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John Quiggin 
Michael, you asked:
“I’m interested in getting a solar hot water heater. Did you find any useful objective information source when choosing a system? Did you do any cost analysis comparing the systems with instant gas heating? I have also looked at solar air heaters, but it’s difficult to know how effective they are going to be when most of the information available on their performance is provided by people selling the systems.”
I had no difficulties in getting useful information on technical questions. However I ran into difficulties at the supply and installation stage because I discovered that there were 3 ‘independent business units’ (ie accounting units) which, technically are interdependent. It is amazing how layers of managers can make simple processes complex. Anyway the ‘business unit’ which gave its established brand name to the solar hot water system, came good after some emails and phone calls.
Cost analysis of solar hot water and instant gas heaters is hypothetical for all those who are not connected to gas. As I am connected, I did investigate instant gas as an alternative. I decided against it because the layout of the house made a connection relatively expensive, the technically suitable place for the gas heater wasn’t visually pleasing and I expect gas prices to go up in the future (don’t know for sure by how much). I should say that my house is suitable for solar (north facing and 27 degree roof). So it depends on the individual circumstances and this makes it all the more interesting.
At the time I looked at heat pumps – relatively cheap but too noisy.
I spoke with an academic from a reseach unit albeit on a broader topic. I wanted to know whether there is a system that pumps solar hot water through pipes in the house for heating purposes, ie use solar hot water in a European type central heating system. I need only about +5 degrees C in my house in winter. The very friendly academic told me they have developed such as system but it is not mass produced as yet and therefore the individual installation would be very expensive; he provided cost estimates to convince me of the latter.
I may have answered your last question by now. In my experience, the information acquisition problem is not more complex then buying other household goods or services.
@Tony G
That McCrann man seems like he could use several drinks. That was one of the silliest things I’ve read in a major newspaper. I don’t know what his problem was but it seemed to have something to do with not liking Mr Rudd and Gough Whitlam.
Really he could just have said that and stopped because he didn’t give any useful information.
@Freelander
Freelander – if any ever noticed – Jarrah is at teh foerefront of calling on “breach of comments policy” as a defence against ideas he doesnt like and his sampling method is also biased.
I have also noticed the use of the word “strawman”and “strawman argument” seems to belong to particular view. Has anyone else noticed?. Im astonished by the number of “free market type – pro user pays people – libertarians etc” that use this word?
Hmmmm – its a bit of jargon terminology isnt it? But is it also a marker for the rather more rightward inclined…
@Alice
‘ad hominem’ is the most misused
@Ernestine Gross
Thanks for your reply. I will have to dig harder to find some relevant performance data for my area. I have been searching around for energy efficient solutions that can be retrofitted to an old weatherboard. When I tried to get pricing information on ground source heat pumps it was difficult to get a straight answer on costs. I concluded that it’s just too early for some of these systems in Australia and the premium on the installation of “exotic” products restricts them to serious early adopters at the moment. A lot of these systems should theoretically be affordable and competitive if put into new houses en masse assuming a price on carbon.
I found this article interesting – “The failure of solar water heating”
One last question about your solar hot water system – did you factor in a payback period? How long does the manufacturer expect the system to last for?
@Alice
How should the concept of strawman arguments be applied Alice?
Anyone can contrive them you know.
@Alice
Yes. You are quite right about the ‘strawman’ ‘strawman argument’ use by libertarians. Like most of their comments, very mechanical and drawn from their very limited repertoire of responses.
It must be remembered that they are very simple organisms and rather unevolved, hence, you can not expect a full range of complex human-like responses. They are also rather sensitive to what they perceive as adverse stimuli. But you would have observed this, frequently.
They are interesting specimens and worthy of study, even if they are somewhat grotesque to look at, and can be dangerously infectious.
Doh!
Voters still want some action to deal with AGW. Just speculating – if the ETS is actually off the table, will the electorate push for levies and the like, instead of an ETS? If so, how will businesses respond to imports being rated and levied (on CO2e emissions against a benchmark, for example), as opposed to an ETS and its more indirect effects?
I’m dazed and confused, to coin a phrase.
@Donald Oats
Assuming for the sake of argument that putting a price on emissions is off the table then it seems to me that the only alternative is regulation.
1. We lift the ban on nuclear power here.
2. We abolish MRETs and RECs
3. The government should draw up a timeline of emissions reductions in all of the key areas — GHGs, airborne irritants, fluxes of radioactive materials like thorium and uranium etc and require that these be cut year on year with 5-year interim targets until they reach the level of nuclear power. Ditto with morbidity figures. Failure comes with punitive and escalating fines, forfeiture of assets for repeat offenders and even jail.
We apply this not merely to energy but to all heavy and light manufacturing, transport, agriculture, mining and forestry. We require all miners to make adequate provision to protect the environment from contamination or pemrament destruction and require provision be made to retrun the sites to something no worse than the pre-mining condition or to a condition that reflects the local pre-contact environment.
Any good landing on the docks has to be able to show that its inputs meet the same tests or pay a tariff, which money will be set aside and used in the source country to fund clean development that meets the timeline.
No taxes or carbon trading, but heavy handed regulation. We tell them they asked for this and now they have it. Direct action.
@Ian Wilson
The CCP would be able to institute this kind of policy no worries. Maybe they will and maybe they will make good progress with it. Do you really think that this would fly any easier than the ETS? I personally can’t see anything beyond minimal fiddling and slow incremental improvements driven by technology until there is either a compelling disaster that can capitalised on to drive through legislation before the public gets distracted again or the other alternative is waiting for a generational change – hopefully there will be time for this.
Donald oats @ 10. A straw in the wind perhaps but have just listened to NSW Sustainability and Climate Change Minister, Frank Sartor (ABC Country hour) raise the possibility of eastern seabord states (all ALP governments) revive their own ETS proposal, first suggested by Bob Carr back in 2005.
The ABC interviewer didn’t connect but it was obvious that the ambitious Frank was keen to get the message out there and I doubt that he would raise the prospect without having first canvassed his counterparts in Vic, SA and Queensland.
@Michael
Sorry
I don’t know what the CCP is. I think it would be more saleable than an ETS because Abbott has already spoken of direct action. If Rudd could say “I’m just doing what people expect — acting on emissions and reducing pollution today without new taxes, Abbott would be in a tight spot.
Once Rudd started talking about the pollutiion he would reduce and put up some pretty graphs with falling radiation, mercury, lead, and improvements in air quality …
The people who are against doing something about climate change have always pretended they were interested in real pollution so they’d have nothing to say. Forcing business to clean up its act is something most people support.
@Ian Wilson
Yes Ian, you have solved it – Convert the climate problem into a nuclear waste problem.
But, problem is, the citizens of future generations may not be too happy with this, as nuclear waste storage requirements compound (ie pile-up) in area used, infrastructure resources, administration and overheads, and maintenance costs including equipment replacement.
Your descendants will end up with unimaginable risk.
@Ian Wilson
CCP – Chinese Communist Party.
I like the idea of targeting pollution. A good start would be to create some high profile indicators to compete with GDP that tracked the state of pollution and the degradation of ecological services. I’m pessimistic about it happening in the near future though.
So did we invade Iraq to remove Saddam, so that we would get this?
|Saddam replaced|
What expenditure was this worth?
Looks like someone got their wires crossed.
Chris,
The amount of waste produced is is the grams per year per person category – very small compared to the total amount of space that would be needed for any viable solar solution.
Additionally, the Swedes have what looks like a viable solution that has been endorsed by willing local residents.
Perhaps you should do some research and then your views may be a little bit better informed.
@Andrew Reynolds
Sorry Andrew, we have been through this before.
The storage required is currently around the size of a football field, the equipment and containment, is not a gram per person, the scenario is not based on current nuclear capacity nor population nor current energy use, and the consideration is the compounding growth factor over 100 or more years for long-lived waste.
So enjoy your research.
Chris tried:
This is really a visibility question isn’t it?
1 MwHe of coal combustion = 950 to 1,250 kg CO2eq
1MwHe of gas combustion = 440 to 780 kg CO2eq
1 MwHe nuclear in an LWR = 3 to 24 kg CO2eq / MWh
That doesn’t count of course because CO2 is invisible and doesn’t “pile up” for future generations does it?
Neither do the other toxics from gas and coal (including radioactive toxics). They are stored in the soil, the air, the water, in building materials and in living tissue, so nobody need bother about the storage problem. All those mines and all that coal transport? No problem. Those huge gas pipes? No problem. The premature deaths each year from coal-related preventable diseases? No problem.
No legacy there at all.
But let there be a few tonnes of radioactive waste some place in a secure facility away from human contact and that is a legacy problem, apparently.
You may say that there are other means than coal or gas, but so far nobody has shown that is so — at least, not at a cost that any society is willing to pay to reduce fossil fuel usage to insignificance. In the last paper I quoted by Trieb he was costing for 25 years of CSP life. So every 25 years, you get a new load of steel, concrete and other materiel to deal with. But that’s obviously not a legacy, is it?
Chris,
Pop quiz. What is the population density of Sweden? What is the population density of Australia?
If the answer to the first is higher than the second, why do you suppose the Swedes can locate a suitable place to store their waste and we cannot?
If you can include in that discussion the differences in geological stability of of Australia as against the geological stability of Sweden you will get extra marks.
You will, of course, still be wrong.
Just out of interest, Chris, and assuming you are in Australia – have you ever been out of whichever capital city you may live in? Do you know how much space we have here?
@Fran Barlow
How does this remove the unhappiness of future generations having to maintain previous stocks of nuclear waste, pile up more from their own, and live with the thought of passing on worse conditions for their descendants?
How do you get “a few tonnes”?
Just because Australia is nuclear free, does not mean we can ignore the carbon problem?
You cannot solve one by worsening the other.
Of course we have to stop CO2 piling up, and this applies whether it is visible or invisible (whatever this means).
So I cannot see your main point.
@Andrew Reynolds
All Australia is currently subject to earth tremors of varying magnitude.
In short – as continental plates move, storage scenarios over 100 years become jeopardised by the likelihood of higher range tremors given multiplying storage sites.
Therefore nuclear waste storage dumps cannot be included in moral public policy.
This is all based on the longevity of nuclear waste and the damage radiation can do even at background levels.
@Chris Warren
Every generation passes on a legacy to succeeding ones. Some of it will be positive and some negative. My grandparents generation passed on the legacy of the holocaust and WW2, but also built the Snowy scheme, which was both a positive thing for energy and devastating for the Snowy River. They built suburbia which seemed like a good idea at the time but turned out to be a bad idea with hindsight (though some still think it a good idea) but they also raised the generation who gave us modern computing and mobile technology.
We can choose to hand future generations a small amount of nuclear waste in well secured containment vessels and a well established path to virtually limitless clean energy or a large amount of impossible to contain toxic pollutants scattered in every biome on the face of the planet, resource depletion and a looming ecosystem catastrophe.
Which legacy do you suppose is preferable?
You have to smile at our nuclear pundits who say
But don’t give the actual figure even though it is so easily available. See
| 40 gms per capita |
So multiply this by 25 million people, and you get a megatonne.
So how much radiation doe this megatonne produce and for how long?
I presume Andrew Reynolds knows, but why didn’t he tell us?
Here it is |1 megatonne waste radiation by years |
The plutonium 239 is very interesting as 1.27% of unranium input comes out as PU239.
IN a hundred years Australia could end up with a skyscraper full of radiation, particularly if uranium contracts specify that Australia has to store waste from other countries.
Who dreamt up this nightmare?
@Andrew Reynolds
There are differences between Australia and Sweden. They have more snow. They also speak a different language. And less of their land is sacred. More of their land is scared due to nuclear reactors being located on it. And nuclear waste being stored on it. As for the grams per year per person. You can eat your grams; we choose not to eat or even produce them.
@Chris Warren
I see … a megatonne you say? It sounds a like a lot. It sounds like a descrition of (gasp) a bomb! Well done Mr Dogwhistle.
So we are talking about a cube with sides of 10 metres? That’s what troubles you is it?
BTW, before you quote even this figure Chris … could you cite the source so that we can examine the modelling?
Putting that to one side though, using figures from Professor David Mackay, Professor Barry Brooks notes:
Nuclear energy is about 6 orders of magnitude more energy intensive than coal or gas so we can calculate how much waste the same quantity of coal would produce. Unlike radioactive hazmat, CO2 lasts for 50,000 years. Mercury and lead will also be with us for at least that long.
Based on the above calculation, for every one megatonne of nuclear hazmnat we are getting at least 1 million tonnes of fossil fuel waste and much of it freely dispersed.
You are the one tilting at nightmares.
@Freelander
If you live in the fooprint of a coal plant, you get to eat, breathe and drink from sources with elevated radiation and plenty else you ought not to. If you’ve built your house on granite, or have a granite benchtop or fly in aircraft, again you get elevated radiation.
Chris,
I note the failure to answer the questions – or even to attempt them. They were probably a bit hard for you. Perhaps I can help with one of them:
On geological stability – the Yilgarn Craton has an average age of 2.8 billion years, with some of it going back over 4 billion. It has long proved to be some of the most stable rocks on the planet.
One hundred years – or even 1,000 – is just a pitiful amount of time.
Perhaps you should go an join James Ussher if you are worried about a mere 100 years.
Our host here occasionally rails against those on the “Right” that are science deniers. You provide excellent evidence that not all of the deniers are on the “Right”.
You also have to smile at nuclear pundits who say:
without telling us what this “small amount” is.
Of course they know, but prefer not to say.
Anyway – the waste per capita assuming US current consumption is a rod of waste per capita per year around 2cms high.
If a billion people get their energy from nukes, then this extends 20 thousand kilometers, and the amount in 10 years is best measured in light-seconds.
So how do you contain 20 thousand kilometers if you are adding 20 thousand kilometers each year?
Maybe Australia should not accept waste from overseas plants.
Chris,
If you choose to store your waste in rods I am glad that you do not live next to me. I presume you have this interesting rubbish bin outside your house in which you store your waste rods.
One question – how do you get the council to take away your rods of waste? I presume it does not fit in their trucks.
@Fran Barlow
It looks like you have not studied science. A megatonne of waste is not a cube with 10 metres sides.
Why say:
when the source was already cited.
What’s wrong with the 40 grams per capita (it actually is just over 39 cms, if you look at the citation, but I rounded it up).
Surely you don’t need a citation showing that Australia’s population will be at or above 25 million by the time Australian nuclear plants are producing waste. So I rounded this down to 25. So what?
How on earth do you get 1 megatonne of waste = a cube with 10 metres sides !!!!!
Its happening over here too. Its Nuclear Proliferation!!!!!AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I thought that the world was trying to get rid of this stuff.
Hey Fran, guess how much fuel waste is created by using Solar Energy for the entire world’s needs?
A. Absolutely none.
Now that IS impressive.
Did you fear about the new technique that US Nuclear energy producers have for disposing of their wastes?
They have underground broken pipes and just let it rip.
http://www.chernobylee.com/blog/2010/03/radioactive-tritium-leaking-fr.php
Clever huh.
I guess they figure that the site will be horribly contaminated when it is finished with anyway so…what the heck…open that valve! And when caught out, there is that wonderful American corporate fixall….Deny Deny Deny followed by…I don’t recal!
We’ve just gotta have us some of that action here! What is the point of having a piece of pristine continental real estate if you don’t plan to contaminate it to hell!
Love these pro-nukers ……
Here is there basis for storing nuclear waste in Australia:
Guess where Australia has just been hit by a magnitude 5.0 earthquake?
Wait for it ….
Yilgarn Craton !!!! See |Economic geography |
So Australia’s so called “long proved most stable rocks” zone is an earthquake area.
Well done Andrew.
I hate to rain on your parade there, Chris, but I think that the 40 gram calculation comes to 1000 tonnes not 1 million tonnes (I think) per year. And if the waste is mostly uranium which has a specific gravity of 19.05 then the waste is going to occupy 1/19th the weight equivalent volume of water. However, Uranium waste does not decay in a uniform manner. It actually increases its neutron emissions some time into its decay profile. So you can’t just whack the stuff in a box and forget it. You’ve got to put it in drums and spread it out somewhat. The waste also includes lots of other stuff like contaminated fluids, clothing, metals, etc. More volume and more problems.
Fran’s zero waste fantasy is based on fast breeder reactors, and it was the thrilling prospect of how they can go wrong was what caused the entire nuclear program to grind to a halt back in the seventies. This new radioactive tritium leak thing shows that they were right to pull back.
Whatever the waste figure is, it is way too much and we do not need it. At All. Full Stop.
Fran thanks for the Professor David Mackay connection. I had lost track of it but now have a link back to it. And I,ve just been back to the catagory 6 on solar, and OMLGG, the guy is all over the place with his calculations. I was horrified the first time I looked but this time went a little further and it gets worse.
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c6/page_38.shtml
for anybody who wants to mark the professors work. I give him a B for presentation but an F for accuracy. What do you think. Can you see the flaws in his work.
BilB
Yes, please check the calculations. 1000 tonnes is probably right. I should have said kilotonnes, not mega.
However I never introduced anything to do with weight – I ONLY queried Frans effort in this regard. She tried to suggest there was only “a few tonnes” and introduced a cube with 10 metre sides – not me.
The source I cited only supports a pellet of 2cm height, but I have not said what the cross section area is, as I don’t know the net density of nuke waste. 19.05 could be right.
You have picked Fran’s error – the density of waste is not the same as water, and she confused a cube with a weight by using measurements that only relate to pure water.
I do not support Fran’s use, and it indicates the funny logic and skills levels of our nuke pundits.
Storing overseas waste in Australia is an unmitigated disaster, and the quantities just mount up into huge proportions.
” They have underground broken pipes and just let it rip.
http://www.chernobylee.com/blog/2010/03/radioactive-tritium-leaking-fr.php
Clever huh.
I guess they figure that the site will be horribly contaminated when it is finished with anyway so…what the heck..”
or:
Pro-nuker’s logic: “This is really a visibility question isn’t it?”
@Ernestine Gross
No Ernestine…..you have it all wrong …the pro nuker’s (mostly singular) arguments need to be “unpacked” and then “mapped” first and then drop in the owrd “utility” or “individual preferences” or “rational”…and hey presto.. the unpacked, fully mapped out transparent version arrives to confuse us all!
@Ernestine Gross
Ernestine…when people are just a conduit for advanced “commercially oriented” delusionism (read advertising) and anti science (advertising again)….it seems too cruel too point out the fallacies in their arguments. They might be needing to pay the mortgage.
In an attempt to at least give lip service to gender equality, and to show that the public furore over claimed paedophiliac little boy love tendencies within their clergy has been somewhat overblown, the next scandal anticipated to rock the Roman Catholic church concerns priests raping nuns. http://www.salon.com/news/catholicism/index.html?story=/news/feature/2010/04/23/next_catholic_priest_abuse_scandal
Holy cow! Kevin Rudd and the Labor government have abandoned the ‘greatest moral challenge of our time’ and joined the ranks of ‘delusionists’ and ‘vorticists’ with regard to climate change, but the best the people in this neck of the woods can do is to debate how many angels can dance on a Kw of wind generated electricity.
Having been subjected to ridicule in the past on the issue of ETS, I think I am entitled to say this empathically. To nanks, Salient Green, Ernestine Gross, jarrah, Donald Oats, Freelander, et al, and their intellectual big brother, Comrade John Quiggin: I TOLD YOU SO!
https://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2010/01/27/the-circuit-breaker/comment-page-1/#comment-254238
I told you so three months ago, but you wouldn’t listen. You were too busy arguing the opposite, because you were caught in a vortex of propaganda of your own making and you were delusional about electoral support for ETS.
What is also worthy of note is the way John Quiggin is trying to bury the ETS issue. Not a single word of criticism directed at Kevin Rudd. ETS has been stymied? No worries. We’ll discuss what Europe can do for us just in time to save us from climate apocalypse. It wasn’t the John Quiggin of wisdom and foresight who wrote the dozens of blogposts in which he named the opponents of the ETS ‘delusionists’ and ‘vorticists’. It was some alien impostor. The real John Quiggin is an expert commentator in Australian politics.
Nothing you have posted above makes you any less a denier or delusionist. All you are showing is that you have an ability to have multiple delusions. Now you think you made a prediction about something at an earlier time that has now come true and entitles you to say, told you so. Simply another delusion. Go fill your lungs with CO2.
Chris,
You really don’t know anything about it, do you? A magnitude 5 on the edge of the craton has no effect within the craton.
Do you have any idea at all of this country or do you not even live in Australia?
Is Australia the only place to have cratons? No. Not clear how a claim of an alleged lack of knowledge about cratons leads to the deduction that one does not live in Australia… Does Australia have any cretins? Yes.
@Freelander
Insolent in defeat. Go fill your soul with some grace.
Insolent. Well, if you think you are. Peace be upon you. I thought you liked CO2? Let it be NO2 then.
Sorry meant N2O, of course.
Abbott’s latest thought boob-el. An expanded Productivity Commission!
That’s the last thing Australia need’s. And how are they going to comment on appropriate population targets and what criteria are they going to use? Those in charge in the place believe the target should be whatever happens in the deregulated magical market. And, as is widely know in the public service, the place has no real capacity for serious research, and certainly not for serious modelling. They do manage to churn out nonsense using Dixon’s CGE models, but other than that, and that is more the level of work of a sausage factory, and they do have the skills that a few individuals have, but those are sidelined individuals that no one inside seems to take any notice of, they don’t have the sort of research management amongst there very fat and bloated SES for serious model building of the kind required. The operation of the place is ruled by serial ad-hoc ery. The research they like always starts with the conclusion, and the conclusion the like to start with more often that not is the wrong conclusion.
Let’s face it. The mangement don’t have a clue about anything, let alone, mangement, and certainly not about research management. Instead of getting rid of those with climate change expertise, if Abbott really wanted to suggest a way of the government saving money why not get rid of everyone in that place? That would be long overdue.
@Freelander I know little of the productivity commission – are there any useful links to in depth critiques