I usually wait a day or two before reposting my Fin column. But the Liberal Party is such a rapidly moving target that this column, drafted on Tuesday, looks prescient in retrospect, but may well be obsolete by tomorrow.
Apologies in advance if this gets posted multiple times. The server is flaky, so I’m using Posterous which works, but sometimes too well. Please comment on the first (lowest on page) version.
Attentive readers of the Letters page may have noticed a letter from The Hon Wilson Tuckey MP (Quiggin sticks to problem not solution Letters 24/11). Mr Tuckey gave his account of a discussion of climate change policy held at Parliament House, organised by the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies Great Barrier Reef Climate Change Alliance, in which he and I took part. As is usual in such cases, I had a rather different recollection of events. But, since Tuckey appeared to be, in Malcolm Turnbull’s words a fringe figure of the far right, I saw little value in responding.
Now, however, the situation has changed. As one of Turnbull’s earliest and most vociferous critics, Tuckey can consider himself vindicated by the decision of the Liberal Party to replace Turnbull with Tony Abbott, someone whose views on climate change are much closer to his own.
More significantly, as Tuckey himself has pointed out, the proposals presented on his website http://www.wilsontuckey.com.au now represent the closest thing the Liberal Party has to a climate change policy. It may therefore be useful to examine these proposals, and, in the process, to recapitulate some of the points I made during our meeting in November.
As was noted in Tuckey’s letter, I did not discuss the specifics of the government’s ETS policy, canvass alternatives such as a carbon tax, or speculate on the amendments being negotiated between the government and the then leadership of the opposition. The position presented by the Great Barrier Reef Climate Change Alliance was that a 25 per cent reduction in emissions was needed by 2020, and that a market-based emissions reduction policy should be the central approach. We did not seek to promote one market-based policy over another, and my answers to Tuckey’s questions reflected that.
I was however, quite happy to explain the merits of a primarily market-based approach as against a centralised command-and-control solution, in which governments seek to determine and impose by fiat, particular technological fixes for climate change. Within a market based framework, there be room for some policies, such as feed-in tariffs for solar energy, aimed at nudging decisionmakers to adopt new technologies. But the central element must be to ensure that there is a price attached to carbon emissions, whether through taxes or through tradeable permits.
A visit to Tuckey’s website reveals a different approach. Tuckey is an enthusiast for the tidal power potential of the Kimberley region, as indeed am I. Given the incentives associated with a high enough price for carbon, and reforms to the National Electricity Market to encourage more investment in long-distance transmission lines, there is huge potential in tidal energy.
But such an incentive-based approach is of no interest to Tuckey. Rather, he suggests ‘To respond to these problems the Government should take an up front role investing in and developing Australia’s only significant and predictable renewable energy resource which is to be found in the tides of the Kimberley.’
Tuckey also proposes extensive public investment in High Voltage Direct Current transmission lines, noting that ‘China will not have an ETS. It will invest in Hydro, Nuclear and other renewable energy. Its Government is already building an extensive HVDC network.’
There are strong arguments for a return to greater reliance on public investment in energy infrastructure. But, in the context of a policy response to climate change, it is important to avoid ‘picking winners’. There are many candidate technologies for reducing our CO2 emissions, ranging from nuclear power and ‘clean coal’ to extensive investment in energy efficiency.
The most cost-efficient way to choose options for emissions reductions is to ensure that investors in energy infrastructure, public or private, face a price for each tonne of carbon they emit, and earn a return for each tonne they prevent. If that is done, standard commercial criteria will select the most cost-efficient path.
Tony Abbott has effectively ruled out such an option. Having denounced the government’s emissions trading scheme as a massive new tax, he can scarcely embrace the main alternative, a carbon tax. On the other hand, he has committed himself to achieving the emissions reductions promised by Labor.
In these circumstances, the Chinese approach endorsed by Wilson Tuckey is probably the only feasible option. It is, perhaps, surprising that, having elected its most conservative leader ever, the Liberal Party may have to turn to the Communist Party of China for policy guidance. But politics makes strange bedfellows.
John Quiggin is an ARC Federation Fellow in Economics and Political Science at the University of Queensland.
John Quiggin 
@Jarrah
What use is progress if you s**t in your own nest Jarrah? Sorry to have to be so blunt about it but thats what it all comes down to.
@Alice
How old are you, Alice? I know it’s not gentlemanly of me to ask, but that “me generation” comment begs the question.
@Alice
That’s a fair point. We can’t really call it ‘progress’ if we are screwing up the ecological and geological processes that sustain us. Which is why it’s the externalities that matter!
@Alice
Back in the very early 80’s, as a young adult I knew about GHGs and AGW as a likely prospect – based on a series of assumptions which for the large part have been borne out as observational evidence has since become available. And anyone else who read the odd Scientific American or Nature magazine would have known too. The probably correct assessment at the time by the sceptics was that insufficient data was available to make the call that humans could/would affect climate sufficiently that it could be detected. They also called for a wait-and-see approach, citing 20 years as a reasonable time frame. This was debated somewhat, both in newspapers and some scientific literature.
Fast forward nearly 30 years. The same sceptics – who I now view with a very jaundiced eye – and the professional denial industry they have been instrumental in creating, are still here calling for more time, more data, saying it is too early to tell, and so on. But we know now. We have satellite data ranging from maps, meteorological observations, cloud data, absorptions, temperatures, composition with altitude atmospheric data, mass measurements of glaciers and land ice (GRACE statellites), and GPS for fieldwork. We have icecores, accurate carbon dating of plant matter, deep layer sea measurements and SSTs, treering data, ocean floor sedimentary layers, and plenty more besides. Then there is the match up of basic predictions from the early 1980s, the late 1980s, and the last 25 or so years of temperature, precipitation and other meteorological instrumental record.
All that time was squandered. Instead of increasing efficiency in how we used existing power, we simply increased power. Instead of limiting water irrigation we allowed cotton and rice to freely propagate, and with large water entitlements. Instead of setting up research institutes for solar, wind, geothermal, wave, transmission line and network research, we left largely to the market or adhoc grant getting through the ARC. Back then nuclear was of course touted as the solution by a number of proponents, but Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986 placed inpenetrable bookends around that debate – and rightly so, given the state of the industry, IMHO.
Now we are where we are, and I feel rather unhappy that the same bulldusters – some of whom I naively thought were genuine sceptics in the 80s – are still here still playing the same tune. Now I’ll relunctantly accept nuclear but only if it is genuinely used to eliminate existing coal-fired stations, and my three conditions are met. Not Nick “The Knife” Minchin has an entirely different understanding as to what an agreement is, when compared with myself. Ditto Tony “Turncoat” Abbott. So I won’t accept an agreement they shake hands on because they’ve proven themselves to be renegers.
Rock on DD.
PS: According to some research conducted on the ALP’s behalf in October, the chucking out of the amended CPRS bill from Senate for the second time is grounds for a DD. The amended bill is considered the same as the original bill passed the first time by the Reps, and thus is a DD trigger. However, there are a zillion other potential triggers since the Liberals have been an obstructionist opposition.
@Jarrah
You cited it yourself Jarrah. Innocent children and grandchildren being born with birth defects and cancers from an accident before their time they know nothing about. Chernobyl. Vast acres – vast – a wasteland of bith defects for generations…let alone nothing can be productively consumed from the wasteland without the generational birth defects and you wouldnt even know if they were in your food chain or not.
You pro nuke arguers need to picture straight. Very straight.
And the worst of it all is – wannabe econmists want to get in here and cost this nuclear reactor use on immediate costs like some sort of auditors on the short term accounts of Bernie Maddoff. That is where the real insanity lies.
“Chernobyl.”
A terrible accident. One that can’t be repeated with modern designs. Therefore it serves you nothing to cite it as an argument against future nuclear power plants.
“the wasteland”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4923342.stm
“You pro nuke arguers need to picture straight. Very straight.”
I’m sure there’s a sentence in there somewhere. 🙂
I am completely opposed to nuclear power for all the well-documented and irrefutable reasons.
Generations of the most committed people of most recent past did not oppose nuclear with every fibre of their being for no reason.
Nothing has changed.
No nukes. End of.
@Alicia
“No nukes. End of.”
Well, if you’re not willing to debate the issue, you should retire to the sidelines and let others discuss the pros and cons with reason and logic. You do know that those are, don’t you?
There is nothing to debate.
The science, history, effects of nuclear are established.
Prove otherwise.
@Alicia
“There is nothing to debate.”
I know that’s what you believe, but you’re yet to offer a shred of supporting evidence for it. Please, go ahead. I have to leave in about 5 minutes, but I’ll be back to see what you mustered.
@Donald Oats
Don says on climate change “but we know now”. We do know now…but nuclear is not the answer (its not our godsend). Its like leaping from the frying pan into another frying pan. We have done everything possible you suggest is wrong Don – everything. It really is time to face climate changeand environmental degradation and get on with solving it. The delay, the denialism is so atrocious, so obnoxious I fear we will be like the Easter Islanders yet…we will cut down the last tree and we will kill each other, before we wake up and in the process kill all our opportunities for the “progress” Jarrah so admires.
@Jarrah
Jarrah – dont hurry.
Another premature ejaculating libertarian male muppet, Alice.
They are such shallow bores and so easily flicked off by my shiny tangerine shaded nails.
@Jarrah
There is nothing to debate re nuclear Alicia. Im with you. Nothing except more of the very same insane self destruction that man has taken such a shine to in the last hundred years (and thats all the time it is that our energy needs became so hideously self destructive). A mere drop in the ocean of our history and some want to tell you its “progress”.
No point in reinventing the wheel.
Nuclear is beyond dangerous now and for future generations.
No point in seizing on it.
Back to the drawing board fellas.
Think now.
@Alicia
Thank god for shiny tangerine painted nails the Alicia. Use them to deadly intent…and Im inclined to agree re premature ejaculating males getting their rocks off in here. I fact Im over their problems that make them blind…utterly blind!!
It’s the lack of imagination and vision and caritas for fellow human beings that’s the staggering thing with these right wing oafs.
How come no lefties and only pro-big business, pro-market, anti-labour, anti-worker forces have the gall to call themselves “libertarian”?
And they’re invariably about as libertarian as a dog on a leash performing well at a good behaviour school for domesticated mutts.
I propose to hold off all action except for the building of desalination canals. With canals we have the ability, but not the necessity, of sequestering carbon by greening the deserts. If this worry about CO2 blows over at least we then have our fresh water provided for, for decades to come. Its a no-lose proposition. I would want these canals built very slowly so as not to incur cost blowouts. But there is at least the ability but not the necessity to build them more quickly if you are more worried about the alleged problem than I am.
Now suppose you do choose to build them more quickly. And I’m bitching about all the extra costs. At least we have the canals then. And people like me will say. ” Oh well. At least we have the canals.”
Surely thats fair. What is not fair is attacking the coal industry.
The issue that has dominated the WA election campagin is Colin Barnett’s canal plan. The idea is that to aleviate Perth’s water crisis a Liberal government would build the world’s longest canal to channel water from the Kimberly to Perth.
Don Oats said:
A proper carbon price/quota should be sufficient.
Not feasible longterm, especially when you consider your third condition. The point is to lose fossil fuel combustion.
With a proper carbon/price quota you don’t need to require this.
Fran
Terje, the article from Scientific America on the Calera web site is pretty good. But if you look at the numbers, cement production generates about 5% of the worlds CO2 emissions. In the article it states that for every tonne of Portland cement produced nearly one tonne of CO2 is produced. The process that Calera uses produces no CO2 and sequesters .5 tonnes per tonne of cement. Therefore we’re only looking at a 7.5% reduction in CO2. But I suppose every little bit counts.
@Alicia
Yes it is Alicia. Staggering. Jarrah asks me to go look up figures on the anti nuclear debate in Australia which has been going on since Hiroshima …and do I feel like pandering to babies? No I dont.
A lot of very fine people devoted a lot of effort to this and the mere insult that some incompetent comes and asks for figures on the danger of nuclear is just too hard for me to digest. Im refuse tio devote my time educating people who dont even know what the debate is all about. Its an insult to the people that have campaigned so hard against it for so many years to have to deal with trash ( and I mean trash) like this, asking completely undeucated questions that they could look up themselves.
Yes, the libertarians (predominantly male as well for I am yet to meet a libertarian female in this blog) have a lot to answer for – mainly about their incredibly “individualistic” selfish views. Is there an island we can send then to, so they can all fight it out darwinian style because they are entirely incompatible with the human needs for social interaction. We are apes but they have more in common with reptiles and want to live like reptiles. An island is what they need.
Jarrah
You are being a bit too selective, as the so-called better design have all been faulted and are being closed (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists – already posted) or not being built (Crikey post).
May designs still have sodium fires, wear out, need decommissioning, and produce waste or left over fissile materials 9in the case of breeder reactors).
So the problem for you is to tell us, for the sake of your nukes+renewables argument, what is your understanding of the nuclear isotopes that come out of common power reactors?
What is the quantity?
What is the half life?
What is the initial cost of initial repository?
What is the ongoing cost of maintaining isolation from the biosphere?
Please tell me if you think these questions are irrelevant.
Nuke lobbyists or propoundites need to take responsibility for the risks and damage they propose to inflict on society.
I suspect you do not know much about these issues?
Most pro nukers are either ideologically driven or have not done sufficient research.
Alice – replace the words “nuclear solutions” with “an ETS” and those two sentences are pretty much how I feel.
David C, the green cement story on the ABC that you linked to appears to be genuine, but the Calera process is bogus, despite having been reported in the Scientific American.
The process claims to combine the CO2 from power station exhaust with calcium, to form calcium carbonate. But, it claims to get the calcium from seawater, where it’s already in the form of calcium carbonate. It’s just not possible to sequester CO2 in this way.
David – I’m not yet convinced that this is real technology. However assuming it is I think your use of the word “only” is misplaced. A 7.5% reduction is huge especially if it comes at no real cost.
And 7.5% is too low if you consider all the solar plants, wind turbines and transmission lines that people want to have built with concrete foundations.
@Fran Barlow
The problem though is that we do not have a prospect of a price on carbon now. The political process has ensured that neither Labor with their dead CPRS-amended-to-death dead parrott policy, nor the Liberals no carbon tax, no ETS policy, a capable of providing a meaningful price on carbon. They both fall so far short of the targets warranted by the scientific evidence so far, that I really do need to insist on my conditions.
Two externalities that Alice and Alicia I’m certain would both agree cannot afford to be ignored like we ignored GHGs, which got us here in the first place: 1) The pollution from mining radioactive materials, especially the underground water polluted as part of one favoured mining technique, and the pollution from all radioactively contaminated materials, which includes boxes, clothing, and who knows what else, and the radioactive waste pollution; 2) Water requirements for the reactor itself (depending on reactor principles), which dictates location largely, and in Australia may require desalination as time goes on.
Water is no longer “free”. Abandoned dumps and mine sites are no longer free either. Any party even entertaining the proposition of nuclear power must incorporate this into their policy to begin with, even if it means learning as we go. Denying the future cost of such pollution, and of such water requirements, would be ethical abandonment. After all, we now know thattreating the environment as a free dumping ground is how we get ourselves into these messes in the first place.
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
Well Terje – Ill concede you a point. Neither Nuclear or ETS in their current form are solutions. Nuclear shouldnt even be a contender and the ETS has been bastardised by the liberal party lunatics with 123 bill worth of concessions to polluters.
Thanks SJ. I didn’t do that well in chemistry in high school. Good to see someone is on the job.
“And then produce data for “public” debt. This ignores private debt.
So Ian why don’t you produce the figures for private debt?
You should also look at trends in Income deficit component in National Accounts.
Anyone who just focuses on public debt, does not understand reality.”
Chris Warren is being very tricky in complaining about me focusing on public debt in responding to a post complaining specifically about the Federal budget deficit.
Chris Warren might also want to reflect on that fact that the increase in debt as a percentage of household assets over the past two years is the result of a decline in the value of household assets not an increase in debt – and he might then want to look at what’s happeend to both housing prices and the share market over the last six months.
Chris Warren might also want to stop writing about peoplr in the third person.
The process claims to combine the CO2 from power station exhaust with calcium, to form calcium carbonate. But, it claims to get the calcium from seawater, where it’s already in the form of calcium carbonate. It’s just not possible to sequester CO2 in this way.
Calcium in sea water isn’t calcium carbonate. Rather CaCO3 breaks into Ca2+ and CO32-. If you add CO2, you can get some CaCO3 precipitation.
That being said, I’m far from convinced that their idea is any good. The concentration of Ca2+ in seawater is very low. Their competitor who is looking at using industrial brines is on a much stronger footing. That being said, calcium carbonate is pretty cheap so I doubt its value as a end product is particularly high.
Ken, I’m not particularly interested in arguing this with you. You can read my argument with John Mashey here.
Ian Gould
Stop complaining. People basing themselves on some overwhelming decline in household assets usually end up having to walk all the way up Mount Kosciusko to clarify their misunderstandings.
In the last 6 months the share market has rocketed from 4000 (All Ords early June) to 4700 (all ords early December) – 35% growth on an annualised basis.
House prices have increased 4% June Quarter 2009 to September Quarter 2009 (ABS 6416.0)
So what is your point? This is what’s happened over the last 6 moths and it clearly suggests you do not understand what you are saying?
Do you know how to access data?
“So what is your point? This is what’s happened over the last 6 moths and it clearly suggests you do not understand what you are saying?”
So, Chris, a rapid increase in household assets isn’t going to decrease the ratio of household debt to household assets?
I’ll add in some more info for anyone who doesn’t wan’t to wade through the long thread at Deltoid.
“Calcium in sea water isn’t calcium carbonate. Rather CaCO3 breaks into Ca2+ and CO32-.” Correct. This is what happens when calcium carbonate dissolves.
“If you add CO2, you can get some CaCO3 precipitation.” Um, no, you can’t. Not on a net basis. You can precipitate it locally, but that causes some solid calcium carbonate somewhere else, e.g. the coral in the great barrier reef, to dissolve.
Huh?
Is that the point you were trying to make at #30?
Are you saying debt is going up or down?
Are you saying the ratio to household debt is going up or down?
What reasoning are you using?
If you want to talk about debt to GDP (which we all assumed you wanted to carry-on about) then produce some hard evidence.
Jumping around all the time only wastes peoples time.
Naturally, all I get from Alice and Alicia is dismissive insults. What a joke. For the record, I was a born and bred leftie before waking up to economic reality and slowly turning into a moderate libertarian. So your facile analysis is way off – big surprise.
@Chris Warren
Chris, I don’t deny there are issues to consider, I’m just pointing out that using Chernobyl or Long Mile Island (!) as ‘reasons’ for not building nuclear power plants is idiotic.
As for your questions, I don’t believe they are irrelevant, but pointing out the costs and dangers of nuclear is not a persuasive argument – fossil fuels have costs and dangers of their own, and I put it to you that they are in fact greater than those of nuclear.
“Nuke lobbyists or propoundites need to take responsibility for the risks and damage they propose to inflict on society.”
That’s quite a bizarre statement. Anyone who wants to build a nuclear plant has to take out insurance, and I adamantly oppose government guarantees in this, so in fact it is not I (no lobbyist or propoundite, merely someone who wants all options on the table) who will take responsibility, it is the builders and operators – as it should be.
@Fran Barlow
Precisely my point earlier.
@Alice
Glad I’m not a libertarian male!
@Jarrah says:
The fly in the ointment there is that our house insurance policies suffer a corresponding rise due to proximity to a nuclear plant. The insurance loss models are conservative and they’ll almost certainly use the loss event data for existing nuclear power plants – but nextgen nukem don’t have a track record yet, so they don’t contribute to the loss event data (yet).
Bummer. I admit though that this is a second order effect – if an event occurred that triggered the insurance claim, I’d probably have a bit more on my mind than the house 🙂
Perhaps we could build these nuclear stations over in New Zealand and run a direct current high voltage feed back to Australia? The sheep luvvers get some employment opportunities and our NIMBY colleagues won’t need to worry. Win win.
PS: I hope I haven’t negatively affected the sensibilities of any bloggers with my NZ idea…
@Donald Oats
That’s true today but it won’t be true within 12 months. Abbott has himself recognised that if there were a trading system embracing our major trading partners we’d have to have one too. His current advocacy is form of words designed to paper over his tactical problems. We know from the evidence of the last six months that his words are useful in the way that grass in a field can tell you which way the wind is blowing in a particular spot at a particular moment. It’s no use for tomorrow’s data. It’s by no means clear Abbott will lead the LNP to the next election either.
After the next election, there may well be a green-ALP senate, if not an ALP senate outright and so one way or another, we will have an ETS.
You should be aware that nuclear reactors don’t necessarily need water, and in any event these can be sited at the seaboard, where they can do desal as well as power. As to growundwater contamination, with the right regulatory framework, this can be addressed, and I agree government has been lax on this to date. The cost implications aren’t all that serious for the end cost of power because the cost of the fuel is a trivial portion of the cost of producing the energy — and even less so if one used fast breeders. And of course, with IFRs, there’s no need for new uranium at all. One can use existing hazmat. And as I said, we haven’t even discussed thorium.
Anyhow, I must go. I’m off to the electorate of Bradfield today to assist Susan Gemell of the Greens cause a politicalmeltdown!
One last shot before I duck out Don …
If you are in the footprint of a coal plant, you can be certain your kids are being poisoned with mercury, and PM5 and PM10, and possibly various actinides, lead, and other toxics …
Assuming I had to live there, I’d pay a premium not to suffer that risk, and would gladly accept the risk of a well-run nuclear plant.
Jarrah
This is an argument of last resort.
“…pointing out the costs and dangers of nuclear is not a persuasive argument”
The whole issue consists of the costs and dangers of nuclear energy compared to fossil fuels and renewables.
Those who want nuclear power have to indicate what they intend to do with the waste particularly the long-term waste, how they intend to protect the interests of future generations, how they would deal with a rare but catastrophic accident, the relative monopolisation of the energy industry, and the linkage with nuclear weapons.
Waste is the immediate problem, and those who claim the problem has been solved are presumably only peddling ANU Synrock twaddle. Vitrification is plausible for small quantities, but what happens when
1) continents drift compromising geological repositories
2) there is a net increase in waste at a low percentage but over a long period
I am sure that the globe can cope with one or two nuclear catastrophes, provided we discount the deaths and cancers (as just another remote news story) and maybe one or two well managed geological repositories, but not if these trends are projected into the future.
It is amusing to me that those who propose nuclear energy never, never, cite what isotopes are produced as waste from current power reactors, nor the quantities per mega watt.
It is amusing to me that most pundits think that industrial radioactivity is benign simply because it has decayed to ‘background levels’. Again they are playing with symbols to confuse people. You cannot introduce into the biosphere more radioactivity at ‘background levels’ as this raises this so-called background level. Radioactivity it is not like adding salt water to the ocean.
All these issues have been long considered since the 1980’s, and its a pity that the pro nuke maniacs are trying yet again by hitching their schemes onto climate change.
Taking out insurance is (what you call) a bizarre statement. Leakage of nuclear waste is not like flood damage. What insurance company is willing to cover the risk of a nuclear accident? What is the premium? What evidence?
As I said:
“Nuke lobbyists or propoundites need to take responsibility for the risks and damage they propose to inflict on society.”
Nuke lobbyists claims that these concerns will be taken care of by “builders and operators” need to provide the necessary evidence and detail. Otherwise this is just a cover-up.
No doubt, in 100 years we may have nuclear reactors, but we will have a moon-base or possibly some other space development. These can be powered by nukes, as obviously waste can be sent or kept away from earth cheaply, and terrorists would be unable to access bomb grade material.
Whatever the solution to waste is, the real problem is having to allow it to grow by a low percentage for 1,000 or more years.
So the real solution to climate change is not nuclear but zero population growth (ZPG).
@Fran Barlow
There would be no rise in insurance policies due to proximity to a nuclear plant. No insurance policy will cover the losses arising from a nuclear accident.
@Donald Oats
Don LOL – so am I. Alicia and I would prefer to stirfry them but they are very dry and bitter unless you add a whole lot of greens.
@Fran Barlow
Bradfield with Susie Gemmell up…now that would be nice to see…..the poor blue people up there wail about Labor’s construction hard heads and hats being all over them like a bad termite infestation, and are losing the greenery to developers in an ugly poorly planned manner but their own party does little to reward their long standing loyalty when its in. They really need to get more marginal.
“What insurance company is willing to cover the risk of a nuclear accident? What is the premium? What evidence?”
If no insurance company will cover it, then I have no problem in no nuclear plants being built. However, I believe some big insurers would be willing to do so. Look at Sayano-Shushenskaya for example. If the insurance premiums are too much for the operators to make a profit and so don’t build, then that’s fine too.
I’m being mistaken for being pro-nuke. I’m nothing of the sort. I simply want all costs and benefits to be considered, and costs to be borne by those who benefit. This formula should apply to every energy source, which is why I don’t feel the need to provide “the necessary evidence and detail” for nuclear as demanded by Chris. You’re right, I can’t recite isotopes off the top of my head, but that’s really immaterial – experts can decide the issues, as long as they adhere to the political formula.
“So the real solution to climate change is not nuclear but zero population growth (ZPG).”
Easy to say, almost impossible to do. Especially if you have any concern for human rights. Besides, the best way to reduce population growth is to encourage economic growth.
@Jarrah
Yes thats right Jarrah – just keep following the mantra of the right “economic growth at all costs” – “consumption at all costs” – “keep the train running at breaknexk speed” – worry about the damage later.
But its this statement that really takes some getting used to “the best way to reduce population growth is to encourage economic growth”.
Maybe, in underdeveloped nations where they need lots of kids to get them through life it might be true…but its an ill thought out sweeping generalisation to assume the same for the big producing big consuming big polluting nations.
Nuclear is about 24/7 grunt. Despite best efforts Spain, Denmark and Germany have yet to show that non-hydro renewables can do that job round the clock. In Australia only gas could replace coal fired electricity on a large scale. We will need that gas for many other applications. That’s why gas will get very expensive while uranium is still relatively cheap. At some point we need to get to 80% less CO2 whereas gas will max out at 40-60% while paying both high fuel costs and carbon charges.
To put Chernobyl in perspective it killed 53 people while the Victorian bushfires killed 170 if I recall. Due to new standards a Chernobyl repeat is unlikely.
On the question of insurance, Price-Anderson offers a cap of $US10billion … Three Mile Island compensation was a bagatelle compared with this — almost all of it for losses to business from the failure of supply.
SO yes, you can get insurance.