The Copenhagen meeting has produced an agreement, though it’s more of an “agreement to agree” than a concrete deal. Most of the specifics have been left for later. That’s problematic of course, but not as bad as an agreement on specifics that are too weak to achieving anything. The deal (draft text here has several important elements
* A warming target of 2 degrees
* Commitment by the developed countries to spend $30 billion over 2010-12 and aim for $100 billion a year by 2020 in assistance to developing countries with a particular focus on preventing deforestation
* A technology transfer mechanism
Of these, the most significant is probably the deal on deforestation, which has actual money (or at least commitments) attached. Assuming this happens, it’s an outcome more significant than that of any international conference in the last decade at least. And technology transfer is important in a number of ways, particularly as a countervailing force against the pressure for ever-stronger intellectual property protections.
I’m a bit surprised, in that I thought the payments to developing countries would be one of the hardest issues of all, whereas the biggest single sticking point seems to have been China’s objections to transparent monitoring – the kind of silly national sovereignty stuff that is par for the course at these meetings but usually gets smoothed over and traded away by the end.
The 2 degree target has been controversial, with lots of countries calling for a 1.5 degree target. But it’s important to remember that only a couple of years ago, the Stern Review was focusing on a 550 ppm stabilization target, which would most likely be associated with long-term warming of 3 degrees. If we can get agreement now on a 2 degree/450 ppm target, there’s a reasonable chance, given technological progress, of bringing concentrations back down to 350 ppm or even to pre-industrial levels (about 280 ppm) by 2100 and that trajectory would have a fair chance of avoiding any sustained period of temperatures more than 1.5 degrees above 1900 levels. Even that trajectory implies significant environmental damage, but it minimises the risk of large-scale climatic catastrophes.
The next step is for Obama to push Waxman-Markey through the US Senate. I’m confident he can do this, given sufficient Administration pressure on the Senate (including, if necessary, the threat of ending the minority right to filibuster legislation with 40 votes). And, given that he has put his credibility on the line, I’m at least reasonably confident that he will do it.
Looking at the Australian implications, I imagine the Opposition will say that there was no need to pass the ETS before Copenhagen. That would have helped them if they had elected, say, Joe Hockey as leader, and settled on a position of deferring, but ultimately supporting the ETS. But it’s hard to see that it will do Abbott any good – sooner or later, he has to come up with an alternative to the ETS, and no remotely affordable alternative is on offer.
The big disappointment is that the longer timetable will give Rudd the option of going for a double dissolution in the second half of 2010, based on the abortive deal with Turnbull.
John Quiggin 
Ha ha ha! When hell freezes over. Just look at the way Obama’s bending over backwards to kiss Lieberman’s #60 keister on healthcare “reform”. Only the Republicans have the guts to make threats like that, the Democrats are the most pathetic jellyfish party in history; basically owned by a rightwing fifth column that LOVES the GOP’s right to filibuster since it gives them an excuse to do nothing but sit on their a$$e$ and lap up lobbyist cash.
Which is not to say they never stand up for their principles – just that these principles basically amount to Corpo-Right domination, and the only people they stand up to are their base.
I am sure many anomalies will emerge; here’s two or three. If every country is cutting carbon as of now that means Australia’s coal exports must decline starting immediately. What if that doesn’t happen? These payments to conserve forests will no doubt be claimed as carbon credits by the donor countries, but nothing has changed relative to the status quo except money changing hands. How does that save carbon compared to before? With technology transfer clean and green may not make enough difference. Does that mean Australia helps buy nuclear power stations for Bangladesh?
I’ll reserve judgment on co-ordinated action until results start piling up. I fear the prolonged GFC may be our only hope.
One should look for the best aspects, and actual dollars to counter deforestation is a potentially enormous benefit – provided it results in relevant cuts in deforestation.
Only Europe, Japan, and USA were included in the list of pledges. The total listed was around 24 billion over 2 years. This is petty cash. The 100 billion is “a goal”, so can be forgotten. Any American bank can this amount at the drop of a hat, so it seems.
However the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund could be useful provided it does not become the usual bloated bureaucracy.
If it takes 100 trillion in one year just to stimulate OECD economies, what can you do with 100 billion over two years?
Pr Q said:
Interesting that John Howard was, for once, ahead of the pack on ecological sustainability policies with his massive aid package to Indonesia, signed in MAR 2007, designed to reduce deforestation. The NYT reported:
This fact has gone strangely unremarked on this blog so I thought I would rectify this anomaly.
Curbing deforestation and creating reforestation are two of the most cost-effective, politically attractive and ecologically effective ways of reducing carbon pollution. Everyone likes trees, but most people hate having to trade down in a car.
The single most effective way of curbing greenhouse gas emissions would be for the US to retask its B52 fleet to flatten Dubai, the place is a trillion dollar monument to carbon profligacy. Unfortunately Brangelina has a pad there so it aint gonna happen.
If it’s up to half-full I’d say your glass was under-specified JQ, but good on you for the optimism.
Sorry John but I think the glass is half (or more than half) empty. USA can say that they again took a leading role as the chief spoiler. We still dont know how much they pledge for the $100 billion per year by 2020 if you do X, Y and Z. They low balled the emissions reduction targets. They refused to negotiate at Copenhagen under the excuse they were waiting for Obama. In truth Obama was waiting to see how little he could get away with. He joins Rudd as a no action leader and stands condemned when the world was waiting to see him act. The only thing he did correctly (in my opinion) was to try to haggle with the largest polluters China and India. But in those talks he came across as a bully when really USA credentials on climate change are sadly lacking. On what basis does USA express suspicion of China’s efforts at climate change mitigation? He should look in the mirror before he accuses China of deception. Sadly, Obama today implemented the George W Bush strategy and did it with a straight face. So glass half full? I dont think so John. Someone forgot to tell Obama it is urgent, more urgent than his need to fly home to”avoid a blizzard”. USA as an empire reached a turning point today. Contrast Obama’s response to President Lula from Brazil. they have promised 38% reduction by 2020 and $16 billion per year (total $160 billion). A glimmer of hope? Australia won the well deserved fossil award.
Let me put another view on deforestation. If Country A razes its forests then that is a debit against them in the first place. That is a short term CO2 surge from any burning off and possibly long term for reduced CO2 absorption. If Country A takes money from Country B to refrain it’s not unlike extortion ‘pay me or the forest gets it’. Country B thinks it can then emit as usual ie no need to cut back on coal. In my opinion that is weak and dishonest.
While that coal burning is ‘new’ CO2 the standing forest may in fact be absorbing very little additional CO2. In 2005 it is thought the Amazon jungle was a net carbon emitter due to drought. Therefore A’s supposed CO2 reduction could be largely fictitious. Worse B’s patch of forest could be sold to several customers or lax management and bad luck could see it decimated by wildfire and disease. It might be logged anyway by stealth or the adjoining patch logged which has the same effect.
Therefore I suggest sponsored forest conservation in return for offsets could be misconceived in physical terms and a legal minefield. Save the forests for other less mercenary reasons. I don’t have a copy but I believe the June 2009 edition of Scientific American expresses similar views.
“and no remotely affordable alternative is on offer”
Certainly not from Abbott and his rabble.
But I am going to ask you explain why:
Australia consumes 220 billion KwHrs (units) of electricity annually. Our electricity bills have just increased 20% with further increases published to take that to 75%. 20% is roughly 3 cents per unit times 220 billion which represents 6.6 billion dollars per year. At 75% increase this is 22 billion dollars per year. Now at 20% to 2040 this means 198 billion dollars available to build alternative energy infrastructure. At 75% this represents 660 billion dollars extracted from the economy for some purpose. The purpose appears to be to discourage the use of electricity and fund some form of ETS with a market forcing mechanism.
My research suggests that 6.6 billion dollars (20% electricity levy) per year applied completely to the building of renewable energy infrastructure is more than sufficient to completely replace Australia’s current coal fired energy infrastructure (even if the replacement price is 6 billion dollars per gigawatt baseload capacity) with a combination of solar, wind, geothermal, wave, biofuel, and others, in a fully “paid up” system which therefore delivers electricity at prices comparable with coal.
Can you demonstrate how this proposition is false in a manner that requires a 75% market forcing mechanism, more than 3 times the cost to the public, to achieve the same end result as the simple 20% electricity levy? And what degree of certainty is achieveable with such a market mechanism?
“bipolar coverage disorder” seems to be a new term invented to described people’s reactions to Copenhagen.
Thanks Iain, bipolar, I guess that means me.
Hermit why not avoid offsets (as you suggest) altogether, they are only a dodgy “get out of jail” strategy to delay action.
BilB you need to consider all the CO2 not just electricity. But you point still seems valid, perhaps we need to do more “back of envelope” calculations.
Thanks, DB.
Of course we need a comprehensive plan. My argument is that 50% of the problem can be solved with a simple, low impact, funding levy. This levy, 20% on retail electricity rates, amounts to less than the cost of a Big Mac per week for a family of 4. The current thinking seems to be to beat the crap out of anyone who emits CO2, rather than provide real solutions. We didn’t get the Snowey Mountains Scheme from market pressures, we got it because WE as a community said that this was a good thing to do. And even though it is a environmentally questionable by today’s standards, it is the stable backbone the gives Eastern Australia reliable electricity delivery.
We are in a time where “barn raising” technology is the way to go, I believe.
Everyone likes trees, but most people hate having to trade down in a car.
That is the excuse that both Abbott and Rudd are going to use to keep burning coal and oil as usual.
BilB, thanks for those calculations. The proposed 75% hike in the cost of electicity appears to me to be fear-mongering by the coal industry and the utilities, designed in part to get the public to oppose appropriate energy conservation measures. As you point out, the emphasis should be on building infrastructure for alternative energy, and this can be done relatively quickly.
I would also like to point out that the elephant in the room is population, and that there needs to be a dialogue about the means of stabilizing the world’s population. It is worth repeating that the most powerful way of reducing one’s carbon footprint on this planet is to limit one’s family to having two children. The first step on this path is to get rid of Howard’s baby bonus.
Prof Quiggin, the evidence suggests that you’re being overly optimistic regarding the willingness and capaciity of President Obama to bring pressure to bear on the US Senate. Firstly, the president cannot end the filibuster mechanism. Only the Senate can do that and going by the evidence of the health care reform debate he cannot even be sure of the support of the Democratic Senate caucus if he urged them to do so.
The Republicans vote as a solidly contrarian, disciplined bloc, ie as a parliamentary party these days. The Democrats, not so much.
His credibility is really on the line over health care reform and he’s facing the Senate passing a bill which will be difficult to reconcile with the House version. And it’s getting further and further away from the social democratic principles and policy outcomes he campaigned on every hour the Senate sits amending the bill.
Climate change isn’t not an issue that will determine his re-election prospects in 2012. His attention has been and will be focussed on the economy, unemployment, health reform, Iran and Afghanistan. He gives good oratory, but he is the titular head of a fragmented, ill-disciplined party facing a determined Republican Party that does opposition very, very well. He’ll take whatever the Senate cobbles together, hold his nose, claim victory and move on.
Looking over the pond, it appears that the denialists are even stronger and more influential than they are here. The scope and reach of the lobbying industry means that the rent seekers and special pleaders will every bit as effective, if not more so, than they have been in Australia. I’d be very surprised if the suggested commitment of a 17% reduction below 2005 levels fed into legislative sausage making machine emerges in a recogisable, or palatable, form.
Back in the old days people got hitched and had a couple of kids because they wanted to, not because the Liberal Government baby bonus made it so much easier. The Laboral Government now in power haven’t got the guts to both chuck the baby bonus and reduce immigration back to something we can cope with. Don’t get me wrong here: I’ve nothing against kids – once upon a time all of my friends were kids, but we all grew up. Oh well, on to the topic at hand…
I haven’t given this the reading it deserves because it really is a yardglass half-full – of warm piss; still a glass half-full of warm wee soon cools down in Copenhagen, and then you can sell it to some tourist as Southwark 🙂 Or if desperate, well…you know…
Maybe we need much more direct action here like lobbying our respective governments hard – don’t take no for an answer type lobbying – for another meeting of leaders in Feb 2010, for them to take just a handful of staff, and to get some meaningful movement on the sticky points. And then to have the meeting after that at the original time. Everybody has at least some idea what we need to see in an agreement which means that the principal impediment is not whether China stonewalls, but whether it is possible to make the leaders of state sit through a long enough series of meetings until the deed is done properly. Obama should have been there from the beginning and so should a lot of other leaders. Right through to the gory end. But they weren’t and now they need to be needled into taking even more time and energy on this as soon as possible: Feb 2010!
Any suggestions?
Bloody small glass.
bipolar disorder coverage:
“there are doubts whether Danish PM Lars Loekke Rasmussen will be able to declare it approved.”
“The city of Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport.”
“Copenhagen Accord rescued”
“big step forward”
The outcome is good for Tony Abbott and the Coalition denialists. He’s already walked back the “climate change is crap” comment without any adverse results. (The media just rolls it eyes, shrugs its shoulders, mutters something along the lines of “Well, he’s a politician. What do you expect?” or grins in admiration at his cynicism and moves on to the next he said/she said, opinions on the shape of the earth differ story.)
He can run his “climate change is real and we’re committed to doing something about it” line without concern from now until the election. He’s already promised to match the 5% reduction promised by Kevin Rudd in the event of Copenhagen failing. Unless the Coalition suddenly decide to prioritise the export of brown coal from the Latrobe Valley, it would be hard for the Coalition not to match the ALP given that Mr Rudd’s worst case scenario for the CPRS has come to pass.
Even better for Nick Minchin and Barnaby Joyce, they can simply replace the “Australia shouldn’t move before seeing what comes out of Copenhagen” talking point with “Australia shouldn’t move before seeing what comes out of Mexico City” talking point. And the shelf life of the “what’s the point of moving before seeing what the US and China commit to” talking point will take them through to the next election, and beyond, as well.
@Hermit
Look where the serious money is going: The states and feds are spending big on infrastructure to get our coal to market more efficiently, and Big Coal is investing heavily in new mines. What chance this all stops after Copenhagen? Zero.
@BilB
Yeah, why is that barn-raising is now seen as a bad thing by people, instead of as a good thing? We used to have hay days and things like that to be neighbourly.
Copenhagen and the recent past show that the denialists campaign and big money has won. There’ll be a bit of pr spending, but Rudd et al have got what they want – business as usual. Disappointing – devastating really – but not surprising. Unless we see mass civil unrest – unlikely in the extreme – that’s it for the foreseeable. A few pimples might break out, but you can always cover them. And as Dylan Moran pointed out, we know how much a vote costs in Australia – it’s $900. Too easy.
But for me it has certainly reached the rock and the hard place – I can’t live with myself and be passive on the systemic corruption we now have within our ostensibly democratic polity. At the same time I have to hedge my bets for the kids and their future. I’m guessing a lot of people are feeling that way. Luckily there are many organisations to bring people together in active non-violent protest. I hope that’s enough because it is obvious that governments will do nothing for the people until all other possibilities are exhausted.
Jack Strocchi, a fair post.
However, don’t forget that while Howard and other Australian leaders have had the cheek to lecture third world countries about their forestry practices, they have been full-on destructive themselvesd, involving places like Tasmania and Victoria
@Donald Oats
Any suggestions? The rhythm method Don. It will keep the catholics like Abbott happy…now why do we have the baby bonus? Give it to people on welfare with kids already struggling who need it more.
Also “We used to have hay days and things like that to be neighbourly.”
Until the insurance companies stepped in to offer public liability insurance in case someone twisted their ankle on some crack in a government pavement. Now, no hay days, no fetes, no speakers in the domain, no public rallies, no dissent, everyone keeps quiet and gives the govt no trouble.
Trouble is – thats boring and we are boring.
John, I am more optimistic than most commentators in regards to the political outcome of the Copenhagen summit. But for the so-called ‘letter of intent’ the deadlock between the developed countries and the rest of the world would remain in limbo. Now the world can look forward to thrashing out a binding deal come next year in Mexico during COP 16. And contrary to all the pundits who claim the Copenhagen summit was a waste of time and money for not achieving a binding resolution, I find the political outcome a significant step in the wright direction given the magnitude and difficulty in reaching a concensus agreement this time around. Thumbs up.
There are affordable alternatives to an ETS.
Firstly we should remove the prohibition on nuclear power. A fast breeder reactor will produce about 1 gram of nuclear waste per home per annum compared to the current 5 to 50 grams of unregulated nuclear waste produced by burning coal to power one home for a year. A nuclear reactor will produce no CO2 during operation and less CO2 during construction than solar or wind. And situated correctly a nuclear power plant can also desalinate water on a large scale using left over heat. We are the only nation in the G20 that is determined to stay outside the nuclear tent and this is strategically dumb.
A revenue neutral carbon tax focused purely on the domestic energy production and transport sectors is much prefered to an ETS. It merely entails a tax swap so it should not become a debate about the size of government. We could use the revenue to increase the tax free threshold or to reduce payroll tax. It would provide more price stability (and hence better cash flow) for energy producers.
Or we could offset 100% of our annual emissions by giving about $123 per capita to the likes of popoffsets who use the funds to provide family planning services and to hand out contraceptives around the world (with the emission effect measured and audited I presume). I blogged on this recently at the ALS. Offsetting 100% of our emissions for under $3 billion seems pretty cheap.
Clearly there are alternatives to an ETS. Even doing nothing is a clear alternative even though we may face some trade hurdles down the track as a result. I doubt Tony Abbott is going to pick a winner but I have been wrong before. Nothing really changes anyway until the ALP supports nuclear. Mean while I’m still voting for the liberal democrats (LDP).
BilB – I suspect your costing is ignoring the capacity factor for wind and solar as well as the necessary standby alternatives (probably gas) and the new transmission infastructure needed to hook it all together. Barry Brook at his blog has run the numbers on wind and solar dozens of times and it isn’t cheap at all.
China is to greatly increase coal imports from Australia. Business as usual and smiles all round. Could they get that type of hard coal from somewhere else? Probably not nearly as cheaply.
When this goes ahead it will show that Copenhagen was really all about posturing not actions. In case this is a temporary lapse by China we could help them out by reducing their coal supplies. Over to you Kev to show some leadership.
Terje – your support for allowing nuclear is a separate issue as to whether or not it is an affordable alternative.
A tax on non-EITE emissions will not lower emissions across all scopes. By itself, it will likely lead to an increase in emissions across all scopes.
Popoffsets, by themselves, will not reduce current emissions levels.
Do you have any “affordable alternatives” in mind that are actually capable of reducing emissions and are affordable?
Iain – nuclear is affordable. Much more so than solar or wind. France has some of the cheapest electricity in Europe because most of it is nuclear.
TergeP,
I’ve looked at Barry Brookes assessment, and it doesn’t take long to see holes in his information. He has taken a very superficial look at CSP, in my opinion, and does not appear to understand the system very well at all.
There are wildly varying estimates of cost on, particularly, CSP. And the reason is that there are are number of commercial operators jostling for the opportunity to be the man on the spot when contracts are let. These prices are all stratospheric estimates because this, for each of them, will be their first installation. Caution and profit protection being the operative mode.
I take the information provided by the German government as being a better guide as this information is determined from a self contractor frame of thinking. Nominally profit free. This would be abhorent to a free market guy like you, Terge, but to a community contracting for the common good, this is the best approach. Contractors still make profit for the various bits that they are engaged to perform, but there is no over riding profit taker. ie this is the OEM price without the wholesalers margin and retailers margin added. This approach is common in industry where businesses may choose to travel to the Chinese factory manufacturing their equipment rather than buy from the local agent.
And, no, it is not ignoring the capacity factor. I did a simple test. I took the twenty year opperational generated electricty output figure from the youngest of the US CSP installations, and multiplied this out to meet Australia’s current energy consumption. By this method all efficiency factors were accounted for. The reserve capacity comes from the latest developments in the technology, not yet applied, which offer efficiency improvements as much a 40%. Standby capacity, gas, is built into most CSP systems (see hybride CSP).
Connection costs for wind are commonly assumed to be the same for CSP. They are not. Wind a broadly spread infrastructure. CSP is highly condensed ie megawatts to gigawatts, wind to CSP, for the same connection cost. But apart from that Grid connection is the responsibility of companies such as Trans Grid. This is an entirely seperate business stream. Remember? the electricity system was divided into three parts, generators, grid connection, and distributors. The grid connection still has to be paid for, but it is not a part of the generators investment responsibility.
Wind generator costs are more clearly defined,as these units are more modular by nature. There output, however, is less predictable. Wind is supplementary, rather than base infrastructure. Wind, however, is a very good complement for solar thermal as CSP works well as a load leveller (far more reactive than coal steam power).
Terje,
Non government sponsored nuclear, with an ETS, may be an economically affordable alternative and is what most of the developed world is working towards facilitating. Suggesting that nuclear, without an ETS, is an affordable alternative ignores all science and economic forecasting regarding the marginal damage costs of CC.
Again, I’ll ask you, do you have any “affordable alternatives” in mind that are actually capable of reducing emissions and are affordable?
TergeP,
Your comment to Iain is a wild genralisation that is contested. I would urege you to listen to
http://greensmps.org.au/content/greencast/nuclear-debate-now-hi-def
, where I believe that many gloss over assumptions made by the pro nuclear adherents are smashed apart.
@BilB
says “This would be abhorent to a free market guy like you, Terge, but to a community contracting for the common good, this is the best approach. Contractors still make profit for the various bits that they are engaged to perform, but there is no over riding profit taker.”
Agree.
Terje – with his usual costings for his pro nuke arguments and failure to even consider cleaner less dangerous energy technologies, fails to realise if we had costed the Harbour Bridge or the Snowy Scheme the same way he likes to present costings as justification, we wouldnt have either of those now. We probably wouldnt have a piped sewerage system, kerbing and guttering or telecommunications either. Its about vision Terje not just mere petty nitpicking incredibly short sighted “now” costings. I wish we could all get away from this “free market” approach of “does it make a profit now?” . No? Well its not a good idea then”.
How does approach help us now and in the future? It will just see us stuck in the mud unable to build a barn as Don might say.
Where are your positive future benefit stream net present value calculations on alternatives to Nuclear Terje? Nowhere to be seen. Its just all nuclear to you and you keep peddling this one track approach. Not helpful. Danger to the future human race.
The argument against nuclear is very straightforward.
Nuclear provies 14% of the world’s electricity and electricity provides around 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Even if you double world nuclear power by 2020 (which is never going to happen), you will at best, reduce global emissions by around 5%. As we need 40% emissions reductions in this timeframe – we therefore need solutions that aren’t towing the sycophantic nuclear line.
FWIW, I support research and appropriate development of nuclear.
terjeP
What costs have you included to say that nuclear is “much more affordable” than solar or wind.
This is nuclear industry spin, and usually is based on a discounted cost of downstream reactors based on not being “first of their kind”.
But the industry keeps saying it will produce new more efficient, safer reactors, so we never get the economic benefit of mass production of reactors.
Cheap electricity from reactors is an outcome from a distorted market where externalities are not reflected in price, and corrupt politics often provides subsidies.
TerjeP (say tay-a), this update is just for you for recent events suggests you are ill informed. Recently The Wall Street Journal reported EDF’s debt will grow from $42 billion to $50 billion euro by 2013 and the conglomarate may need to find another $27 billion euro to meet its nuclear commitments as 15 aging power plants are currently off-line with hugh maintenance costs. There are also many other safety concerns, for recently at Tricastin, Unit #2 had to stop refueling due to fuel assembly becoming stuck, not to mention the 30,000-liter spill of a uranium solution that contaminated two nearby rivers or the 45 workers that received low-level radioactive contamination. And whilst nuclear power in France is relative cheap at 4.3 cents per kilowatt-hour, it is estimated future power costs will be between 7 cents to 10 cents per kwh.
Terje, the Howard govenment’s inquiry into nuclear (which took a very optimistic view) showed clearly that without a substantial carbon price there was no prospect of nuclear power being commercial. Suggesting otherwise is just wishful thinking, of the kind which forms the whole basis of rightwing politics these days, evident in the belief that climate change can be wished away, the global financial crisis didn’t really happen, the Iraq war wasn’t a costly disaster etc etc
Mind you Alice, if we had no harbour crossing, we’d probably have less traffic and less urban sprawl …
Re: Ziggy. When your only tool is a PhD in nuclear physics it is amazing how every problem seems to require solving with a nuclear reaction.
@Hermit
Hermit, a quote from that Bloomberg article you linked to @ 26:
Not 12%, not 120% but 12 times. Big Coal is investing for the biggest coal boom in history while Kevin spins Copenhagen as a triumph. Please tell me why Rudd is better than Howard? At least Howard was honest in his denial, and open about Australia’s economic dependence on coal for export income and electricity generation.
I rarely agree with Terje, but has a few good points. Proponents of wind, solar and other renewables always gloss over the capacity factors and the need for (gas) backup generation. I for one can’t convince myself that this would be cheaper than nukes. The developed countries with the lowest CO2 per capita emissions are France and Sweden, and they are both big users of nuclear power. That’s hard to ignore.
Where I disagree with Terje is the idea that a carbon tax could be sold as revenue neutral and not a “Great Big New Tax”. Abbott and his denialist wingnuts would run exactly the same scare campaign against a carbon tax.
Yes we should remove the prohibition on nuclear power, but that’s not what’s stopping nukes being built in Australia. Nuclear needs a substantial carbon price to be economically viable, and an awful lot of political will to overcome the inevitable NIMBYism.
That said, I am convinced by Barry Brook’s arguments that nukes are the only technically viable alternative to fossil fuels. Clearly we’re not going to change our lifestyles, we’re not going to price carbon appropriately, and we’re not investing nearly enough in renewables, smart grids, and energy storage technologies. We’re going to burn the coal, oil and gas until there is a catastrophe, and then we’ll panic and turn to nukes.
Terje, here’s a tip: Stop banging on about big government, big taxes, and the LDP. 99% of the population doesn’t believe government is 100% evil. I know this is a cherished belief in the Libertarian universe, but not in the real world.
“I am sure many anomalies will emerge; here’s two or three. If every country is cutting carbon as of now that means Australia’s coal exports must decline starting immediately.”
No, it doesn’t.
In fact, if consumption of the highest-carbon fuels such as brown coal goes down, Australian coal exports could go up.
Those who find fault with nuclear have to suggest something better. Wind power is now a mature technology yet independent studies suggest it saves very little CO2 because of the need for standby power. That’s in the long run not the occasional wind optimised day. As for solar thermal we’re still waiting for a large scale demonstration, chicken and egg perhaps. Note the countryside would have to be criss crossed with ugly new power lines for best results. That expense plus the need for backup gas fired generation leads some to conclude nuclear baseload would be half to a third of the cost.
In the US a small amount of nuclear electricity revenue goes to a waste disposal and decommissioning fund. How about coal does the same? So it seems strange to say nuclear does not pay its external costs when it is one industry that does. FWIW due to using several forms of renewable energy I pay no electricity bills and about $15 a month in car fuel.
@Hermit
“Those who find fault with nuclear have to suggest something better.”
Done. Diesendorf’s “Greenhouse solutions with sustainable energy”.
If you can fault any of Diesendorf’s analysis, please do see. Otherwise you are setting up a strawman.
@Fran Barlow
And no tourists Fran…where would we be without the coathanger?
I cannot imagine a scenario where the world makes deep cuts to carbon emissions and Australia’s coal exports increase. Sure it might happen if we make token cuts, if the world reduces its “carbon intensity”, and we gradually replace lignite with black coal, but not if the world makes the deep cuts that are required to keep warming below 2C.
@iain
Rather than link to sites like BraveNewClimate where these analyses have been done in mind numbing detail, let me just shoot from the hip. Diesendorf’s plan relies very heavily on natural gas as a bridging energy source. Combined cycle gas still has 50% or so of the CO2 of coal, not the long term 80% reduction we want. Our own ABARE claims we have no more than 65 years of gas left. How the Deisendorf plan sits with that and an expected swing to gas as a truck fuel is not yet clear. Another flaw I recall was an underestimate of the required renewable overbuild and the corresponding amount of new transmission. Aside from reduced grid reliability both capital shortages and NIMBYism may be major hurdles.
I suggest that Germany has been following a variant of the Diesendorf plan for some years. To get 15% of their energy mix as renewables requires massive subsidies (leading to ‘negative prices’), very high domestic electricity charges and the planned building of at least eight new coal fired power stations.
@jquiggin
Also, the stimulus wasn’t required because Australia, miraculously, was unaffected by the global financial crisis. Oh yes, and Australian banks were unaffected, and didn’t require an emergency guarantee from government to quell the panic.
Of course, those tourists, Alice, are also not carbon neutral. Now if we could get them to simply send us the money (less their living expenses) without coming …
On a more serious note, it would be interesting to see what would happen if the government henceforth required that apart from public transport and emergency vehicles all traffic on the Harbour, Roseville, Spit, Gladesville, Iron Cove, Ryde, Captain Cook and Tom Ugly’s Bridges had to bid for permits of 30, 50, 100, 200 etc crossings each year on ebay, competing with commercial operators.
I can’t help but think there’d be a lot less traffic, a lot more public transport and a crash in the money the state had to spend on roads.
Pass.
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
Some ideas are too dear to your culture, regardless of our specious they are.
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
correction:
Some ideas are too dear to your culture, regardless of how specious they are.