that’s a huge number.
So China is the only Country currently constructing new technology large scale coal fired power plants. They produce twice the power for half the CO2 emissions, and China is currently bringing one of these huge new plants on line, delivering power every seven days.
Those plants will burn around 4.5 million tons of coal, and at the average multiplier of 2.86 tons of CO2 per one ton of burned coal, these new plants will emit 13 million tons of CO2 each year.
So Australia’s saving of that 500 million tons is the equivalent savings of 38 of these large Chinese plants.
So what Australia does in total over the next 9 years will be completely negated by China before March next year, 2012.
This is exciting news Prime Minister. We’re so glad you’re saving the World!
Tony.
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Just in case the unions site gets squeamish at the result, here’s a screenshot:
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Ack didn’t work :
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Oh dear. I don’t know how to link : http://i54.tinypic.com/2v8jrps.png
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Is anyone able to comment on if there are any legal ramifications from the constant reference to ‘carbon’ when they are taxing based on CO2e (CO2 equivalent)?
Also, has CO2 (or ‘carbon’ – whatever that means) been officially designated a pollutant in Australia (I believe the US EPA has done so)? If not, are there any legal loopholes in this whole farce as JG is ‘taxing the 500 biggest polluters’. If it is not legally a pollutant then there is a disconnect with the rhetoric and the law.
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Dave @ 68 : in other words, we have now become a pawn in the government game instead of an independent business. Our ability to exist depends entirely of attaching ourselves to the federal government like a tick to a host dog. We no longer control our own destiny. Sorry about that, but you all work for Bob Brown and Julia Gillard now, and will have to do what they say.
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Shouldn’t be too hard on JB… it is in his nature to be a follower, to bow and scrape to self-annointed “experts.” What he doesn’t realise, or more likely _want_ to realise, is that the huddled masses actually represent a diffuse knowledge base that no single expert, or group of experts, can ever begin to appreciate or emulate.
When someone says we need to do something because an expert or expert committee said we should, check your bank account and wallet… they are about to be raided.
John Trigge:
I also wonder about the discrimination in taxation .. i.e. the 500 “biggest polluters” get taxed, but not the smaller ones in the exact same industry doing the exact same thing. I guess there are precedents, but it is rather peculiar if you ask me. What is to stop some people restructuring their business to split it into components too small to meet the taxation threshhold? So many things about this tax deisgned by committee are completely ridiculous. It fails on many fronts.
Personally, if the Government wanted to redistribute income I would rather they just let bracket creep do its work for a year or two and shift the tax-free threshhold up afterwards, or whatever… much more efficient way to get the same result without driving industry offshore. Let’s face it … no single CO2-emitting industry has any economic reason to switch fuels at the current tax level, so the GHG emission profile of Australia will not change a jot. Therefore this is an income redistribution tax, and a very inefficient one at that.
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Survey: Carbon DIOXIDE (PLANT FOOD) Tax – What do you think?
http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=hxfg2mejubelvqs939944
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Why is “carbon pollution” not listed as a pollutant by this deceiving government?
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/why_is_carbon_pollution_not_listed_as_a_pollutant_by_this_deceiving_governm/
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Dave@68
Thanks for that mate. The steel industry will be squeezed out of Australia if this scheme survives the next election. There is no technology to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions in blast furnace steel making. The shield against new cost add ons due to the industry’s emissions is in place for only four years. And then it goes on the cap and trade pricing escalator. Costs cannot be passed onto the market because our competitors don’t have carbon dioxide emission pricing on-costs. Mitigation isnt technologically possible. So who is going to win that market contest? We lost thousands of jobs in the steel regions to make the industry internationally competative and all of the sacrifice and hard work has been shredded by a low dirty deal between the Greens, four independents and Gillard’s ALP. And they insult our intelligence and decency by offering a twenty cents a week election bribe. And ask us to trust a Prime Minister who lied before the last election.
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John Trigge@69
RE: Qantas Announcement:
so if
but
What happens when a plane flies from say NZ to sydney, sydney to Melbourne and then melbourne to NZ?
How will they be able to judge what fuel was used where? what if there was a head wind for part of one of the legs? Will the passengers be charged extra due to the evil head wind?
If this happens, it’s going to be a beaurocrats bonanza and a taxpayers nightmare!
Ohhh dear, I can hear that awful mix of accountants beaurocrats and lawyers rubbing their hands with glee.
Oh well, I guess it’s one way to encourage aussies to holiday overseas then…. I personally have every intention of avoiding this scheme wherever this is possible.
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Connolly,
These costs are huge – even with the steel industry compensation scheme – see below:
BlueScope & One Steel together emit 15.5 million tonnes of CO2-e at $23.00 per tonne. This is $365 million per year for the government – minus $300 million over 4 years plus subsidy on permits.
The figures are from http://www.climatechange.gov.au/government/initiatives/national-greenhouse-energy-reporting/~/media/publications/greenhouse-report/nger-publication-0411.pdf
The $300 million will disappear fast and the subsidies will end after 4 years – then they are both in trouble. Unless the AUD drops dramatically (more than 20%)in the next year – both companies in Australia are finished.
Like you said it’s a dirty deal between the Greens, four independents and Gillard’s ALP
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11 July: Gold Coast Bulletin: Coast tourism to be hit under carbon plan
As part of the Clean Energy Future package, fuel was exempt but aviation fuel was not.
Mr Gschwind said the increase in the aviation fuel excise would mean international flights would become cheaper than flying domestically…
http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2011/07/11/331581_gold-coast-news.html
11 July: Australian: Airlines fear backlash over EU carbon charge
by David Robertson, The Times
EUROPEAN airlines have urged the EU to water down proposals for a new carbon trading scheme amid fears that it will spark retaliation from other countries.
The airlines hope that the scope of the scheme will be reduced to cover flights within the EU, rather than all flights through European airspace.
American carriers began legal action at the European Court of Justice this week in an attempt to block the introduction of the emissions trading scheme next year.
The Chinese have also threatened legal action and could refuse to pay for pollution permits.
Russia is said to be considering an increase in the charges that European airlines pay for flying over its territory in retaliation for Europe imposing the scheme on its airlines…
Several international carriers have argued that the system is unfair because they will be taxed by Europe despite having to pay carbon mitigation taxes in their own countries…
European carriers, meanwhile, are concerned that the financial burden of carbon trading will make them uncompetitive compared with international rivals, damaging an already weak industry.
One idea being floated in Europe, including by some British carriers, is that the ETS should initially only cover intra-European flights.
It could then be expanded when a global trading scheme is devised.
A spokesman for Virgin Atlantic said: “We believe that ETS is a valid tax that should drive positive behaviours in reducing carbon usage. However, there must be a level playing field to ensure that UK airlines remain competitive.”…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/european-airlines-fear-backlash-over-carbon-charge/story-e6frg8zx-1226089611424
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OUR (CARBON CREDIT) MAN IN EQUATORIAL GUINEA (ETC)?
On the subjecy of carbon trading, was the Foreign Minister in Equatorial Guinea last month arranging a quid pro quo “carbon abatement” deal to fund a supporting vote for OZ membership of UN Security Council?
Fortunately, we have PM’s assurance that: “We will be buying credits only where they have met QUALITY TESTS”, and only from government-approved scammers.
Alice (in Warmerland)
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Andrew McRae @ 66.
I aggree that there is a difference between misinformed and uninformed. I tended towards uninformed because there are now large areas of study missing from education at all levels. As I stated before, a good study of free market capitalism is probably missing from most university economics courses. If people are not aware of a field of knowledge and study then they will be uniformed with respect to this knowledge. It is this constant push by lefties and collectivists to shut down views and areas of study that do not fit with their narrative that will lead to disaster. There was a study done at the Chicago University by Cass R. Sunstein on the “Law of Group Polarisation”. What this shows is that, with any group of people who have the same belief about something sit down to discuss it, they always become more extreme in their views as the discussion proceeds. In most western societies, one side of the political spectrum has been under constant attack with many things now off the table because of political correctness. You only need to look at the villification directed at One Nation and the squashing of their ability to voice their opinion to get a feel for this. On the other end of the spectrum, radical and extreme socialist views are on open display and regularly reported by the media without any critical debate. These ideas are also the main stay in many university courses. As the people comming out of these universities are now going directly into government service, is it any wonder that our whole government bureacracy and policies are drifting towards leftist extremism.
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OK i just went to this site:
https://www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au/helping-households/household-assistance-estimator/
and found that there is no scenario that suites my family, i have 3 kids two older than 12 and one under 5, now granted this is not the standard model but you would think they could at least get this bit right.
How can a government expect to pull this TAX off when the site designed to give you all the relevant info is incomplete and unhelpful? FFS…………………..
By the way here in Adelaide we have a company called “Makin Mattreses” and yes they make mattresses, their biggest customer is Harvey Norman the boos of MM said his product sells for about 200 to 300 more than the Chinese version but most people buy his product as it is a better product. The carbon TAX however will mean his product whilst better will now cost about 600 more than the Chinese version so he will have no choice but to go off shore this will trigger about 1000 jobs lost.
When he goes off shore he will no longer buy springs etc from Australian manfacturers as he cant afford it so more jobs will be lost he then said, now apply this scenario across all industries and try and grasp the ramifications of this TAX.
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So production of a mattress emits 15 tonnes of CO2! Wow
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Can anyone explain where the Government is going to get the money for all of the organisations it is setting up (and the compensation to households & business and kickbacks and buy-offs and sweetheart deals and baksheesh to the Greens & Independents )once we move to an ETS in 2015?
If the price is set by the market and carbon indulgences are bartered by ‘the market’, how does the Gov’t get a cut of this (other than stamp duty and the like similar to share trading)?
For the first 3 tax years they get all of the $23/tonne. It appears to me that this will almost all be transferred to the ETS traders after that (and they will be buying the likes of the Chicago Climate Exchange’s $0.05/tonne carbon credits and selling it at the minimum of $15 set by this hairy-assed scheme).
Also, as businesses reduce their CO2-e output, either willingly or because they have gone out of business, because this is the raison d’etre for the tax in the first place, the income will reduce.
Colour me confused.
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Of course we also have the standard disclaimer
Estimator Disclaimer
The estimator is a basic guide to the possible cost of living impact and household assistance based on pre-determined household scenarios. The results from using this service are indicative. They are not a guarantee of actual cost of living impacts or household assistance. The scenarios used in this estimator are based on a number of assumptions that may or may not apply to your household situation. your individual circumstances may vary from the scenario presented. This will alter the actual outcomes. The estimator does not take into account changes in your circumstances over time.
You should never rely on an estimate as a basis to enter obligations or incur expenses. If you use or apply an estimate, you are solely responsible for that use or application.
The Australian Government:
disclaims, to the extent permitted by law any representations and warranties, express or implied, of any kind in respect of the estimator; and
shall not be liable for any loss or damage whatsoever (including loss or damage caused by human, technical or process error or malfunction, or negligence of any kind or loss or damage that is incidental or consequential) arising out of or in connection with any use of, or reliance on, the estimator.
Some other gems i found
“Our climate is changing
Our climate is changing, largely due to the observed increases in human produced carbon pollution. These changes we have seen over the 20th century include increases in global average air and ocean temperature, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global sea levels. The extra heat in the climate system has other impacts, such as affecting atmospheric and ocean circulation, which influences rainfall and wind patterns.
Another serious impact of increasing carbon pollution is ocean acidification. About a quarter of human-produced carbon dioxide is absorbed by the oceans. As the carbon dioxide dissolves in sea water it forms a weak carbonic acid, making the ocean more acidic. There are early indications that some marine organisms are already being affected by ocean acidification.”
“Scientists advise that the world’s climate is changing because of a build up of carbon pollution. Human activity is contributing.”
“What the science tells us
The vast majority of scientists worldwide agree that the many different lines of evidence all point to the same conclusion: human activity has unintentionally turned up the global thermostat. The release of large quantities of carbon pollution is making our planet warmer.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a natural component of the air we breathe and circulates in large quantities through natural processes. Over the past century, the levels of this gas in the atmosphere have jumped sharply as a result of our activities, such as burning fossil fuels (like coal) and clearing forests. Pollution from these activities has resulted in there being more CO2 in the atmosphere now than at any time in the past 800,000 years.”
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MATTB in 87,
WTF!!!!!!!!!!!
15 tonnes of what?
Please explain.
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Maybe MattB is not thinking straight due to the overwhelming feeling of euphoria that has entered his body at the thought of having to pay more taxes that will be sent directly overseas to line Al Gore’s pockets, if so then Matt please let explain my previous post about Makin MAttresses at a more basic level.
Ok picture this, an Australian makes a product that costs about $200 more than the overseas equivalent (in this case mattresses made in China). Most customers buy the Chinese version because it is a bit cheaper but some still buy the Australian product because they recognise the higher quality product will cost more so this guy sells enough mattresses to keep his business going and make a profit of some sort. As he makes his product in Australia he sources all materials from Australia one material being the steel springs which comes from a steel making factory which in turn comes from a mining industry (iron ore etc).
Then the Government put a TAX on the mining company which increases the costs ALL THE WAY DOWN TO THE MANUFACTURER OF PRODUCTS, this means the guy who makes mattresses will have to charge an additional $300 to $400 for a mattress, so now most people will buy the much cheaper mattress from China, he will go out of business or move off shore, that means he wont source his materials from Australian companies. Now apply this scenario across all industries.
I do not see what your problem is MAttB Dullard did proclaim that this was exactly how her TAX would work, remember? She said that with all that extra cash we got (turns out to be 20 cents) we would be able to have a spendy up on all those cheap products that got around the carbon TAX. DO you think it ever ocurred to that dim witted imbecile or any of her fellow fatalists that a Chinese company would not be subject to teh TAX?
Do you think Matt? Well do you? I know you only come here to take the piss out of people, i know this because i have faith that no one in Australia could be as utterly stupid as you seem to be, please let that ne truth or we are in a very bad way Matty my boy a very bad way.
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Snake Oil. I think there should be a tax on snake oil, about $23/per ton.
J. Gillard marketer-in-chief snakeoil INC. Im sure ALL Australians will understand this national necessesity.
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Say YES to an election! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw1mWOlmk58
I just voted on the Rights at Work poll, the balance has shifted again:
http://www.rightsatwork.com.au/Home.aspx 55% YES 44% NO. 🙁
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I’m confused, Jo, because I thought I was agreeing with you. You put a quote up explaining why democracy won’t work. I think the reason given is sound – people will vote for silly things. And if enough people do this the silly things get elected.
The saving grace of our system of democracy is that once you are elected, you don’t have to stick to your promises. Ordinary people (and I’m one of them) can be incredibly smart in some areas, and incredibly dumb in others. I don’t want my representative in parliament to reflect my views on things that I have not thought deeply about. I’m actually expecting them to do some of the work for me – to thoroughly educate themselves, and make decisions based on their understanding and the hopes and aspirations of the electors (rather than their fears and insecurities!).
So its not about some “elite” making decisions for everyone. Its about some people taking the time and effort to think through the consequences of action in a way that ordinary people don’t have time for. To give a concrete example, I follow Freo in the AFL. I have views on how the team is coached, and who should be selected. Thank God Mark Harvey never listens to me. He knows that what I want is a team I can be proud of, and a team that can smash the Eagles. And while the supporters may be demanding that certain players be dropped, or others promoted, Harvs successfully ignores them – because they don’t have the expertise he has. Because they aren’t putting in the effort he is. If it becomes obvious to me that Harvs is not reflecting my basic values, I’ll want him gone, and if enough people feel like me, he will be gone.
So that is how I think democracy should work. Pollies tell you what their core values and beliefs are, and you vote for them on that basis. You get another go a few years later, and can turf out the people who disappointed you. The individual promises of campaigns are relatively inconsequential.
Of course, we could go the way of ancient democracy where we all discuss everything – but I suspect that would only work if there were quite a few slaves to carry on with getting stuff done while we chattered away.
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Matt B
Do you ever read any of the posts put on here and elsewhere by TonyfromOZ? Tony obviously knows the electricity generation industry inside out.
Have a look at this post (ignore the headline just look at the facts). The bottomline is that by investment in newer technology the coal fire generators could reduce emmissions by 30%. Good idea ??
The point I’m agreeing with Tony on is that blinkered ideology has resulted in a gigantic , costly ,bureaucratic nightmare assuming you believe the emmissions are an issue ( which I obviously don’t). A far better result could be achieved with a much simpler plan.
http://papundits.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/co2-tax-australia-julia-gillard-absolutely-clueless/
But while you have the Greens “driving the ship” this type of thinking would not get anywhere.
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Guys don’t play with the government toy websites. You know full well they are pre-programmed to output the ‘correct’ results (Eurasia has always been at war with Eastasia). Their plan is to get everyone arguing about the finer details of compensation, to fill up column inches and do a snowjob on everyone. If they can get the newspaper editors and commentors getting into a fistfight over compensation, they know everyone will lose sight of the fact that the tax is pointless. Most journalists are falling into this trap as they love graphs, comparisons and hypothetical scenarios.
They are trying to get everyone to be like kids arguing over who gets the most cake rather than asking if cake is what they should be having at all.
The only option is to reject the tax.
Thumbnail : check the poll again. It swings a lot, which obviously means interference by them or someone else.
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John Brookes I never, ever want to do business of any kind with you.
Without trust and promises being expected and given, a very slippery slope of deceipt and breakdown occur. Ask anyone who has been decieved by their spouse if they think keeping promises is a good idea. This is true from the minor promise – ‘I will be there at 3:30’ – broken by non-punctual, to the major promise – ‘if you elect me, I won’t try and re-invent the entire economy based on a fanciful scientific theory’. Trust and promises are the grease of efficiency where people can work together and create synergy. This is true of the family, the neighbour, the business, the town, the country. Find a rotten, broken down country and I’ll show you one where there is very little trust between the citizens, and towards the government.
The flipside is that we shouldn’t expect so much of our politicians. With a smaller government with less control over our lives, the less promises they can break, and the less misery they can cause. Somehow we have this ridiculous notion that any problem, no matter what size, is best dealt with by giving our resources to the government and getting them to do it for us. Sure, this makes sense in roads, dams and defense, but starts to break down badly as you get closer to the individual, like whether they should pay some indonesian forest owner every time they switch on the lights.
You pretend that promises don’t mean very much. But plenty of socialists have promised their people a better life, and have broken that promise by effectively sentencing them to death through starvation or hardship.
Promises are the very fabric of society, and you brush them away as though they mean nothing. You are a very strange individual.
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Andrew McRae @ 66, Further to the issue of the shut down of debate. This is the same tactic that is used with the global warming issue. According to the ABC and most news outlets, there is no debate. Anybody who wants one is painted black and called names. It is also a bit of a coincidence that the Murdoch press is under a faux moral outrage attack worldwide. There is constant attacks and attempts to silence Fox news in the US and in the UK. The recent shutting down of the News of the World was as a result of years of attacks by the BBC and other media outlets. Suddenly we have PM Bob Brown suddenly launching into the Murdoch “Hate Press” here for asking awkward questions. Meanwhile other journalists at other news outlets are suggesting that skeptics be gassed and tattoed and not a word of centure do we hear.
I subscribe to a online magazine called “Escape From America”. There is an increasing number of Americans jumping ship. It stated in the magazine that there is now a two year wait at embassies around the globe, of US citizens renouncing their US citizenship. How long before that is the case here in Australia.
I know people who are rounding up their assetts and moving the money offshore to safer palces.
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Cost of offsets soar under Gillard !
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/cost_of_offsets_soar_under_gillard/
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John Brookes @ 94
What you are describing is government by a group of tribal elders. We have spent some thousands of years developing potentially better systems than that.
In theory (and in law) Australia is NOT a “democracy” John. Let’s clear that up for a start. Australia is a constitutional monarchy. That is, the government of Australia is the monarch who makes the laws. The monarch, in turn, is constrained in what laws can be made by a constitution.
The “government” of Australia is “Queen Victoria and her heirs and successors”. That’s what the constitution says, John. That’s who makes our laws. Queen Victoria and her heirs and successors in turn, agree to only make laws in accordance with the will of the people, as outlined in the 1688 Bill of Rights, and constrained by the limits of the constitution.
Now, in order for a monarch to make laws in accordance with the will of the people it is necessary for them to be informed of the will of the people. That is what the parliament exists for, John. Specifically to advise the monarch of the will of the Australian people. Not their own brand new version of “what’s best for everybody”, not their latest plan for “saving the planet”, but to advise the monarch of the will of the people.
Now, this may come as a stunning surprise to you, John, but the Lower House is called the “House of Representatives”, and is full of people who are called “representatives”, because, well, John, because they are supposed to “represent” the will of of the people who elected them.
Those people are the people in their “electorates”. Each person in the House of Representatives is there to “represent” the will of the people in their electorates. Not what they personally think is best for the people in their electorates, but the collective “will” of their electorate.
Now, after the last election one “representative” in the “House of Representatives” can claim they were elected to represent the will of their electorate to have some form of carbon tax. The other 145 cannot, as they all ran on platforms that specifically excluded a carbon tax.
So you see John, not only aren’t we being “represented” in accordance with our constitution, we are not even being represented “democratically”.
Of course, all this could end tomorrow with the Governor General (the monarch’s representative here in OZ), deciding the current parliament no longer represents the will of the Australian people (given the polls, not difficult to decide), dismissing it (a double-dissolution), and calling new elections.
However, given that the current Governor General is the mother-in-law of the man who will probably be the next leader of the Labor Party, I won’t hold my breath.
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If any of you have access to a copy of Peter Sellars and Co’s “How to win an election or at least not lose by much” have a listen to the British Labour potential minister for transport and his Fifty Million Pounds.
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John, sure, we vote for people to make decisions that neither of us could see coming before the election. Then we expect them to explain why they did what they did.
Julia promised no tax, and stifled the debate on it. Then she gave us one. Now if there had been unexpected ground breaking research showing the oceans swallowing Singapore (and they really found the hot spot), that would be different, but she said: “I had to do it because it’s a hung parliament”. That’s not good enough. If she had to break a promise to form a government, she shouldn’t have formed a government.
She lied. She has no mandate. There was no debate. She should resign. The independents who sold out their electorates did not promise a tax either, they would not have been voted in if they had.
There is no excuse. She is a liar, not fit to govern.
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Amounst all the hysteria both ways i am yet to see a figure ($) that tells us what the NET financial increase in govt coffers are as a result of the tax. It seems to me it can’t be much given the amount they are handing back in the way of subsidies.
How much in absolute terms and how much as a percent of GDP and how much as a percentage of taxation raised already.
I am guessing it is about as signficant as the contribution of humans to global warming (LOL).
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Crackar – if the price of a product goes up by $300 because of the carbon tax, well at $23 per tonne of CO2e it means the product must be responsible for about 15 tonnes of CO2e. (the eg was $300 – $400 and 15×23 fits in there). And that is just manufacture as any transport costs from Aussie factory to a store would be similar to transport costs from an Aussie port to a store.
15 tonnes seems very high. But it is either accurate or that guy is Makin it up.
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ian it is between zero and slightly negative contribution to govt coffers/
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brc@96:
Game set match. This is exactly their tactic, and it will only work if people allow their selfish side to look into “what’s in it for me”.
If this strategy works, then as a nation we truly deserve to see our standard of living evaporate like midnight smoke.
Now is the time to stand up and be counted.
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Also Ross in #95 – I tend to get my energy fix from Bravenewclimate, where issues such as those are regularly bashed around and there is plenty of robust debate about the merits/impacts of a carbon tax/ETS. I don’t agree with everything TOny says in that particular blog post, but he should post at BNC and see where it gets him.
(Note as of today BNC has banned comments that question climate science… before you cry foul it is because too many threads end up with the same old same old warmist v skeptic rants and I gather Brook wants discussion about energy future and technology which includes many good contributions from “skeptical” types)
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Hey MattB@107,
Yeah, those pesky peasants want answers to questions before the anointed scum use it as an excuse to redistribute their hard earnt.
Well we really must stop that. After all, it worked so well for the french monarchy didn’t it?
/sarc off
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Joanne Nova @ 102
Sorry Jo, but you are wrong on this. Where a previously unforeseen issue arises in the life of a parliament, an incumbent “representative” has a duty to inform themselves of the will of their electorate on the issue, and vote accordingly in the Parliament.
This is why “representatives” are given one or more funded electoral offices within their electorate, staffed with paid officers, plus an “electoral allowance”. To discern the “will” of the electorate. They are not there, as is commonly accepted today, to help people with their gripes about Centrelink.
Similarly, Senators are in the Senate to represent the “will” of their state. This was originally discerned in consultation with that state’s elected parliament.
Interesting to note that neither political parties, nor a “Prime Minister” were foreseen or mentioned in our original constitution. And “Ministers” (political heads of departments) were appointed by the Governor General and didn’t even have to be members of the parliament.
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Renewable Energy Certificates?
There was nothing in the latest Carbon Dioxide Tax report on ceasing the REC’s as the Tax will take over in 2012! Will these be stopped and the department below disbanned.
Existing Office of Renewable Energy Regulator
http://www.orer.gov.au/publications/lret-sres-basics.html
Also will the Dept of Climate Change be reduced as now the climate is going to cool as a result of Sunday’s announcement and the problem solved. Also the Greens can also close up!
P.S. MattyB – you better go away and get ready for your meeting tomorrow as a “counsellor“?
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Councillor
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MattB @ 108 – Madjak @ 109
Went and had a look at BNC. This from the first page:
Anti nuclear movement?
I thought it was a pretty apt description of the entire CAGW-Greenie movement.
And on a site that has “banned comments that question climate science”.
Talk about pot – kettle – black.
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MattyB
Climate Change Counsellor – you must use the correct spelling!
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I don’t think people like John and Matt really appreciate how much damage this tax will do; see here and just replace $45 per tonne with $23 per tonne:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/113676.html
For example, looking at NGER, scope 1 which totals 341 million tonnes; multiply that by $23 and you get $7.843 billion; if the government taxes scope 2 [and why wouldn’t it] then that is another $7 billion.
But the big issue will be energy security; this government is going to invest $10 billion on rebewables and carbon capture; the primary renewable is flannery’s pet, geothermal, which CANNOT work in Australia; carbon capture works but has 2 problems; firstly the energy required to capture the CO2 is almost the same as produced by the burning of the coal, and secondly, the storage slurry takes up about 30 times as much as the coal did.
Then there is solar and really TonyOz says it all about this; but increasingly the idea of energy density is going to come into play with the amount of land needing to be devoted to solar panels to replace a medium coal fired plant like Bayswater being about 324 square kilometers. This is why the greens are now starting to object to solar:
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.9830/pub_detail.asp
Basically folks, we are not going to have electricity.
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Well it seems to me like the following video should start to make the rounds – particularly from 2:00 onwards:
Anti Communist video
I particularly like the salesman selling “ISM” because it will even help with the climate
Isn’t it funny how the years have gone by but the issues seem to remain?
10
Matt B — my post was not directly about AGW. I was just interested in your comments on an alternative, but perhaps a controversal view on getting emmissions down to a much lower level than the Govt. is aiming at. From a political point of view it would be much more palatable.
But like John B you seem unable to give a straight answer to a direct question.
10
I can see our defence forces working with vehicles and boats powered by renewables – not. Perhaps our political betters believe in Peak Oil and the other nonsensical crises de jour and hence need to stockpile oil etc for other purposes.
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24 hour picket line of Juliar’s house (so she cant forget the little people)
What do you think?
alternatives can be parliment house (prob no pollies home)
somewhere in melb and brissie.
Bob browns house etc
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Matt B@104:
15 tonnes CO2 in a mattress? I think you could drive around Australia in a 4wd and emit less than 15 tonnes of CO2.
It is pretty obvious that we need an immediate ban on mattresses in Australia, at least until they figure out how to make one while emitting less CO2. Maybe we could all switch to waterbeds, at least until the mattress problem is solved…
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Far crack of the whip Ross… your post in #95 wasn’t exactly a straight question.
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@scott : flashmobs of protestors when sitting Labour MPs in a marginal seat are in their office. (anything less than 10% is marginal)
I also advise clipping the job section from your local paper and posting it to your local labor mp. If they receive a few hundred pages of job ads, they might start to think about saving their own job.
Personally, for maximum impact, I think a truckies blockade, particularly one that stops coal power somewhere, would be devastatingly effective. The truckies blockade in the UK a while back really got the issue of fuel taxes front and centre in the national debate. When 100 or so big rigs are parked up somewhere, there is nothing that can move them except the drivers with the keys.
I think the cattle industry missed a trick when they didn’t ship a truckload of brahmans over and let them loose on the roof of parliament house. They could have threatened to start shooting them there and then. That would have got some action from Joe Ludwig and ‘i’m so regional’ independent tony windsor.
Or the big one – a general strike. That would really wake up the politicians from their slumber.
Civil disobediance is required.
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Brooksie
If MattyB drove around Australia in a 4WD the total emmisions would exceed 16.6 tonnes of CO2 and in a Electric Vehicle nearly 25% more. This includes energy source, LCA percentage/time for trip, food, farting, exhalation, excess verbalisation, CO2 inbuilt emmissions of roads, water distribution, and accomodation.
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Cohenite
When the Greens go to their doctor’s and due to a lack of electricity cannot be properly diagnosed and subsequently die, be prepared for a drastic turnaround in policies.
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Wotif.com founder re-emerges to fund Attard’s Global Mail
http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/07/11/wotif-com-founder-re-emerges-to-fund-attards-global-mail/
Wood? Brown? All the same?
10
Sitting watching Juliar on q&a.
Its obviously the real juliar, her skin colour gives her away. Shes a Vampire.
10
Just finished watching Juliar on Q & A and now feel very sick.
WHAT A JOKE – this evil witch has tried to spin her way through an hour of ABC luvvo BS – very mind numbing and waste of time.
Won’t be turning that BS on any more – funny thing is – I think she is actually unaware of how bad she looks and of how many of her Labor colleagues are standing behind her knives at the ready.
What a USELESS attempt at selling a fraud – SHE IS FINISHED!!
Will only take ONE backbencher to cross the floor (knowing the party is finished) – lets start a book of odds on who it will be??
I predict she will be gone BEFORE Christmas.
Cheers,
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Bill Shorten will, IMO, be PM by the New Year, now almost certain it seems after Julia’s inept, zombie-like performance on Sunday. No one is buying what she is “selling” and she only has credibility with a tiny minority of the die hard cultists, who would still believe in AGW if we were knee high in snow drifts in the middle of the Simpson Desert. The only possible way to avoid a massacre at the next election will be to shoot General Custer in the back before getting to The Little Big Horn. Either way though, I believe the “injuns” have got it covered, the cavalry ain’t coming and putting the wagons in a circle is not going to cut it for long.
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John Brookes @94,
I can’t speak for Australia but for this country I can. And believe me; I can count all the times a politician has thought through all the consequences of what they do on the fingers of a man with no hands. It doesn’t happen John. And worse, they never look back to see if what they’ve done in the past is working either.
So I think you better do your own homework instead of leaving it to the politicians. Staying free isn’t free.
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The lastest newspoll headline –
Labor support collapses to 27pc
This is prior to the announcement.
My bet is the next poll at 23% primary, any takers? Matt? JB?
It will not be long before JB and co. will be complaining that their pseudo-science has NO representatives in the parliament.
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So has Australia finally had it’s “Tea Party” moment?
It would seem to me that Canberra is a city terribly lacking the streetlamp decorations most appropriate for a capitol city in which the as-yet-unsuspended ornaments keep mouthing words like “carbon pollution.”
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From #65,
I taught part time in that college district for almost 17 years. It seems I got out just in time. What a joke they have become.
There’s one good thing maybe — it’s probably nice if you can park your car under those solar panels and have it shielded from the sun on a hot day. The San Fernando Valley (where Pierce College in the photo is located) is well known for summer temps as high as 100F (38C). The inside of a car can be very unpleasant after a few hours in the sun.
Hey John Brookes! This kind of thing must be right up your alley, relying on others to think things through as you do.
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MadJak @ 115:
Love the video:
Prophetic.
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John and MattB, It still comes down to one question for everybody to awnser, from the one pushing the mop around the toilet, to your PM talking to the masses. What will this tax due besides make a few people rich and a lot more poorer? Will it actually make one iota of difference to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere? Will it cuase more problems for the economy,ie jobs etc.? It is up to you, me and the poloticians to due the homework. Science says this is the problem and lobbyist and NGO and acadamia says this is the solution, BUT, Is it really a solution? The old joke here in the States, and probrably everywhere is that “before you know it they will be taxing the air we breath” is about to come true for you fine people down under, Will it actually make any difference in temps, climate much less the weather, will IT do anything but make a few RICHER.
Ask yourselves this question one and all. Personally it will not do a damn thing, but that is my opion, and forturnatly I do not have the problem here in the U.S. at the moment. I do agree with one commentor, that you should send every politician, from local to state and federal the jobs listings from your district, with a note attached that says “YOU ARE GOING to NEED THIS VERY SOON”!!! I bet you get one hell of a better reaction from that!! Just MHO, good luck to all.
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MattB @ 120.
In post 95 I had ” Good idea ??” Can’t get much straighter than that.
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What’s really ironic is the renewables industry since that industry tend to be the old “oil/coal/nuclear” industry. It might not have been that way in the beginning but it is so now. This is not hard information to find anymore, but apparently very hard for the climate hippies to digest, which is completely stupendous and irrational that they now defend their old “nemesis”, which is the ironic part–that the hippies, as green as ever, now have come to believe, with their now obvious lack of integrity, that the goal justify the means. So, essentially, they have become their imagined evil oppressor.
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THanks to Matt B in post 105 in reply to my question in 103.
Assuming it is correct that the carbon tax will not increase govt revenue then the following must also be true
There will be no net impact on the financial position of the country -the tax will cause a redistrubution though
So who wins and who loses
winnners
– anyone associated with renewables, gas power, carbon traders
losers
– anyone associated with coal, some mining companies (Al for eg)
The rest seem to breakeven or the effect is pretty minimal in the scheme of things
So what is the carbon tax really about, given?
– it will have zero effect on emissions which in turn have zero impact on the climate in anycase
– it does not raise anymore taxation income
– the vast majority of people will not feel any NET effect
Answer (IMO)
It is a way of delivering to the electorate “action on climate change” and gambling that the “action” will buy more votes than “perceived taxation” loses. In doing this they have been very careful to make sure it impacts a few as possible but does make scapegoats out of sectors that have little voter sympathy.
A big gamble – so why take it? Was it necessary to get support of the greens, ie the deal was done last year? Or do they perceive that it will be a vote winner for the next election?
I suspect the former given their pre-elction statements. Therefore i expect electoral slaughter next time.
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Something i find interesting in this debate is how common it is to see climate skeptics who are very rational people often behave like economic alarmists (ie exaggerate the impact on the econoimc world) and of course how climate alarmists become economic skeptics.
As best as possible i try to be rational on both sides which makes me a climate skeptic (100%) and a economic skeptic as well (see my post above). Sometimes i feel very alone!
REmember folks a molecule of CO2 is just the same whether it is man made or naturally occurring AND a dollar is a dollar whether it be raised from a carbon tax, GST, income tax or excise. The % of CO2 from man is very very small. The % of govt income for the carbon tax is also very very small.
The real issue remains though – CO2 does not cause global climate. Lets focus on the fight!!
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ian @ 136
Perhaps revenue neutral, yes (although we see that Wayne Swan’s version of revenue neutral is a couple of billion here and there).
However, it is not wealth neutral. Wealth is not currency – wealth is all the things we have. You can make yourself wealthier without spending a cent. Spend all day tidying up your yard and you will literally make your house worth more, and you haven’t spent a cent. A wealthy society is one which has a lot of things they want – from long lives and healthy children to warm and spacious houses to shiny new toys. If you travel to a third world nation you don’t have to look at peoples bank accounts to know they aren’t wealthy. One has to disconnect wealth from dollars in order to truly understand this.
So even if the tax is revenue neutral in terms of AUD counted, it isn’t wealth neutral. Because diverting funds and labor away from efficient sources of energy into inefficient sources of energy reduces wealth. To take it to a ridiculous extreme if we still kept the same amount of money going around but instead of coal-powered electricity we instead had donkeys walking around in circles to generate our energy, then technically, even if we paid the same amount of money to the donkey-owners it would be strictly revenue neutral. However, power would be a scarce and valuable thing. Gone would be streetlighting, gone would be power-hungry things like electric trains. Gone would be large manufacturing plants, and all the things that come out of them. Gone would be power tools for making buildings, gone would be appliances like washing machines, dryers, irons and microwaves. We would have to live in smaller homes, with dirtier clothes and would spend more of our days washing clothes and scrubbing and less time going fishing or visiting the beach, or even painting and visiting art galleries if that’s your thing. Again, if we spend all day tidying up our yard with power tools, we can improve the value of our house, but we can do it in 1/10th the time of doing it manually. If someone visited from a wealthy nation, they would conclude that the place wasn’t as wealthy. However, the exact same amount of $ would be circulating in the economy as before (not withstanding the flight of capital as people with cash left in droves). That’s because, for the amount of effort (labour) we’re getting a lot less energy back. And cheap energy is the foundation of wealth because it means you can do more stuff with less time and effort. We all know this – switching on the washing machine is infinitely more productive than slapping clothes on rocks at a river, which is why the government doesn’t subsidise washing machines to make you buy one. There is no department of washing machines because people can clearly see the benefits themselves.
The fundamental rule that governs all productivity is energy returned on energy invested. Try and break this equation at your own peril. You can’t use the labor of 5 men to create a unit of energy that gives you the equivalent of one mans labor. You can’t have teams of people looking after donkeys that scarcely replace the combined labor of all the men who endeavor to keep them fed and walking around in circles.
So while a carbon tax is technically revenue neutral if implemented competently (not possible for Gillard and Swan, of course) it isn’t wealth neutral. And we know this to be true, because we often here how ‘more people are employed in renewables than in coal fired power’. This is seen by the economically illiterate as a good thing – more jobs, better off, yes? Well, no, not really. If I pay a team of painters to paint my house I’m not going to pay them more if they do it with a toothbrush. Output is rewarded, not effort. You absolutely do not want, as a nation, to be using more labor to generate the same amount of stuff, because you will literally become less wealthy. Chasing raw job numbers is the stuff of communists and other feeble-minded economists. Idiotic politicians create jobs for 10,000 beuracrats and crow about their job creation. This is as pointless as the archetypal paying people to dig holes, and then paying someone else to fill them in. What you want is increasing numbers of productive jobs. Jobs where people are doing stuff, making stuff and creating stuff. Stuff that people want (from lattes to airliners) and don’t have to be co-erced into buying. Jobs where people are creating wealth.
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Cohenite@114
Bayswater capacity is 2,640MW. Your 324 km2 calc for solar equivalent is therefore assuming 8W/m2 solar generation capacity, but realistically it would be more like 120W/m2 (20% of the average 600W/m2 of daytime sunlight). So lets call it 324/15= 22km2. It’s still a lot of space, and extra would be needed for service access etc, but provided the power was as cheap or cheaper than coal (which it will be within a few decades), space would not be the main issue would it? The Greenie bleatings you linked to are coming from the same place as Paul Ehrlich when he said that providing humanity with a cheap clean unlimited energy source would be like putting a machine gun into the hands of an idiot child, ie irrational anthropophobia.
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Oh, and by the way, Bayswater and associated infrastructure, but not counting the mines and conveyors, occupies about 9km2
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Ross sorry I figured “The bottomline is that by investment in newer technology the coal fire generators could reduce emmissions by 30%. Good idea ??” was more of a rhetorical question:)
My response is “why would they invest in that technology?”. They are more likely to do that today than they were on Saturday (pre-tax). Ok I admit the chances of them doing it on Saturday were zilch (evidence is based on reality). That investment is still billions of dollars worth (i.e. “direct action”).
If there was a silver bullet that would be great, but the reality is cutting emissions will cost $$. There is always nuclear… sigh.
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Ok and to directly answer the question “yes, technology to cut emissions from coal stations is a good idea”.
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Ok Mull @139, let’s get down to tintacks: here’s the info about Bayswater:
http://papundits.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/bayswater-replacement-master.jpg
Here is the solar comparison I referred to before in respect of energy density and green objection:
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.9830/pub_detail.asp
The sums are these:
Bayswater installed capacity 2640 MW; capacity factor @ 90% = ~ 2376
Solar, Brightsource,installed capacity 370 MW; capacity factor [world rated] 20% = 74.
Brightsource covers 5.6 square miles or ~ 9 square kilometers.
Bayswater generates 32 times as much CF as Brightsource [bearing in mind that no solar gives 24/7 power without fossil backup] which translates to 32 X 9 = 288 square kilometers for a solar equivalent to Bayswater; this is less than the 324 I previously quoted because I worked on a 100% CF for Bayswater.
Now, you say Bayswater occupies 9 square Km2; where do you get that figure?
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hillbilly your calcs seem to be based on the surface area of solar panels, not the surface area of the solar power station. Cohers is using the actual area taken up by an actual solar power station.
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mullumhillbilly:
Exactly how much solar power would a plant covering 22 square km produce at midnight?
To deliver the stated amount of electricity, around the clock, all year would require more than 4 times as much raw energy input so that a surplus can be maintained in storage (the only proven method being hydro-electric; which the Greens don’t find acceptable), for drawing up for the other 18 hours a day. And then you need to add again the storage capacity to cover much of the demand during a cloudy period lasting perhaps a week. Because under clouds, insolation is often less than 150W/m^2
Who is going to be cleaning and maintaining the collectors/reflectors to maintain efficiency?
Or do you think that this sort of operation is in any way efficient?
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JB in 119 and MattB in 104,
How silly of me to listen to the words of a business man who has to compete with foreign imports immune from the carbon TAX, i sall merely dismiss him as a denier next time and you both how his business will be affected.
Cheers and thanks for the clarification.
Crakar24
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Sorry should my previous abuse of english i should have said
JB in 119 and MattB in 104,
How silly of me to listen to the words of a business man who has to compete with foreign imports immune from the carbon TAX, i shall merely dismiss him as a denier, next time i will look to you both for advice on how his business will be affected.
Cheers and thanks for the clarification.
Crakar24
10
Christ i did it again!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Opening line should say “Sorry for my” not “sorry should my”, i am still suffering the effects of watching the Vampire on Q and A.
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To BRC in 138
Sorry that is not correct but thanks for answering – in the end wealth is exactly the same thing. IN order for the govt to be revenue neutral it must be that our GDP does not change.
The example you give with donkeys creating power has the knock on effect of all the things you mentioned which in turn affect gdp which in turn affects govt revenue. Wealth always equals money in the end.
This is my point essentially (or question). What effect will the carbon tax have on NET government revenue. This means after extra tax receipts, subsidies and loss of taxation income from a shrinking GDP (if any?), income tax from lost jobs etc etc. For me this is the real question and i am yet to see an answer in the media. Without an answer to this simple question the whole debate is data-less speculation and either economic alarmism or economic naivity.
The analogy to CO2 is remarkable – the key question being what is the effect on NET global temperature of human CO2 emmisions. Other than this site i dont see this simple question answered very often but pages and pages of garbage printed and opinions spouted.
I SUSPECT the answer to the economic question is zero effect. I KNOW the answer ot the CO2 question is also zero effect.
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Crakar I guess I did overlook the possibility that it is YOU who is makin numbers up. You are right the business man probably has a good grasp on his business. Maybe you could ask him where he gets his numbers as 15 tonnes CO2 is a lot for a mattress. Or maybe you could try and figure out what you’ve misunderstood.
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Here’s a thought Matty my boy, Dullard claims petrol will not rise as she has graciously made petrol exempt from the carbon TAX but is this true? Well yes it is in a way as petrol will not rise due to the direct application of the TAX however, the refinery operating costs will increase due to the TAX and this cost will be passed onto the refinery price per litre of fuel and therefore the excise tax will increase and therefore the GST will also increase. Other costs will be an increase on the pump price, why? Well the operators of the petrol stations will find an increase in all manner of services through the carbon TAX so i dare say they will increase the pump price as well.
So lets ask the question again, will the cost of petrol rise under a carbon TAX? The answer is obviously yes, now do you two buffoons know exactly what costs this business man will now be exposed to? No of course not, is a product made in China immune to a carbon TAX? Yes of course it is so you can shove your sarcasm up your arse.
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Just listened to part of a press conference with the PM. A female journo asked how much difference would be made to the global temperature.
Well, she waffled on and on about the “benefits” of her new rort. The journo asked the question again. The PM replied that the question was irrelevant.
Is this woman worthy of any respect at all?
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crakar – WORST CASE SCENARIO for a mattress is that every ounce of CO2 emitted along the way will incur a cost, and that will be reflected in the price. (actually I must add that to me that is best case scenario as indeed it should be how the system eventually works).
What you don’t seem to get is that for his prices to rise by as much as you claim, it must be due to 15 tonnes of CO2 being paid for. Here is a research paper looking at life cycle CO2e costs of some furniture (http://css.snre.umich.edu/css_doc/CSS06-11.pdf) ok no mattresses but you are looking at 220 kg CO2e for a table. And this is whole of life-cycle compared to the smaller % covered by the Carbon Tax.
You you reckon your mattress man reckons his mattresses will incur a carbon liability almost 100 times this desk? WHich given the limited coverage of the carbon tax means it would actually be responsible for much much more?
Look you obviously have no idea how much CO2 products are “responsible for” – but 15 tonnes is massive. here is a WAll Street Journal article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122304950601802565.html
From that article a CAR has lifetime costs of 63 tonnes of CO2… and just 4% is manufacture and assembly. So about 3 tonnes… and your guy claims his mattress will incur costs of 15 tonnes of CO2?
FOrget incandessant lightbulbs we need to ban mattresses if this is the case!
10
Irrelevant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry but i am confused maybe the two buffoons can jump in here and tell us all why it is irrelevant?
The whole point of government is to produce policies, policies that produce an outcome. For example KRudd introduced a policy to slash teenage drinking by dramatically raising the cost of pre mix drinks and look now teenage drinking is…….well thats a bad example but you get my point.
I thought the whole point of the carbon pollution tax was to reduce our emissions to reduce global warming and keep it under 2C but nopw the dull lard of shit tells us the temp change is irrelevant. So what is the point of this tax? Symbolic posturing? Keeping her in power? I cant be “doing our share” because with this tax we are obviously not, so why?
Please Johnny Buffoon and MattyBuffoon please tell us why we are doing this.
10
No Ian – read it again, and you should discern what I am saying. It’s not really an answer to your question- I admit to talking past you a certain amount.
If I grow tomatoes in my back yard, and give them to my friends, is the world a wealthier place? Yes, by several tomatoes. Has currency changed hands? No. Wealth is generated as a result of productive effort.
If I clean up my house, is it worth more? Yes. Do I have to sell it to enjoy the wealth? No. I can sit there and enjoy it. I have made myself wealthier.
Confusion between money, wealth and currency affects most of the muddle-headed rantings that pass for business and economic thought these days. I’m not necessarily targeting you individually, but rather using your question to launch a point I want to make, which is even if it is revenue neutral, it’s not wealth neutral. Even if the amount of money doesn’t change, we are poorer in terms of wealth.
The answer to your question is that nobody can possibly tell the results to net government revenue. It is impossible to forecast.
10
MattyBuffoon,
OK lets agree to disagree on what the mattress guy said, the most relevant point to take away is that pre carbon tax his mattresses were more expensive than the Chinese knock off due to higher quality of materials and i dare say higher labour costs, now post carbon tax his product will cost even more than the Chnese knock off because the Chinese version does not attract a carbon tax.
Does this sound like sound policy to you? Dullard and her cronies are simply buffoons if they think they can pull this off and anyone (like you) who supports this are simply buffoons as well.
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Bernd Felsche in 145,
Answer, Zero.
Actually i was listening to some guy (on radio) who has a vested interest in thermal solar and he was telling us all the virtues of this system and they currently have plans to build a 40Mw system near Wyhalla SA. A caller rang in and said he is not far from there and said the sun has not shone all day so what do you do then? i also reminded the guy that the big wind mill farm has not turned one blade all day due to lack of wind.
The guy responded by saying they have two options, one is to store power when no light (cloudy or dark) but failed to expand on this notion or two they could build a gas fired power station right next to it which they could use when it is too cloudy or dark.
One has to wonder why you would bother at all with the solar plant as the gas plant would be doing most of the work, wouldnt it be cheaper just to build the gas plant and be done with it?
10
Crackar – given the CO2 intensity of a mattress is probably about 500kg (so 10% of a car, twice as much as a desk) then yes I think that an imposition of $11.50 would be fine for your mattress guy. Especially since his market is already people who are happy to pay significantly in excess of the Chinese product for a higher quality and better made product.
Note that given tha the proposed scheme does not cover all CO2 emissions then his actual cost increase will be less than $11.50.
10
The problem with Concentrating Solar with storage is that there is the need to divert the heated compound and keep it heated enough to make enough steam to drive the turbine which in turn drives the generator.
It all has to work backwards from the generator.
The weight of the generator that is.
So to drive a lighter generator requires a smaller turbine, which requires less pressurised steam to actually make that weight turn over.
As soon as there is not enough steam to actually be able to do that the turbine just stops, and thus the generator stops, hence no power.
THAT is the problem.
The weight of the generator itself.
The new Solar plant in Spain that everyone is raving about produces 19MW Nameplate Capacity.
19 bloody MegaWatts pardon the French.
Minute.
The raving has been how it can actually achieve this for the full 24 hours.
Wow!
It did that on one occasion.
The plant information itself states categorically that it has a Capacity Factor of 60% over the whole year.
That 60% CF equates to actual hours in a day extrapolated out over a whole year.
So 60% translates to 14 hours a day averaged.
It doesn’t matter.
It’s barely 19MW.
They currently have 250MW concentrating solar plants with thermal heat diversion, which incidentally adds around an extra one third to the total cost.
If they were to use the full solar capacity just to generate the power, they can manage 150MW for around 6 hours.
If they divert the molten compound, in this case, the salts, they can theoretically manage 50MW for maybe 18 hours.
That is currently the absolute best case scenario achieved anywhere on the Planet.
They Think that theoretically they might be able to manage a generator of around 500MW in five to seven years, but again, with heat diversion, all they will be able to manage is 100MW for 18 hours.
The problem is not how many mirrors spread across the total area of the Simpson Desert.
THE PROBLEM IS THE DAMNED WEIGHT OF THE GENERATOR.
10
Sorry for shouting.
It angers me that people see one case of a tiny output for one 24 hour period and think …. Wow! We’re there.
So far, best case scenario is $1.45 Billion for 50MW for 18 hours.
I know I keep harking back to Bayswater, because it gives a single reference point.
2640 divided by 50 is 53 plants multiplied by $1.45 Billion comes in at $77 Billion, and you still only get power best case scenario for 18 hours.
One plant is seven years away. what possibility 53 of them.
Where?
It’s not only economics.
It’s mainly engineering.
No amount of money spent on R and D will ever make Solar (or Wind for that fact also) viable, not only economically, but actually.
Tony.
10
Treason to one’s own country should be punishable by DEATH…….
In may countries it still is!
10
And as to the costs becoming cheaper the more they build them.
The cost of construction needs to be recovered over the life of the plant.
Best case theory says they will last for 25 years.
The construction costs will be around the same or more expensive, and in no case yet has those original construction costs come down anywhere.
Even with Governments chucking in HALF that up front cost in subsidies, they still have to find someone with the rest of the money, and if it can’t be made to work, no one in their right mind will sink that much into something that provides only marginal power at best.
Some plants in the US are even having the unit cost of the electricity subsidised by the Government so they can keep the price low enough so it actually can (well, sort of anyway) compete, which it can’t and never will be able to do.
So that hackneyed phrase, ‘it will get cheaper’ is in fact hyperbowl, to quote someone whose name eludes me.
Tony.
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Tony @ 160
I know you’re repeating yourself, but as every kindergarten teacher knows, repetition is the key to learning. It takes a while to drum things into soft little brains, especially ones that have developed a world view populated by fairy tales, unicorns and magic.
Your example much worse than it is – because even if you spend $77 billion and many, many years to build, that’s just to replace one single power station, not accounting for population growth or per-capita energy growth.
People tend to forget that all the fancy technology in the future has one common denominator – escalating energy requirements. From books to music, tools to toys, every single thing that can find a use for energy does and will. There won’t be any flying cars and household robots without a lot of abundant and cheap energy.
Keep at it, your technical information is much better than any analogy I try and weave. Sheer mathematical impossibility, repeated regularly, tends to soak into even the most tightly closed brains. Alas, it hasn’t yet for the ‘co2 abatement’ argument, but starting with solar plants is a good launching pad.
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You think Solar is bad.
Wind is just as bad.
25% Capacity Factor at best so far, and the worldwide average running at 20% CF, which equates to just under 5 hours a day, again, at enormous cost, and the price of those large scale plants is also only going in the one direction, and even the best case scenario of them lasting 25 years is crashing and burning as well.
Keep in mind that 60 to 65% of every watt of power currently being generated is required ABSOLUTELY 24 hours of every day.
Shut down coal fired power and wait for the bovine waste product to come into violent contact with the rotating wind generating device.
People will say only one thing, other than what Dorrie Evans was famous for saying, ‘Why wasn’t I told?’.
However, the loudest thing they will be saying is:
WTF!!!
Tony.
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MattB
“Crackar – given the CO2 intensity of a mattress is probably about 500kg” and “Note that given tha the proposed scheme does not cover all CO2 emissions then his actual cost increase will be less than $11.50.”
How would you know this MattB?
Can you offer cites for this?
Can you explain why you know more about the complexities of this TAX than anyone else?
Please provide a detailed explanation of how you came to the $11.50 price tag of the TAX.
Lastly please provide evidence that you have an indepth knowledge of running a business that manufactures and supplies products Australia wide.
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OT but another “The time is nigh” prediction falls flat on its face.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/buried_under_the_snow_the_warmists_said_wouldnt_fall/
May, 2008:
Scientists say Australian skiers should prepare for shorter ski seasons because of global warming… CSIRO climate change expert Dr Penny Whetton says Australia’s mountain snow cover could be reduced by up to 54 per cent by 2020.
July 2011:
THE deepest snow in 21 years has been recorded by Snowy Hydro at Spencer’s Creek. The 158.9cm-deep snow promises plenty of powder this season. The last time there was snow this thick early in July was in 1990.
Care to comment MattyB? Dont tell me this is weather not climate….yes?
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Our democracy is under threat.
The Parliament, elected on the promise of no Carbon Tax, has decided to flout the people’s wishes which were very clearly expressed at the election. The opinion polls show that overwhelmingly the majority are still opposed to this tax.
Nevertheless the Parliament is going to proceed. Let us suppose that the Bill succeeds and passes through both houses.
Will the Governor General do her job, and ensure the primacy of the people over parliament? Or will she act as a political cipher?
If she acts to uphold our democracy, she will refuse Royal Assent until the people ratify the Bill at an election.
If she is part of this undemocratic process, she will do the easy thing, the thing which is best for her family and for the governing elite – sign the bill with a flourish. And drive a stake through the Australian Constitution.
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Crackar:
“How would you know this MattB?
Can you offer cites for this?
Can you explain why you know more about the complexities of this TAX than anyone else?”
I’ve given you cites for carbon-cost of products from a car to a chair. AT WORST a product would pay full cost for that carbon. The complexities of the tax are that it lets a lot of businesses off the hook either by exclusion or compensation, but the worst case cost of an item increasing in cost by $23 per tonne of carbon emitted in its manufacture/distribution is not exactly rocket science.
Now I can’t offer you a cite for the 500kg… but I’ve cited material that makes it a reasonable estimate. Lets assume the mattress was as carbon intensive as a brand new car (unlikely) then it would be 3 tonnes = $69 cost.
Just breathe in a second and think about it… “what emits more CO2 in production… a mattress or a car?” (hint – it’s not the mattress).
p.s. I’ve given you my calcs to arrive at $11.50… that is the cost of 500kg of CO2e, at $23 per tonne (1000kg). Mate it’s not rocket science.
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Tony from Oz: Carbon tax internalises cost… the next question is how long it will take people to figure out that renewables are bloody expensive and don’t really stop you from having to build fossil fuel back up. They will come around to nuclear sooner or later, and I think the tax will help make it sooner.
This point is one where many warmists and skeptics can unite… at the end of the day if nuclear is “liberated” then we can disagree until the cows come home about climate changes as it will be a moot point as emissions will be under control and no one will ever really know if it was going to warm or not.
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MattB @ 169
No, but we’ll sure as hell know if it is cooling or not. ANY kind of sensible replacement base-load generation capacity – coal, gas, oil nuclear or wood is at least a decade away.
By then we’ll have our 2 billion dead from cold and/or starvation which was the whole purpose of the exercise anyway.
If you doubt the lead-in time, contact GE or Seimens and get a quote on delivery for a turbine for a 600MW plus generator. That’s assuming you can get a generator in less time.
All we have to look forward to now are the Crimes Against Humanity trials. I hope they are held in France.
France still has the guillotine.
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Mate it’s not rocket science, i know its more like economic and financial expertise both of which you have clearly demonstrated you know absolutely nothing about.
Of course your way of calculating the cost is very simple and quite good……………if it were true.
Lets accept that the 500Kg figure is simply an arse pluck and run with it for a moment, is the 500Kg figure the CO2 emission total of the manufacture of the individual components that make up the mattress? does it include the operation of the tooling required to produce the materials? does it include the assembly of the mattress? does it include the overheads such as electricity to power the factory? Does it include transport costs (re previous post in which i describe how fuel will go up under the TAX). Does it include price gouging by opportunists throughout the process? But most of all does it apply to a mattress manufactured in China?
After years of trying to bang common sense through the heads of believers i am firmly convinced that they are simply argumentative pricks, people like MattB dont believe in AGW any more than i do but simply see this as an opportunity to have an argument with a stranger on a website. They are so pig headed that they will gladly bend over to take it where the sun dont shine to prove that they are right.
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Matt B
If you seriously think Nuclear power has a snowballs here in Oz in the long term, let alone the near term, I have this wonderful Bridge you may be interested in!
Tony.
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MV i would like to take Mattb’s comment one step further, he claims warmbots and skeptics can unite inferring there is some common ground which is of course a ridiculous statement. Apparently nuclear will end the debate because we will cease emissions and therefore AGW before he can figure out if it is true/real or not. What a pathetic person you are Matt, in your simple mind the only way we can tell if AGW is real is if it gets warmer, well its getting colder Matt what more evidence do you need?
If it was not for that little pea bouncing around in your head it would be a complete vaccuum.
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Crackar – of course it is bloody true… it is $23 per tonne of carbon! It is no more diffucult than pondering the cost of a kilo of tomatoes!
Yes the links I supply suggest I’m referring to ALL CO2e that relates to a product. That is the point of these calculations. So YES to all your questions… other than price gouging… in which scenario the reality is that your guy is unlikely to price gouge any more/less than usual… and the seller of the China product is as likely to take the opportunity to bump his price higher as he can afford to do so and still flog the product.
No it does not apply to anything that happens in China. But when the cost is $11.50 on a mattress not $250 then it is not that important.
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Tony I share your opinion on the prospects of nuclear in Australia (probably not quite as pessimistic), but do not think that is a reason to ignore climate change.
MV: “a decade away. By then we’ll have our 2 billion dead from cold and/or starvation which was the whole purpose of the exercise anyway.”
And you think I’M ALARMIST!
Crackar “its getting colder Matt what more evidence do you need?”
I’d need some evidence of that, which you don’t have.
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MattB @ 175
So, you don’t read the news coming in from all around the world about declining temperatures, record snowfalls, glaciers growing again, declining sea temperatures (both surface and deep) etc, eh Matt?
As long as there is a “climate scientist” somewhere prepared to parrot the “it’s still warming” mantra then we should all stop believing our own lying senses. Is that about it?
Heck – what am I saying? Even the “climate scientists” now agree it’s getting colder. Something to do with China burning coal.
Didn’t we just have this very same conversation recently MattB? You know, the one that went:
Burning coal causes global warming (increased CO2)
Burning coal causes global cooling (increased SO2).
NOT burning coal causes global warming (decreased SO2).
NOT burning coal causes global cooling (decreased CO2).
If you can actually swallow all that in one gulp MattB, contact me when you’ve finished negotiating with Tony for that bridge.
I’ve got a nice little matching Opera House you might like to have a look at.
Solar powered too – right up your alley.
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MattB @ 175
And what do YOU think is going to stop the dying as it gets colder MattB?
Oh, sorry, that would be your “Plan B”.
You don’t have one of those – you’re so confident you’re right like all the others of your ilk, you don’t need one.
And you wonder why I refer to your kind as “mass-murderers”. Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao – combined they have nothing on what you mob are going to be responsible for.
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your allocation of “responsibility” to “my kind” for the consequences of a rapidly cooling planet suggests you have a screw loose. I can almost handle the accusation of deaths that will result from reducing energy use to combat climate change – it is absurd but I appreciate some loons may think that. But to apportion blame for unstoppable and brutal and pulverising* cooling is a bit of a stretch.
* h/t graeme bird.
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MattB @ 178
You and “your kind” are not responsible for the “consequences of a rapidly cooling planet” MattB.
You and “your kind” are responsible for the consequences of utterly NO preparation for a rapidly cooling planet.
You and “your kind” are the people responsible for the fact that for the last 20 years most of the western world has fantasising about windmills instead of building proper base-load power stations.
You and “your kind” are responsible for the fact that over 25% of the world’s surplus food production is now diverted to the production of biofuels.
Who the hell do you think pushed for these things, protested for these things, ran 10:10 “No Pressure” and GetUp “say yes” campaigns, and voted for the politicians who would implement these things? Who the hell supports organisations like GreenPeace with their Goldman Sachs “advisor” on every regional board?
Me? Lord Monckton? Joe Nova?
Or YOU and people like YOU – “YOUR KIND”.
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MV no one has been running around claiming the earth is cooling to that extent… could explain why noone is doing anything about it. THe last people who did suggest this are lampooned by “your kind” as examples of why climate scientists haven’t got a clue.
When you say “You and “your kind” are responsible for the fact that over 25% of the world’s surplus food production is now diverted to the production of biofuels.”
1)what should be happening to surplus food supply
2) is there a source for that %, I’ve not seen it before.
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MattB
What “extent” would that be MattB? I certainly haven’t claimed any particular “extent”. All I have ever claimed is that all the observable evidence is that climate is cyclical; we’ve had a purely cyclical “warming” cycle, and now we are going to have a “cooling” cycle”.
I was alive during the last cooling cycle. I remember the droughts, the starvation and the cold that were part and parcel of it. And, from the figures, I know, as cooling cycles go, it was a particularly mild one.
Whether this cooling cycle is going to be just a mild one like last time, or worse, or even a maunder Minimum, is anybody’s guess. However, the fact that the climate is cycling into a cooler period is now observable fact.
What is knowable beyond doubt, is that we were far more prepared for it last time, and now we are totally unprepared for it. So the death and destruction will be far more terrible.
Why isn’t anybody saying anything about it? They are. You just won’t read about it the ABC, BBC, or in the IPCC reports. Try googling “percentage of food supply to biofuels” and have a read through the quarter of a million hits. The fact that the politicians and “climate scientists” choose to ignore all this does not actually make the truth go away.
By “surplus food” I mean “food” (grains) produced by countries like the USA, Canada and Australia that were previously available for sale and export as “food” to other countries. Now 25% plus is being turned into biofuels, pushing down the availability of those grains as food, and pushing up the price. Obviously what should be happening with this surplus food is that it should be available as “food”.
And, please, no lectures on “market forces”. The only reason this “food” is being turned into biofuel is because of generous taxpayer subsidies to make it profitable.
As for the 25% figure – that is the LOWEST figure I could find. Some estimates put it as high as 40% and rising.
Now, can I reverse the questions:
What percentage of the world’s surplus edible food crop do you mass-murderers believe should be diverted to the production of biofuels to feed your egos and need for control; and
What percentage of surplus food do you agree is currently being diverted to the production of biofuels to feed your egos and need for control; and
By what “extent” is the world currently warming MattB? I mean, right now, this month and this year.
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MV,
Dont forget with the carbon tax any farmer sick and tired of getting screwed over by foreign imports ably assisted by inept governments will eye the possibility of ripping out his crops and planting trees to create carbon credits to sell to Al Gore who then sells them back to us, with a tidy profit of course.
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Crackar @ 182
And who could blame them?
If I were still farming beef cattle I would shoot them all, claim compensation from the govt under the live cattle trade embargo, AND an allowance for having reduced my methane emissions.
Then I would apply for a govt subsidy to grow a “carbon reducing crop” (bamboo shoots), go into partnership with a Chinese company (ensuring all profits were derived through a holding company in Hong Kong – 3% company tax) and then apply for a subsidy through any of the several allowances available to sponsor and promote export trade.
I would sow all the land between my bamboo stands with clover.
Finally, I would lease out the land my bamboo crop was growing on to other less street-wise cattle farmers, as ‘fattening’ paddocks, make a profit from them too, and let them worry about their animals’ farts.
Oh, the wonders of “free enterprise”.
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To Matt,
Last post from me about the price of a mattress, firstly this post is not for your eyes but for the silent onlookers.
The following steps are to be considered when calculating the price ride of a product (mattress)
Step 1, The company that digs the coal out of the ground is taxed in two ways, one way is via the use of electricity through plant equipment and office buildings etc. The second way is via fugative emissions, these are CO2 emissions that escape the ground during the physical process of digging up the coal, The same can be said about gas.
Now this increase in costs is passed onto the electrical generators but also lets not forget that in theory the cost of coal and gas exported overseas also increases now for these companies to keep their competitive edge this cost will not be applied to exports but added to cost of coal and gas that supplies local generators. Lets call this teh “double whammy” price rise.
Step 2, the coal and gas is given to the electricity generators and they produce electricity which also attracts a carbon tax, this price rise plus the double whammy in step 1 (triple whammy) is passed onto everyone who uses electricity.
Step 3, Let us assume we make a product that contains 10 components and each component is made in an individual factory, each factory that makes its component is now subject the triple whammy so now the cost of each component has risen in price, also if a component is made of steel like a spring in a mattress it will attract additional taxes as the steel industry produces CO2 to make steel.
Step 4, Now all ten components arrive at your factory each with a price rise attached (steel products will rise further than others) the cost to you to assemble the product has now increased as you are also subject to the triple whammy detailed in steps 1 & 2 so the cost of the product rises even more.
Step 5, The product now arrives at Harvey Normans, HN is also subject to the triple whammy so he has to increase the ticket price of the product to cover his loses.
Step 6, The only transport that attracts a carbon tax is in steps 1 & 2 and has already been factored in however let us not forget the oil refiners where fuel is made will incur a rise in electricity costs (triple whammy again). Therefore the price of fuel must rise, therefore the excise tax component will rise and therefore the GST component must rise. The guy who owns the petrol station is also goimg to experience the triple whammy effect so his pump price on petrol must rise also. So we need to factor in all the transport costs associated with each step from 2 to 5.
Step 7, finally we need to factor in all the GST rises (except for step 6 of course), remember each transaction in the process attracts GST and as GST is expressed as a percentage of price and price goes up then so does the GST take.
So in the end MattB do you really think your simplified mathematical equation is good enough to calculate the full price rise under a carbon tax? Of course not but suspect you alraedy knew that as i said this post was not for your eyes.
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Yes Crackar – my simplified equation of
1) adding up all the CO2e emissions of the supply chain
2) multiplying by $23 per tonne
is exactly the way to go about things to get the MAXIMUM cost increase. You could spend time figuring what CO2e is excluded or compensated under this tax plan but the two steps above are spot on.
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Never before has such an insane policy been drawn up, by such an insane government, for such an insane purpose!
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I’ve been on a little excursion into Brave New Climate, and have to admit to being lured by the siren call of high density energy in nuclear power. But then I remember the molten fuel rods at Fukushima which no-one has any real solution for dealing with yet, and under best case outcomes will be a problem for at least the next 30 years, and that Caesium137 is still (30 years later) affecting not just the 30km exclusion zone around Chernobyl, but large areas (750km2) as far afield as UK and Norway. So while I understand your pro-nuclear sentiments, in my mind its never going to be “cheap” while such externalities exist. I’m not yet convinced that new designs will prevent human error, the perfect storm, or materials failure from recurring.
Cohenite 143 : 9km2 at Bayswater; check it out on Google maps -32.395244, 150.948931.
MattB 144: yes area of panels
BerndF 145: overnight energy, as I’m sure you’ve heard before, can come from pumped hydro, chemical storage, electrolysis of water, gas turbines etc, whatever’s cheapest. The market will work it out. Remember I’m suggesting very low cost panels will appear by about mid-century, not that these options are viable now. Solar PV & H will replace coal not for some ideological reason but for the simple reason that it will be cheaper. Here’s a starting point that explains why 90% of the world’s coal will never be mined, for sound economic reasons, nothing to do with sky-dragons.
Tony 160 : “solar will never ever be viable” (paraphrase)… Well that’s a big call. I understand your arguments about solar at present, but you are overlooking a lot of historical imperative here, Moore’s law for example. It’s not just economies of scale, it about real technological advances, eg nanotech manufacturing. And PV’s don’t require a turbine, of course.
I can readily envisage a 50% “roof” of panels over large swathes of cities like Bangkok or Calcutta or Cairo, where the ground-level cooling shade will be welcome and the generated power needs minimal distribution. No extra land at all is involved if it floats above existing housing or on suitable rooftops.
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MattB @ 185:
Except you said more than just what the “simple formula” should be. You said @ 174:
or show an itemization of all that you considered when arriving at $11.50
Of course I expect you’ll do neither and more, you’ll continue in your denial of just how bad your new taxes will be.
Crackar @ 184 nice job. Too bad not enough people (and politicians) understand real economics. There is one more hidden cost that will invariably creep in; that is when employees unhappy with the new costs of living, demand offsetting higher wages. These too will be carried to the final price of everything.
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“Michael Stutchbury, Economics Editor, The Australian, thinks it will be a miracle if the package survives.”
From the lead article of Jo’s… ok the headline is “miracle” but the article is hardly scathing.
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Mark D what am I retracting. It is clear that my CO2e calculation is estimated from two linked articles, one of which is a journal published article and the other a Wall Street Journal article, both of which examine the full life cycle carbon emissions of a range of products.
Are you trying to suggest that an item that requires 1 tonne of CO2 emissions will not go up by $23, give or take a bit?
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mullumhillbilly
that’s the problem right there.
Without any technical or engineering understanding, green friends of the dirt sanguinely believe that somehow by magic, solar and wind can be made to work.
Solar PV Will only ever work while the Sun is actually shining on the generating cells in the panels. The ‘theoretical’ best case scenario is a Capacity Factor of 31%, or 7.4 hours a day. World’s best right now is 23% or 5.5 hours a day, and World Average is 13.5% or 3.2 hours a day. It has barely moved. As technology improves, the cost of constructing large scale plants rises, and will keep doing so. The Panels may actually get slightly cheaper. The actual plant construction will always be rising, and that is the cost that has to be recovered over the life span of the plant, theoretical best case scenario being 25 years, hence the huge price in the unit cost of the electricity.
Concentrating Solar. The problem as I mentioned above is the weight of the generator and the steam required to drive that weight. Even with heat diversion for storage plants of this nature still only have a ‘theoretical’ best case scenario CF of around 70%, maybe 17/18 hours. Even that is only 50MW out of 250MW Nameplate Capacity. They might get it to 100MW out of 500MW Nameplate Capacity in perhaps 7 years, but on the scale of a 1000MW generator running 24/7/365, that will NEVER happen, and trust me, that is not a big call on my part. It’s the truth.
Green ‘urgers’ can quote all the theoretical Moores Laws and the like for all their worth, but until you actually understand the engineering and the technology, it’s no use saying …. “come on guys, we’re all rootin for ya’s. Pull the finger out”
It just can’t be done.
Tony.
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Matt, from the WSJ article:
The difference in construction between a jacket and a mattress? I’d say the mattress would be higher co2 footprint than a jacket but 100lbs king size mattress = 4800 lbs or 2.2 metric tons @ $23 = $50.60 not $11.50. Like I said show how you came up with $11.50
You might not like my choice of a king size but then maybe you sleep alone.
But even that isn’t the point here. Neither of the two links discuss the obvious which is the costs will be layered by each intermediate markup. This point is made clear within the WSJ story:
So you see that EVERY intermediate step will result in a bickering about just who should pay. This is a tax collectors wildest dream. Do you think they are going to asses these carbon taxes in a “nice” way or in the way that maximizes revenue?
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Mervyn Sullivan 186
Churchill said: “Never was so much owed by so many to so few”
If he only knew how well it applies in the case of carbon taxes
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Mark D at 192 – ok even if it were $50 the point is that the $200-$300 being quoted is not in the realms of reality. The “leather” bit is an issue though making them hard to compare. As we know cows are very CO2 intensive. If it was a leather mattress maybe.
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Tony@191
That’s bizarre. History suggests exactly the opposite. The only thing making construction more expensive of late is multi-layered green bureaucracy, like the impact on mattress prices. Or in the case of nuclear plants, recognition that risk was underpriced in the past, and standards need to be raised.
I think I have already been was taking intermittency and diffuse source into account. My key point is about cost, and the inevitablility of technical subsitition when solar hits coal-fired grid parity. China or India will arrive there out of necessity, and the commercial reward for having a patent on cheap energy production is colossal.
I agree re concentrating thermal solar. I think it will be a “typewriter” technology that will fall by the way as we move towards “computers” of cheap PV.
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Cheap PV.
You’re not serious, surely.
PV produces power ONLY WHILE THE SUN SHINES.
The very best they can even hope to achieve is 31% CF or 7.4 hours a day, and that’s the most optimistic theory.
Even if it ever achieves even remotely close to coal fired power, you’ll still need backup for the remaining 16.6 hours a day, and that only adds to the cost of providing electricity.
Remember also, that 60 to 65% of every watt of power is required ABSOLUTELY for 24 hours of every day.
For more than three years now I have been watching as renewable power plants have gone in.
In every case, the cost of construction has increased, and in most cases original proposals have also increased, some more than doubling, even while the technology gets better.
You can cover every roof in Beijing or Delhi with PV panels, and as soon as the Sun goes down, the electricity they use comes FROM the grid, and in nearly every case, that is coal fired power.
Grid parity with coal.
No wonder average people are so sanguine something like this might be achieved.
People keep telling them, without even blinking that it is an inevitability.
Maybe you also might be interested in the Bridge offer I made to Matt B.
Tony.
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I’ll try and help Tony with his quest for education and clear thinking.
Solar *can never* provide a capacity factor of above 7 hours a day. Power requirements are 24 hours a day, with the peak domestic requirements coming in the couple of hours after nightfall as people cook, switch on lights and watch the TV. As more high-voltage appliances come online (like electric cars and short-range delivery trucks) demand will being to spread more evenly across the 24 hour period.
In order to provide 24 hour coverage, you need to have a fossil fuel plant (or nuclear, or as-yet-not-invented – but definitely not solar).
If you are going to build a fossil fuel plant (or other) then you need to have it running 24×7 in order to get a better return on investment.
If you need to have it running 24×7 there is no need, and no point in the solar panels. This is true whether solar is 20% efficient or 100% efficient. This is true whether solar PV costs $20 sqm or $2000 sqm. They are just an additional cost-adding less-efficient power to the side of a more-efficient baseload power station. Power stations are like planes – any time they are sitting on the tarmac they are not making you any money and are costing you money. Therefore you want them to be flying as much as possible, even if some of the routes are marginally profitable, because sitting on the ground is a guaranteed loss.
Let’s assume that, because of moores law of solar PV, someone invents a solar powered passenger plane that is the size of a 737 and costs about the same. You could not possibly run an airline that had half it’s fleet with solar powered planes, and the other half with jetfuel powered planes. Because people want to fly at night and during the day, so you would be forced to run only jet planes, with maybe a couple of solar powered planes for peak load during the morning. But having half your fleet grounded at any one time because they can’t fly at night or on cloudy days would never work, and your jet-only competitors would smash you. It’s exactly the same with power stations. The person with the most efficient, 24×7 power always wins, even if their raw fuel costs are more. The solar planes would be a niche novelty.
We already have the same comparison – shipping. Once upon a time, the entire shipping industry ran on ‘renewables’. However, even though the wind was ‘free’, coal and oil powered shipping relegated sail-powered boats to a novelty niche. Why? Because if you’re going to pay for a ship, you need to have it working 24×7. You can’t have an expensive asset floating on the seas somewhere, becalmed. Even though they cost more to run, coal and oil powered ships win, because they have a much higher load factor. It’s there for everyone to see. Even with higher and higher oil prices, nobody builds a wind-powered freight ship. Why? Apart from the low energy density of wind, the load factor would kill it stone dead.
You cannot escape the basic equation that power sources with load factors below 80 or 90% are useless for baseload power. This is true for solar, wind, or unicorns on treadmills (the unicorn union says no more than 6 hours a day on a treadmill).
The only exception to this is where you have a hydro plant (not pumped storage) alongside a solar and/or wind farm. The hydro is easier to balance alongside the solar/wind and doesn’t suffer as much from the start up/shut down costs as a coal,gas or nuclear plant. This is how Norway/Denmark does it (with a little Nuclear thrown in). This is OK if you have (a) favourable geography with large reliable water supplies close to demand centres and (b) a public and political class that allows such things to be built.
The majority of the world fails with (a) and a large percentage fails with (b). The Hoover dam would never get constructed if proposed now. The Aswan dam was a near-run thing. Three gorges only exists because of a totalitarian government.
The other major sticking point to solar is that, even at 100% efficiency, it takes land. and concrete, and steel and copper. And land costs money (‘they aren’t making any more of it, son’). The other commodities rise in price, particularly if other countries adopt ridiculous carbon and mining taxes. You might hand-wave away all of the avialable rooftops in Cairo, but even rooftops and building sides have a value, which you can ascertain by asking about putting advertising on them. So there is constraining cost of construction of solar that remains even as efficiency reaches 100% through some hypothetical moores law.
Again, and again, we repeat : Solar is not a baseload power solution and can never be. Technical blind alley – seek ye the salvation elsewhere.
10
ps I meant to put an asterisk on ‘free’ for wind powered ships.
I say this because my neighbour is a keen sailor. The price and life expectancy of his sails makes my eyes water.
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BRC you are a bit off, as there is certainly even with fossil plants the requirement to meet peak loads, which means there is always some infrastructure that you don’t have turned on 24/7 as you’d just be wasting fuel. This is why even before carbon tax we don;t just have baseload power plants running 24/7 but have a range of peak infrastructure such as gas etc… plants that are a bit more efficient at being turned on and off as required.
Also solar “can” provide 24/7 with adequate storage… I say “can” as the costs of that storage are massive (as if solar was not already so), and still may need some backup (as it may be cheaper than providing even more storage).
So while I agree in essence I think there are enough holes there for a renewables advocate to get some leverage. So tighten up son.
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MattB
You’ve got no idea have you.
60 to 65% of every watt being generated is required ABSOLUTELY 24/7/365.
Coal fired power provides 75% of all consumed electrical power here in Australia.
Some of that is smaller coal fired plants, that because they are small, can run up and down ‘relatively’ quickly, and these are also used as load following plants, in other words, running along in the background waiting for demand to rise so they can ‘flick the switch’ (figuratively speaking) and come on line providing their power.
Those large scale coal fired plants are indeed running 24/7/365 discounting carefully calculated down time for maintenance.
Running them up and down in fact consumes considerably more coal than running them at their maximum 24/7/365.
Look at the image at this link:
http://papundits.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/load-curve-master.jpg
Note the Peaking Power periods shown best for the Winter curve, the blue line.
In the AM when people rise and consume electricity, and from 4PM till around midnight, when the peak residential consumption kicks in.
THAT my dear fellow is when those peak power providing plants kick in to fill that demand.
Those large scale power plants provide all the power below the black line, and as you can see from that all that power is required for 24 hours of every day.
Tony.
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brc at comment 197
Julia thinks to self:
Solar powered 747. Damn! Why didn’t I think of that.
Tony.
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Hot on the heels of lecturing us on backyard economics Matthew now gives us this bit of advice “So while I agree in essence I think there are enough holes there for a renewables advocate to get some leverage. So tighten up son.”
What holes? Oh you mean the very expensive storage of solar power? or the gibbering buffoonary about plants running 24/7?
By the way since the tax has been announced we have had a series of revelations, the first being the tax wont actually give the government more money in fact it will create a 4.3 billion dollar black hole over the next 4 years, the second revelation was that all the compo figures the Red Vampire told us was quoted from treasury using a $20 tax but yet she announced it will be $23 therefore the compo will not be high enough. The third is that the Vamp has been in secret hush hush talks with coal fired power companies in an effort to shut them down, it has been revealed Hazelwood along would cost us 3 billion dollars, playford in SA would have to cost at least a billion.
So we have a government that wants to tax us so they can have a spendy up on green dreams but she is too afraid to tax us enough to cover the costs and so far we are 8 to 9,000,000,000,000 in the red due to this tax and all those out there that are afriad of price gouging never fear Dullard is here. The government have given the ACCC NEW POWERS to combat any price gouging by companies trying to take advantage at others misfortune i am sure this new system will work as good as fuel watch and grocery watch……just you wait and see.
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BRC,
I realise that your solar plane statement was for demonstration purposes only but please keep in mind that every stupid green policy starts with an idea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Oh MattB
Puhleese!
Even the most sanguine of solar plant proposals quote that can (or that they might be able to theoretically) achieve a 60 to 65% Capacity Factor, even with heat storage, most less than that in actuality.
They ‘can’ possibly achieve 24/7/365 on the odd day here and there, but all year round.
Give me strength!
Tony.
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MattB @ 194
I’ll call it a retraction.
Why are cows “co2 intensive”? They exist solely on plant matter (sequestered carbon) and through their life cycle they rarely burn fossil fuels for vacation trips. Even their methane is a product of microbes not the cow per say. I think you made that up or maybe quoted some vegetarian warmist or something.
I think whales are intensive co2 producers or maybe penguins or seals…. no polar bears yes them damn polar bears Yup polar bears and dromedaries.
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Sure, you don’t always run plants on 100% load, because of demand, maintenance and other factors. Same as you can’t fly a plane 24 hours a day. But you sure want to be able to get as close to that as possible. Starting off with a maximum capacity factor short of 40% is never going to make it off the drawing board unless someone throws a heap of subsidies at it. If I went to Qantas with plans for my solar-powered 737 and said ‘you can fly it up to 7 hours a day’, they would quietly show me the door.
We all know it’s more efficient to drive at a constant speed than it is to slow down and speed up. This is what causes the spot price of electricity to drop below the supply price on occasion. Coal power sometimes sells at a loss rather than turn the thing off and on again.
Holes in my argument? Yes, probably. It’s not a Phd dissertation. It’s a distraction while I should be working. Just a hope that a soft-brained renewables dreamer will read it and knock some sense into themselves.
Just remember – this is an argument about maximum load factor, not costs. Even with cost-parity coverage is not, because your investment needs to be earning 24×7. Solar can do 40% at best, and if you want to use storage it’s not linear – doubling the size of your plant will not give you 80% coverage because of the losses. Wind has shown to average 20-25%, and again doubling the size of the windfarm doesn’t double coverage because of the losses in conversion.
John Howard used to speak extensively about this stuff (baseload power and load factors), and was the last politician to do so. Perhaps because it is hard to sensationalise or get across to the true laymen. It’s clearly obvious this thread is struggling to do so as well.
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Cows are carbon neutral. They don’t eat any fossil fuel. The feed they eat comes from plants which have absorbed co2 to get to cow-eating size. Particularly so Autsralian cows, which tend to be grazed rather than feed-lotted.
The only co2 impact of cows is in transport to market and processing. However, these same costs apply to all foodstuffs not grown in your backyard, from organic lentils to atlantic salmon. Wheat is sowed and harvested by tractor. Tofu and lentils all have carbon footprints from transport, storage and processing.
There’s a very good argument for eating locally – not only for fresh produce, but for understanding where your food comes from, and supporting your local agriculture over forieng competition. However, this is totally disconnected to the greenhouse gas footprint of a cow, sheep, pig or other livestock which is negligible in the grand scheme of things. If the cows didn’t eat the grass, something else would. And that something else could quite possibly be fire, which is very efficient at turning stored carbon into co2 and actual black carbon.
I just think it’s funny how everything ‘bad’ in the world, if you read a greenies pamphlet, creates greenhouse gases. Cars : check. Meat : check. Big Houses : check. Flights : check. Which came first – the greenhouse gas theory, then the hatred for al these things? Or the hatred of these things, which went in search of a theory?
History would suggest that mung beans, hair shirts and car-hatred dates back to the 1960s, pre-dating global warming by a long way. Coincidence? You be the judge.
Just once I’d like to see a news story how eating tofu causes Amazon forest loss, or something.
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If that Tytler guy is on the money the USA has already used up its 200 years (1776 to 1976). Can we buck the odds and make “Freedom and Prosperity” last 300 years?
It is not looking good right now………………….
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BRC I eat meat including cows. It is the methane that is the issue and cows don’t eat methane but they do emit it. I was just giving a reason why a leather product could be reasonable CO2e intensive relative to some other product in terms of the discussion of costs relating to carbon taxes.
This is my favourite part about carbon pricing… consumption knowing you’ve paid for the carbon so no one can even imagine they have a moral right to hassle you out.
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Hmm! MattB
I hope in your self satisfaction that you’ll be honest enough to send the Government a Cheque every year for the CO2 you exhale, and that way, no one can ‘hassle you out’, and then you really can strut around the, er, moral high ground.
Tony.
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In a follow up to post 202,
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_black_hole_in_gillards_plan/
It just keeps getting worse, in order for Dullard to reduce our emissions by 5% or 160 million tonnes half of it comes from buying credits overseas, now Bolt made an assumption that credits would be worth $30 and at that price it will cost us $3,000,000,000,000 a year…………….for what my i ask?
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Crackar… under a global treaty the ability to trade carbon permits across borders will lower the cost as it promotes the cutting of the cheapest emissions. We would only buy from overseas in a situation where that is cheaper than domestic reduction, and we are in a position where we have quite efficient high CO2-emitting industry so we will buy rights to emit above our cap from those who’se carbon emissions are less productive. It is likely we will acvhieve our cuts in this manner rather than dismantle highly efficient and profitable plant.
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You are full of shit matt, i know your type you are one of these arse holes that likes to argue. You dont care what the argument is about because you just make shit up. Now piss off and argue about things somewhere else you moron.
From the Bolt link we have this
“Across the scenarios, Australia’s targets are met by reducing emissions within Australia and in
other countries. While pricing carbon cuts emissions,
. Sourcing emission reductions in other countries plays an
important role, encouraging reduction in global emissions at the lowest economic cost.”
And
“World carbon prices are expected to be
, if the world takes action to stabilise
greenhouse gas concentration levels at 550 ppm of CO2-e. If the world takes action to stabilise
concentration levels at 450 ppm of CO2-e, world prices are
.”
Now where did i get this info Matt? Well right here http://afr.com/rw/2009-2014/AFR/2011/07/10/Photos/78db4c00-aaa0-11e0-9cd3-fc762ff2ab5c_02%20Key%20points%20and%20Overview.pdf this was embedded in the bolt story. You really are getting lazy Matt, you should at least do a modicum of ground work before you bestow your bullshit upon us.
In short i have never had the displeasure of conversing with a bigger dickhead than you, you waltz in here with all the pomp and ceremony of a preening faux intellectual when infact you are just an unemployed shit kicker with a king size chip on his shoulder.
I think it is about time the moderators gave Matty my boy a little rest.
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Crackar I’m not sure how that contradicts what I said to be honest. I’m not denying the cost, just pointing out that it will be cheaper than domestic action.
But since you’ve resorted to ranting and claim I just like to argue… how about you argue with this bone head.
160 million tonnes * 50% = 80 million tonnes
80 million tonnes * $30 = 2,400,000,000. Which is 1000 times less than your $3,000,000,000,000… maybe you got your mate who makes Mattresses to do that maths?
Ahh I see it may be confusion over the use of the word billion… but even at billions (with 9 not 12 zeros) is is 2.4 billion not “more than 3”
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And yes lets have me banned for
1) knowing how an ETS works; and
2) being able to multiply
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er MattB,
the current ‘price on derdy polluders’ is not an ETS.
That doesn’t come in for another two years after this, and if you think this is iniquitous, wait and see what an ETS has in store.
That’s an even bigger money making racket.
See this Post for some modelling.
http://papundits.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/kerry-lieberman-the-great-big-april-fools-day-tax-grab/
Tony.
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Yes tony but the bolt article is about achieving the 5% cuts by 2020, at which time the ETS will be in the house.
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Ranting? the preening faux intellectual claims i am ranting oh the hypocrisy………..
OK so we are using the US version of a billion and not the British which means 3 billion is 3,000,000,000 and this deluded, inept government will spend at least 2,400,000,000 on carbon credits so we can squeak in the 5%. What do we get in return for our 2.4 billion dollar investment? NOTHING thats right absolutely nothing well i should be fair here and say we will get 1/8000th of a degree of forestalled AGW.
Do you actually proof read the crap you type Matt, you are now saying it is cheaper to spend at least 2.4 billion (US version) on nothing but empty promises and worthless peices of paper than it would be to reduce our emissions and in the process destroy an industry. Which one of these two options is the better?
Spend 2.4B on nothing so we can get all warm and fuzzy whilst we continue to spew out carbon pollution and along the way cripple our economy or inforce draconion measures to actually reduce our emissions and cripple our economy. Dont forget the ETS will continue beyond 2020 so this money for nothing policy will continue along with it.
But what is the point Matt? What have we gained from this idiotic policy?
I am not saying you should be banned because you think it is a good idea we hand over billions of dollars a year to tin pot dictators in 3rd world countries based on a promise they will not build a coal fired power plant or chop down a tree, i also dont think you should be banned because your concept of how tax works is complete wrong, what i am saying is that you declare a position based on nothing more than opinion. You fail to support your opinions with facts, you fail to acknowledge that you have been proven wrong time and time again regardless of the evidence to show it to be true which is why you are a preening faux intellectual.
Here is a sign as to which direction the world is heading Matt and as Dullard says we cannot be left behind
http://www.thelocal.de/national/20110713-36277.html
Just in case you are too proud to read it let me tell you what it says…..ready?…..make sure you are sitting down…….take a deep breath……OK Germany are shutting down their nuke plants and are going to use their climate change slush fund to build………drum roll………….COAL FIRED POWER STATIONS…….you cant make this shit, so here we have Dullard being led by the nose by the greens wanting to shut down coal and tax the crap out of it and Germany now having tasted green policies have turned their backs on it. As a nation doesnt this news make you feel stupid Matt?
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Moderators, bring back some civility please ?
OK I get the rationale about baseload power and solar intermittency. Let’s look at falling costs of solar PV from the consumer’s point of view.
Suppose I can make electricity for a few hours per day, using my (Unicorn brand) rooftop cheap solar panels which have payback period of say a couple of years when I get a net metering offset. This is better for me than buying from the grid, unless nuclear electricity truly is “too cheap to meter”. This is so whether I live in Calcutta, Cairo, Canberra or Canton. If baseload has to be overbuilt in Australia to cope with those few sweltery peak days per year when everyone turns on the air-conditioner, domestic rooftop solar must at least have some role to play?
But domestic net-metering parity is just the starter. Solar costs will keep trending downward beyond that, and generating capacity will continue to grow exponentially as installations increase. So we get to a point where it is so cheap that overbuilding happens naturally, and we end up with a large surplus energy generating capacity on peak sunshine days. What can be done with it? Some baseload need can be offset by storage. Consumers will buy their own storage if it’s cheaper than retail grid price. System wide storage (pumped hydro, chemical batteries, thermal) will be viable if it is cheaper to build and use than expanding the baseload. But there are some real physical constraints (limited hydro sites, lithium resource etc) to storage, so solar + storage can never completely provide 24/7 baseload on a national or global scale. On the other hand electrolysis of seawater has practically limitless physical potential, and the resulting hydrogen is transportable and usable as liquid fuel or to recharge fuel cells. It remains to be seen whether this can done more cheaply than liquid hydrocarbon fuels, eg CTL or GTL after the cheap oil is gone.
I’m willing to bet we’ll see $1/watt retail (unsubsidised) panel price before a nuclear power plant gets built in Australia. I’m sure we’ll figure out a good use for the cheap surplus electricity.
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mullumhillbilly,
Wow!
I can’t believe you actually said that with a straight face.
A payback period of a couple of years.
Buy enough panels to ‘theoretically’ cover your average daily total household use.
The Government gives you back one third of that outlay in subsidies, for being a good citizen on behalf of the environment.
So now you only have two thirds of that original outlay to recover, this achieved by the feed in tariff, which is three times the rate of what consumers pay for the electricity they use FROM the grid.
So, this again considerably shortens your pay back period.
However, that original subsidy and the subsidy for the feed in tariff means you are effectively having every other consumer pay for your rooftop solar panels, because to cover that feed in tariff, they have to jack up the price of electricity for grid consumers to cover that.
That’s called ‘bludging off your mates’.
So, there is the possibility that you might recover the total original outlay in as little as 20 to 25 years, incidentally, the life expectancy of the panels provided they are kept pristine, eg polishing once a week.
Without subsidies at the front end and that feed in tariff, the cost would take around 40 to 50 years to recover.
Either way you are locked into staying in that residence for all that time, either the subsidised 20 years or the unsubsidised 40 years, because you just can’t take the panels with you.
However, your actual total electricity consumption is one third daylight two thirds after daylight.
So, (by law remember) you are still connected to the grid, well you have to be for feed in tariff purposes.
Your two thirds non daylight is power you consume FROM THE GRID, like everybody else.
THE GRID IS NOT YOUR PERSONAL BATTERY where you can generate power during the day and then call it back during the night, besides you are being paid a feed in tariff for that anyway.
So, while you MAY generate your total overall consumption, you are in fact still a net consumer of electricity FROM THE GRID.
Rooftop solar panels are only REVENUE NEUTRAL, not electrical power neutral.
Everybody else is paying increased costs for the electricity they consume so you can ‘feel good’ by saying you are doing something you perceive as being morally good for the sake of the environment.
You’re not saving CO2 emissions because the power plants are still providing electricity to you when you actually require it, your peak period of consumption.
That’s why rooftop solar power is useless.
It relies on other people’s money to pay you, and yet, you are still a net consumer of power from the grid, and trust me, no matter how many roofs are covered in solar panels, pity help the grid controller who takes that into account when calculating how much power from whatever sources will be needed to cover demand. Grid controllers do not even consider rooftop solar as part of the ‘mix’ of power needed to cover demand.
Read the Post at this Link.
Household Solar Power – Don’t Believe The Hype
Tony.
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So whilst Germany has now decided it will pump carbon pollution into the air we will spend a further 57 billion thats 57,000,000,000 PER YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(US version of a billion) to buy permits so we can live with our sins.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/billion-to-clean-up-others-backyards/story-e6freuzr-1226094190514
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mullumhillbilly,
your lot really have absolutely no comprehension of what a physical Base Load requirement is, do you?
You say:
Look at this image.
60 to 65% of every watt of power being generated is required ABSOLUTELY for 24 hours of every day.
http://papundits.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/load-curve-master.jpg
Tony.
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cut and paste from Andrew Bolt as only a link does not do it justice.
All that pain – and only foreigners gain:
The long-term scenario revealed in Treasury’s own modelling on the carbon tax shows that Australian polluters will be spending $57 billion a year on clean energy projects in other countries by 2050 to meet our own pollution abatement targets….
The figures revealed in an extended Treasury modelling document show that Australia’s own domestic carbon emissions would be 545 million tonnes a year by 2050 – only 30 million tonnes less than what is produced now.
In order to reach our pollution target of reducing emissions by 80 per cent on 2000 levels by 2050, Treasury said that 434 million tonnes of carbon abatement would have to be sourced from overseas.
Treasury’s forecast of a carbon price of $131 by 2050 means that Australia will be putting $57 billion in today’s dollar terms into the hands of foreign clean energy schemes to reach Australia’s own abatement target.
That’s all money no longer available to the Government for compensation.
It’s unsustainable.
(Thanks to reader southerncross.)
UPDATE
Greg Sheridan cannot believe the insanity of an economy such as ours – more dependent than almost any other on fossil fuels – imposing the toughest tax in the world on emissions:
IF ever there were a single country in the entire world spectacularly unsuited to be the sole imposer of a vast, unprecedented carbon tax, which no other country in the world is remotely duplicating, it is Australia.
Isolated from our strategic friends, far distant from our biggest markets, a member of no natural trading bloc or customs union, we have just one serious, competitive advantage in the global economy.
That is the abundance of our fossil fuel endowments. If ever there were a nation well advised to move slowly and carefully on policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions, we are it.
As Productivity Commission head Gary Banks commented: “It will not be efficient from a global perspective [let alone a domestic one] for a carbon-intensive economy, such as ours, to abate as much as countries that are less reliant on cheap, high emission, energy sources . . . Modelling aside, it’s common sense that achieving any given level of abatement is likely to be costlier in a country with a comparative advantage in fossil fuels.”.
No wonder such a monumental stupidity relies on lies:
The whole enterprise is built on a falsehood, the supposition that nations around the world are taking comparable economy-distorting actions to that proposed by the Gillard government.
There is no really polite way of putting this but it is simply, utterly and comprehensively untrue…
In the US, cap and trade, their name for an emissions trading scheme, is dead and buried. Far from approaching the official US target of reducing 2005 level emissions by 17 per cent by 2020, US emissions grew by 4 per cent last year…
China’s greenhouse gas emissions will increase from 2005 levels of five billion tonnes a year to 12 billion tonnes by 2020. That’s an increase of seven billion tonnes a year. Australia, notionally, in that time might cut emissions by 70 million tonnes. So China’s increase will be 100 times greater than Australia’s decrease….
Japan has not only rejected an ETS approach but is likely, in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, to make renewed investments in coal. Canada has elected a government committed to no carbon tax or ETS. The remaining ETS schemes in a couple of states in the US are falling apart. South Korea has put off action until 2015 at the earliest. The European ETS raises $1 a person and has very little effect on economic activity. India has no interest in a carbon tax approach. It levies a tax on coal of $1 a tonne and its carbon emissions will grow almost as quickly as China’s.
UPDATE
Terry McCrann says the tax will rise, and the tax cuts in compensation will shrink:
THE carbon (dioxide) tax is forever. And going higher and higher. But the supposedly compensating tax cuts will quickly evaporate thanks to good old bracket creep.
Before you even get to 2020 your tax cuts will have all-but disappeared in real terms. But the carbon (dioxide) tax will be plucking more and more dollars out of your wallet and purse… In part, to send billions of dollars a year overseas to; at best, investment banking spivs and main-chancers that brought us the 2008 global financial meltdown; at worst, to outright Nigerian-scam style thieves. All just for the ‘right’ to keep using some of our coal-fired electricity…
And who gets ripped off first and worst? People earning between $19,400 and $80,000. People earning between $400 a week and $1500 a week.
Costello left them with 83.5c and 68.5c of every extra dollar they earned. JiW (Julia in Wonderland) and Swannie will leave them with only 79.5c and 65.5c of every extra dollar they earn.
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TonyfromOz @220. I am not talking about current solar PV costs. At unsubsidised present-day cost of $6-8/watt, I understand that payback periods at net metering value are beyond the working life of the panel, and thus uneconomic. Throughput these threads I have been talking about mid-term future (eg mid-century) costs, when technoogical advance has brought retail price down to $1/watt or less (in current day terms)… that’s where I get the 2 year payback period, without even having to assume a continuing real rise in domestic electricity prices. I’ve posted some links that show why that cost fall is a reasonable assumption. Did you look? I looked at your usage pattern figure last time you posted it, and have nothing there to really argue with (though labelling the y-axis migth be informative). Looks to me like (cheap rooftop) solarPV is ideal to to fill the gap between the black line baseload and the daily peaks between 8am and 4-6pm. With falling costs driving expanded installation by consumers, we will end up with capacity to overfill the 40% gap, at virtually zero marginal cost of production after the 2 year payback. What would you like to do with the cheap surplus?
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“you fail to acknowledge that you have been proven wrong time and time again regardless of the evidence to show it to be true ”
I must admit you’re right, I’m not aware of any such situations.
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Hey Tony this is from someone in the know,
The chief of Macquarie Generation, Russel Skelton, said in Tuesday’s Australian that it would take 3,500 turbines to replace the generator at Bayswater, NSW.
I had a look at the consequences of replacing Hazelwood, in the Latrobe Valley, with wind power, a measure being contemplated by the Government as part of its direct action plan for CO2 emissions reductions.
The figures are mind boggling. First is the cost of the buyout of Hazelwood. Probably about $3b.
Second is the cost of the replacement turbines. Hazelwood is 1470mw. ( say 1500mw for simple sums ). A standard 3mw turbine costs about $7m. ( windustry.org ) That would be 500 towers for nominal capacity of 1500mw. But, given that the average output of these devices is only 1/4 of the nameplate capacity, (or less ), a total of at least 2000 towers would be needed to replace Hazelwood.
Bayswater is bigger than Hazelwood, so Skelton’s figure for Bayswater is probably right.
And 2000 turbines at $7m each works out to $14b! This is 40 windfarms with 50 turbines each, scattered around Victoria.
Thirdly, since the wind farms will spend half their time supplying less than their average output ( by definition), the system will need open cycle gas turbine backup. And backup for even 1/3 of the windfarms capacity will require at least a 500mw of gas turbine generation. This will cost maybe $1.3b, or more. Origin just built one at Mortlake.
Then comes the cost of the gas supply infrastructure, and connection costs to the electricity grid. In total, close to $2b.
Finally comes the cost of the grid connection for the 40 dispersed windfarms. At least another $1b.
So the final cost to replace Hazelwood with wind and gas is 3+14+ 2+1= $20 billion! This is more than the whole Latrobe Valley generating system is worth! Where on earth is this sort of money going to come from? And what will be the price of power with such a monumental amount of capital to service?
And here’s the kicker. The cost of abatement. Assuming that the 16mtpa of current emissions from Hazelwood are foregone, (and not counting the gas that will be used in the scheme anyway), the cost of abatement is $1,350/tonne! This is all madness.”
Now here we have people that actually believe the tripe peddled out by Dullard and Brown, they think this is a wonderful TAX and….and….and….no matter how much it hurts it will “save the planet”.
Cue some convoluted bullshit from the preening faux intellectual in 3, 2,………..
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Something else for the believers:
http://www.itn.co.uk/world/23814/Bolivia+appeals+for+help+after+heavy+snow
It might be cold where you are but trust us it is warmer everywhere else.
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Heres some more food for thought:
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/press/press_releases/press_release.php?id=1541
I can here the preening one now….no…no….no…no…no, carbon pullooooshon is warming and acidifying the oceans Jooolya told me so thats why we need to pay billions upon billions upon billions of dollars to clense us of our sins, why dont you guys believe me?
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3…2…1… with only a superficial glance at the numbers Crackar, I am no doubt going to disappoint you by agreeing wholeheartedly with the general sentiments expressed in your post in 226.
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Great article as usual Joanne,
Have stumbled onto the detail of the Carbon Farming Initiative. Bloody Hell!
The senate are having an inquiry into the three bills and to me -if the general public could be acquainted with all the tricky detail- it would scare the socks off them. Have a look here-
http://justgroundsonline.com/forum/topics/the-engine-room-for-the.
Someone with your journalistic talents could get a good story out of this.
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[…] Julia Gillard. Avec un style et un timing impeccable, alors que les marchés carbone chutaient, Julia Gillard signait pour l’Australie la plus chère des taxes carbone au monde. Elle annonçait ces détails le dimanche 10 juillet. Elle choisit véritablement le […]
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