I rarely agree with Jennifer Marohasy, but that’s all the more reason for noting our occasional points of agreement. This post points to an important policy failure, the replacement of timber sleepers by energy-intensive concrete throughout Australia’s rail network, with no apparent consideration of greenhouse costs.
Of course, you can’t expect an infrastructure company like he Australian Rail Track Corporation to do detailed climate auditing of all its input materials. As long as the greenhouse costs of concrete, and the benefits of timber, are not reflected in their prices, decisions like this will be made in construction projects of all kinds. So, we need to get a carbon tax or permits trading scheme in place as soon as possible.
John Quiggin 
How ‘detailed’ does the climate audit in this case need to be? There is a lot to be said for common sense when it comes to considering embedded greenhouse costs.
I would have thought that lowering the cost of rail transportation would have been a big tick for mitigating CO2 emissions over the long haul.
While the upfront greenhouse cost is undoubtably higher, is it higher over the total lifecycle, ie does the lower maintainance and ability to bear higher loads etc which presumably are more energy efficient transportation, result in a net saving?
Which of course is even more reason for a carbon tax or trading system because these calculations are even more difficult with out it being spread naturally through the economy via price signals.
The problem with wood sleepers in WA is that they are usually jarrah which is not as far as I know grown in plantations. If concrete sleepers reduce logging in old growth forests then it is a case where the extra CO2 to produce concrete can be perhaps justified if it reduces old growth forest destruction.
Perhaps the rail company could start planting trees to offset the higher CO2 of concrete sleepers and still save old growth forests.
Logging old growth forests does not necessarily increase CO2 emissions. In fact if the timber is used in construction and the forest allowed to regrow then it probably creates a CO2 sink.
Of course there are asthetics reasons why we should protect old growth forests, and biodiversity reasons for why logging of old growth should be done only in certain ways. However these are separate to the question of CO2 emissions and carbon taxes. Arguably a carbon tax would provide a credit to those that create new carbon sinks such as those that log old growth forests.
The point is that if a carbon tax and permits trading scheme were in place these counteracting effects would most likley start being accounted for, and decision making would reflect the minimum CO2 outcome.
As I understand it, ART would need to buy permits to make the change to concrete sleepers, taking into acccount the change in its own carbon contribution. Whoever sold those permit to them would have to make the corresponding CO2 saving, and the permits would come at a price.
ART’s decision in the end might be different because of that price, so the effect on CO2 has been internalised (or at least the scarcity value of CO2 contribution has been).
Who pays for the red tape?
In Melbourne ,as part of the rejuvenation of the state’s railway system,there has been constructed a splendid new central terminal,to replace the old 1950’s structure(Which was asort of
stalinist blockhouse)
The new “Southern Cross ” station is very interesting,with a series of looping and curving steel panels,which shelter the platforms.
This is now home to a new fleet of “Fast trains: which run to the provincial centres of Geelong,Ballarat,Bendigo and the Latrobe Valley towns…as well as older rolling stock which goes to more distant cities like Bairnsdale and Warmanbool,Swan Hill,Echuca and Shepparton and Albury
YThis includes the many lines like that to Ararat which Kennet closed.
Yet when the new station was built the architcts failed to realise that the roof panels could be used for rain-water collection and collecting solar energy(In Berlin ,in a similar station,this was part of the brief from the start )
It raise the point…when will Australian architects see..or be forced to adopt climate friendly aspects into new buildings.,as should have been the case in Melbourne.
After we have transferred money from rail users to a group of doctors and lawyers who have made tax effective investments in wood plantations’; by how much per century would we have reduced CO2 emissions?
If Australia becomes totally greenhouse gas emission free what effect would that have on climate change in 100 years?
Is this another example of a perfectly respectable economic tool being in a non-effective way?
Would somebody explain to me the rational and economic reasons why I should put the Australian population through greenhouse gas emission reduction processes (while they have to adapt to the climate change).
Would somebody explain to me how a regressive instrument such as carbon trading is going to be offset for the people who pay no tax because they are poor (i.e. not considering the lawyers and doctors minimising tax).
Once again idealism of our inner suburban elites is going to be paid for by the least defended part of the population.
Who pays for the photoelectric panels on the rooves of the elite?
Economists know the truth behind the political PR schemes. When are they going to make as much fuss about these abhorrent schemes as they do about climate change?
When will we learn?
Yes, you can.
Surely we don’t want to encourage more cutting for sleepers of the already over-cut and over-stressed red-gums in the Barmah and Gunbower forests? Forests which now need major environmental flows in the Murray if they are to survive and regenerate. In a river system whose flows are already unsustainably over-committed to water rights for irrigators.
Alpaca, yes they could, but the very act of forcing them to do such accounting imposes additional costs. And how are they supposed to weigh financial issues against climate impact issues?
If you want carbon impacts weighed appropriately when companies make decisions, charge for the carbon emissions. It’s by far the simplest way.
Brian, I won’t comment on the rainwater tanks because I don’t know enough to be sure, but as far as putting solar panels on the roof it would be costly symbolism.
Solar photovoltaics, at present costs, represent the single most expensive way of reducing greenhouse emissions you could possibly imagine. The same money would be much better used installing wind power elsewhere, or improving energy efficiency, and so on.
So what do you want? Expensive symbols that do not very much, or the biggest reduction in carbon emissions available for the money?
Bill, I certainly agree that these areas should be protected.
We need to move to a plantation-based system of forestry as soon as possible. Carbon taxes or offset credits are the best way to do this, I think.
Alpaca, if you think ARTC should do this, how would you suggest they go about it? How, for example, should they assess the transport costs associated with alternative suppliers? And should the thousands of small builders (whose choices have a big collective impact) undertake similar exercises?
I can envisage the wondeful scene of vast areas of the country covered not with a rotation on monocultures on a five year rotation, but a monoculture with a lfe of 20 to 50 years.
Sounds a bit like windfarms wonderful until they are on a hill near you.
Its a pity about the unintended consequences of idealism.
I suspect the benefits of concrete in terms of strength, durability, termite resistance and maintenance costs are great enough that the greenhouse cost would not change the decision to replace wooden sleepers. In other words, a carbon tax would not change the decision.
Mark, this may be right, but the only way to tell is to get prices right.
Well, I’ll do my best… but given I know very little about railways and sleeper to begin with, hopefully someone will give me a nudge in the right direction if I wander off-track (no pun intended).
The key thing to understand is that there is a market failure as the true cost of creating the concrete sleepers is not being taken into account (namely: the cost of damage to the environment via the energy used to create the sleepers). I’m guessing that a carbon tax would try to alleviate this by some sort of Pigouvian analysis: by placing a tax on the energy, the market cost is increased to the true cost. Given (and correct me here if I’m wrong) that the true cost to the environment due to the ‘dirty’ production of concrete sleepers, it may be impossible to get the tax right. Same sort of story for ‘dirty’ transport companies.
Back to the ATRC: If the costs of determining which sleeper companies are environmentally friendly is prohibitively expensive, even for a large demander of sleepers that could exercise monopsony power (?), then this is a whole different area of market failure that needs to be addressed. Rather than start looking for the cost of damage to the environment from concrete sleepers, the first problem to be addressed is fixing the market first.
John
My point is that the argument in favour of having proper price signals for carbon emissions stands up in its own right from first principles. For the example to be any use to your basic (correct) argument, you would have to demonstrate that if carbon emissions had been taken into account the track authorities would not have changed from wooden to concrete sleepers. Otherwise, why stop at railway sleepers? There are footpaths, road bridges, multi-storey buildings etc. that could also be included as examples where there are incorrect pricing signals.
“Otherwise, why stop at railway sleepers?”
Indeed, prices will affect all these decisions. But, given the magnitude of the effect of this one decision, it’s worth noting.
To restate, my point was not that the wrong decision was made, but that the greenhouse consequences weren’t taken into account.
“…the greenhouse consequences weren’t taken into account”
But, in the absence of proper price signals, this is true of almost every decision that is currently being made about anything that involves a productive process requiring energy and raw materials.
Precisely – I’m not sure what we are supposed to be disagreeing about here.
In my opinion tree planting should be completely divorced from any carbon credits scheme as the issues are too complex. With timber harvesting (eg for sleepers) we want to know whether the trees had stopped growing, whether they will be coppiced or replanted after clearfelling and burning, how far the timber was transported, whether it was kiln dried, whether CO2 saturation/ rainfall decline/insect infestation will slow future forest growth and so on. To his credit Richard Branson is not using tree planting as a dodgy ruse to fly guilt free.
BTW I have both solar panels and rainwater tanks and I think every house should have the tanks. Wait til photovoltaics and compact batteries are a lot cheaper.
Alpaca, your first two paras are pretty much right until the last sentence. It’s pretty easy to work out the CO2 costs of fuels, and if these are incorporated into the price, the Pigouvian tax flows straight through into the price of concrete. This is much easier than an attempt to audit energy use and input choices, process by process.
Can we extend this argument to concrete power poles versus the ‘old’ wood ones. Power distributors will use this replacement policy as an argument for how green they are…with some merit, but it would seem to me that a definitive response in one case will determine others.
This is an impossible task to generate any solid numbers against. One of the primary concerns and reasons for mitigating climate change is because of biodiversity impacts, right?
Redgum does not grow fast enough to form a viable plantation industry, certainly not with current tax/investment settings. So all redgum would have to come from managed forests. With the remaining forests (basically along the Murray river) there is simply not enough supply for railways, while at the same time providing value addded furniture etc, and (quite limited) conservation reserves. Any further redgum cutting would destroy already stressed biodiversity in these areas. Cutting our own throat.
Current river red Gum rail sleepers used in victoria last as little as 5 -10 years before they require replacement. that can mean up to 6 or seven wooden sleepers for 1 concrete. Wooden sleepers currently in use have their ends gang-nailed together to prevent them from splitting…hardly cutting edge technology for future transport infrastructure. wooden sleepers are 19th century technology and have no place in the design of a safe, efficient and cost effective transport system. Maintenance costs also are 3 times that for timbered lines than concrete. Perhaps we should take a step back and see where the argument for wooden railway sleepers is coming from…the logging lobby.
How typical, that companies reduce use of a forest resource partly motivated by concern for renewability of forests, and get ripped on for energy costs of the replacement. Did the comparison go as far as comparing the life cycle greenhouse cost, or just per unit?
Pretty sure the comparison was just per unit, which obviously distorts the benefit cost ratio etc. Quite typical of ‘selective’ science used by logging industry to further its cause