Open Thread 5 has spooled off the BNC front page, so it’s time for new one.
The Open Thread is a general discussion forum, where you can talk about whatever you like — there is nothing ‘off topic’ here — within reason. So get up on your soap box! The standard commenting rules of courtesy apply, and at the very least your chat should relate to the broad theme of the blog (climate change, sustainability, energy, etc.). You can also find this thread by clicking on the Open Thread category on the left sidebar.
Given the recent discussion on BNC in various threads, a topic worth collecting up here is the merits/demerits of imposing a price on carbon, rather than simply pursuing policy to lower the costs (and regulatory burdens) of low-carbon energy sources. In reference to past discussions on BNC about the form a carbon price might take, read about cap-and-trade vs carbon tax and fee-and-dividend. An argument NOT to impose a carbon price is given here. An argument FOR a carbon price is outline here.
Finally, for those in Adelaide, I here’s a head’s up to a couple of talks I’m giving in the near future:
On Thursday 16 September 2010 at 7.30 pm I will be talking on “Sustainable energy solutions for successful climate change mitigation” at the Campbelltown Function Centre, 172 Montacute Road, Rostrevor (rear of Council Offices). Click on picture for details — it’s a free event.
On 18 October, I will be teaming up with Ziggy Switkowski at the Hilton Hotel, Adelaide, to talk about the near- to medium-term future of nuclear power in Australia, and also to discuss some of the key technologies that will likely underpin this next-generation revolution in atomic energy, and chart a possible course for their development and deployment over the next 40 years. Details are in a flyer you can download here. This is also a FREE public lecture, so don’t miss it!
Brave New Climate 
655 replies on “Open Thread 6”
Hi Finrod.
Finrod wrote (over in the General thread 6)…
Again Finrod, it is a huge group. One has to specify who and what one is disagreeing with. Some, like Ehrlich, raised important questions but came down too hard with suspect methodology for their answers. He may have deserved criticism for some of his modelling. But others like the Limits to Growth report has gained respect as their modelling is put to the test of 35 years of real-world history. If you have credible sources debunking the 2008 Graham Turner CSIRO report into LTG’s accuracy, I’d be happy to read it. But for now I’m sticking with the New Scientist review of his work:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16058-prophesy-of-economic-collapse-coming-true.html
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Are you kidding! I DID IT AGAIN!
Sorry all, we’ve got kids running through the house here… I’m closing Open Thread 6 and having a break until the kids are gone.
See you later over in “Peak Oil discussion” if you want to chat about depletionist or resource crisis issues.
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@Stefanie:
Thank you for adding Zwentendorf, the investment ruin nuclear power station in Austria of 1978, and deleting the current one in operation at Mühleberg (CH).
As regards Kitegen, I wonder how the intention to deploy surveillance drones in EU airspace will affect this? See
http://statismwatch.ca/2010/02/15/uk-police-use-spy-drone-for-first-domestic-arrest-without-airspace-clearance/
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@Lang and Eclipse
what you have in common as neocon/neoliberal and my-ass smells-of-roses capitalist respectively is the unconscious notion that “we” are actually entitled to “scour through every last meter of the earth” and/or “to (hopefully) leave some ecosystems intact”.
One implication of this absurd last sentence is the notion that Homo sapiens is not part of an, or many, ecosystem(s) himself (for any PC liberal admirers of Julia Thatchard on this blog: “themself”)
Brooks is in the habit when writing of confusing the “we” energy beneficiaries of C02-intensive rich countries in the period since James Watt with Homo sapiens as such when looking to describe how AGW has happened since that Age of Coal; you two run a different but related strategy, don’t you?
Because your “we”, if I look at who owns and profits from mineral exploration firms, is not “we” at all, but a defined number of known countries and persons/classes within those countries. Or why has a small Ecuador village recently started to sue the Toronto Stock Exchange on a minerals conflict?
The “we” is increasingly including China, of course.
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@Lang and Eclipse
what you have in common as neocon/neoliberal and my-ass smells-of-roses capitalist respectively is the unconscious notion that “we” are actually entitled to “scour through every last meter of the earth” and/or “to (hopefully) leave some ecosystems intact”, and (Lang) “spare me the doomsday scenarios”.
One implication of the “ecoystems” sentence is the notion that Homo sapiens is not part of an, or many, ecosystem(s) himself (for any PC liberal admirers of Julia Thatchard on this blog: “themself”)
Brooks is in the habit when writing of confusing the “we” energy beneficiaries of C02-intensive rich countries in the period since James Watt with Homo sapiens as such when looking to describe how AGW has happened since that Age of Coal; you two run a different but related strategy, don’t you?
Because your “we”, if I look at who owns and profits from mineral exploration firms, is not “we” at all, but a defined number of known countries and persons/classes within those countries. Or why has a small Ecuador village recently started to sue the Toronto Stock Exchange on a minerals conflict?
The “we” is increasingly including China, of course.
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Peter Lalor,
Not that it will do much good but I’ll just point out that your ability to comprehend basic English is almost as incapacitated as my ability to post in the correct thread tonight. ;-) Talk about attacking a straw-man! I’ll just highlight the first half of the sentence you decided to cherrypick.
If anything it’s sarcastic. I was pointing out how horrifically we are treating this planet!
The following is from the summary page of my activism and why I even blog.
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eclipsenow
” Various renewables are going to have to be reinvented as gallium supplies and other ‘rare earths’ become ‘extremely rare earths’.”
Monocrystalin Solar Cells from
copper, zinc, tin, sulphur, and selenium
in thin film applications for a start.
I don’t believe in any ecosystems…there is no doubt that we change the earth. But earth will exist much longer than humankind.
In reallity nobody gives a c***.
People are here for some fun on the internet. Some are just attacking others, some believe they are smarter than others but it’s fun for everyone.
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Peter.
How would a kitegen affect Microdrones?
Maybe the kitegen would provide shelter for those hiding from Microdrones…
Like in Demolition Man or some cyberpunk books like “the diamond age” or “Snow Chrash”.
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I’m just back from Barry’s ‘debate’ with Mark Diesendorf tonight. If Barry’s earlier encounter with Mark suffered from too little moderation, this one suffered from too much. The Chair was obviously confused as to his role and thought he was one of the speakers, even taking audience questions to Mark or Barry and answering them himself.
He was also hardly impartial – he corrected Mark on his facts a number of times. And he was right, but Diesendorf could quite legitimately claim the Chair crossed the line.
He also let Mark run on at the mouth. Barry gave brief, to the point answers, but between the moderators speeches and Diesendorf he didn’t get much of a chance. Diesendorf came out with a number of howlers (nuclear plants take 7-10 years to pay back the energy of construction!) but if the moderator didn’t correct him, he didn’t give Barry the opportunity to do so.
I’d judge the audience to be neutral or even pro nuclear on balance. There didn’t seem to be any strong anti presence. Rob Parker, who organized the group for the walk against warming was there and it was good to see him again, and to have a quick catch up with Barry before the talk too. We need more events like these, but with better moderation.
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Thanks for the quick overview, John. I’ll post up the .MPG link once it’s ready.
Overall, I didn’t really mind the moderator – Vassilios is a professor of power systems engineering, so he knew his stuff. The dinner conversation (I’ve just returned from a restaurant meal with Vas and Mark) was fascinating, to say the least!
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Isn’t better moderation what we’ve been talking about all this time, or even a complete lack of it (pun intended, oh the laughs…).
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Thank you Peter Lalor on yet another highly intelligent and insightful post. ;)
On another note, here’s an interesting link regarding fast reactor experience in France:
http://www.iaea.org/inisnkm/nkm/aws/fnss/phenix/book/index.html
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@Scott plus your attempted sarcasm
assuming you are referring (?) to the post in which the US NPP engineer voices his tech concerns about CME and EMP effects on spent fuel pools: what does it say about the US nuclear industry if such misguided (in your view) persons are allowed to work in it?
Alternatively, if he is right, what does it say about NPP security in the USA?
However, if it is the notion of global social equity which you find distressing as per my other mail on minerals mining above, then you are in excellent BNC geek company.
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Stefanie asked in ridiculing mode how Kitegen would affect drones. Wikipedia article on Kitegen says that when tested in 2007 for 3 days in Italy, Mobilegen needed permission from civil and military aviation. So quod erat demonstrandum.
As 20 kites at 500-800 m altitude are need to produce 1GW and an NPP produces around 1200 MW, how many EU Kitegens are needed?
Reading Stefanie, (“people are here for some fun on the Internet”) I could imagine that she agrees with the “Sea Shepherd” founder, who said recently that the Earth has to get back to carrying 1bn people only?
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Thank you Peter Lalor on yet another highly intelligent and insightful post. ;)
Curse him and his devilish cunning! Yet again he has peirced the woven shadows of our deceit to reveal our disreputable motives and foul conspiricies to all the world with the awesome illumination of his mighty intellect!
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The dinner conversation (I’ve just returned from a restaurant meal with Vas and Mark) was fascinating, to say the least!
Yes, I can imagine that a dinner concersation between you and Mark would be something to witness.
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It was pretty clear he knew what he was talking about, and I thought he gave a great introductory talk. But he should have got out of the way after that.
And, you had dinner with Mark? I hope they took the metal cutlery away. I would’ve stuck a fork in his eye.
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Peter Lalor,
I think anyone can claim to be a nuclear engineer on the internet.
http://depletedcranium.com/ap-story-on-older-activists-younger-crowd-anti-nukes/#comments
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Peter. We do agree that you need noyflyzones for Npps and Kitegens?
What does it matter if you issue a nfz for NPPs or Kitegens?
Then again kitegens would scale better than Npps.
How much space and infrastructure would you need to built a 20, 30 or 60GW cluster?
Nothing you do will ever turn around the way civilisation works.
I don`t care if there are 6 or 12 or 20bn people.
I am here for the fun. I don`t believe that your rants or writings or whatever will change anything but put off people.
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Now that would have been a sight to see. Thanks for leaving us hanging there, Barry! ;)
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@Finrod: strange as it may seem, I do not attribute deceit and foul conspiracy (by the way, spelt with an “a”) to you. Some of what I say is said on other ways by Fran Barlow or Ewen Laver on BNC.
On the other hand, BNC will likely have many “Coincidence Theorists”, ie the Great and the Good AKA Respected Authority, such as WHO or IAEA , are always acting in your (read: the rulers’) and our (proles) best interest and any set of events eg 9/11 that shows otherwise is mere Coincidence.
This will be because you collectively were clever front-row lads who were the Maths teacher’s pets but fell asleep in History lessons and have done well for yourselves in the feral Ocker Murdochracy.
So you are not about to support, on trend, anything that enhances social equity or diminishes your privilege in global terms.
Which is why Anglo mineral extractive industries or the military posture of the USA at Pine Gap or NW Cape are seemingly viewed by yourselves as natural phenomena, just as Economics is deemed by you to be value-free.
A case in point is that the MSM, mainstream media, are stating that Iran is a danger to “us” (who?) due to its weapons-grade (20% !!) enrichment at present, but this is just untrue.
In theory, one might expect outrage on BNC at this attempt by the US alliance incl. the Saudis and Israel to hinder an FF-rich country from going nuclear and thus combatting AGW, but there is resounding BNC silence on the topic.
By the way, it is very amusing how conned Greens in the Murdochracy are prattling on at present about the “Iranian threat” as a proof of how dangerous nuclear proliferation is!
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@Scott:
http://depletedcranium.com/ap-story-on-older-activists-younger-crowd-anti-nukes/#comments
As a paid-up BNC RN (not registered nurse, Rational Numerate) nerd with a reputation to lose, you cite the above exchange at Depleted Cranium as if one of the comments there attacks the anonymous nuke engineer and his CME/EMP concerns at Survival Blog on professional grounds.
On the contrary, Dr Buzzo attempts to refute the engineer’s concerns in a merely general way without giving chapter and verse, and ex-BNCer DV28XL just repeats what he said on BNC months back. Neither man casts aspersions on the nuclear engineer. DV by the way has no training or experience in nuclear matters at all, and said so often on BNC.
BNC being a place that encourages quantitative consideration of technical matters, I look forward to your detailed explanation of what you see in the Survival Blog entry that leads you to conclude that the writer is not a nuclear engineer and if you conclude that he is, that his fears are unfounded.
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I presume you’re trying to do an impression of Peter Lang?
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quick comment:
just had lunch with a professor of nuclear engineering at my university.
he said that in the U.S. nuclear is still too expensive (he cited 3 billion per gigawatt not including interest payments etc.) compared to natural gas, both cheap to build and operate.
In an environment that is increasingly anti coal, and given extant fears around nuclear plus its capital cost, natural gas plants will be built, he thinks.
Elsewhere, however, (where nat gas is not as readily available), nukes are and will be built.
It was an interesting conversation. and an interesting comment on the peter lang strategy of making nukes cheaper than coal. the problem of course is that in the u.s., the alternative is not coal vs. nukes but coal vs. nat gas vs. nukes, and, given little concern over global warming and the ability of the natural gas lobby to sell itself as clean, nat gas will win hands down versus nukes.
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This nuclear engineering professor comrade of mine also said that scaling up from experimental reactors to the big ones involves major complications.
makes sense: with this in mind, what major complications might be expected in scaling the IFR?
finally, I wasn’t quite able to tell from past posts on the IFR, but are there any 4th generation reactors out there using metal fuel yet? or is its commercialization dependent upon commercialization of the pyroprocess?
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It seems I’m one of the only pro Nuclear people who ISN’T jumping on the GenIV bandwagon. I’m not going to bet the future energy needs of the world on an unproven technology, even if there is a large amount of evidence to prove that the technology will be viable.
Personally I cant see anything wrong with the current GenIII+ framework, even in the medium to Long term. The amounts of waste are marginal and entirely manageable. France currently has around 2300m3 of HLW which will fit easily in the repository they are planning. AP1000s are cheap and safe.
It also doesn’t matter if only ‘near breeders’ work in the medium term. Some breeding is better than none, and will give a restbite *if* U stocks get low, as will CANDUs and reprocessing.
What I’m essentially saying is that we should have a back up plan, just in case of the off chance the IFR falls through.
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well: I agree with you, HJ.
the backup plan is AP 1000s and its near relatives, as far as I can tell. (china has its own version)
My Nuclear engineer colleague tells me 12 are being built in China now. with many more, as we know, planned.
btw, as per above, he said that about 30 npps or so are in the various licensing stages in U.S. but he thinks many of these will not be built due to expense relative to natural gas plants, given the low price of nat gas in the u.s. and expected successes getting gas from shale.
Hearing this from him was very depressing, since it’s another example of not taking AGW seriously.
I’d like to hear others talk about this problem faced by the u.s. if my colleague is correct: given no significant carbon price, especially in a near depression, how will new nukes compete with natural gas?
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Some problems with the rush to gas for generation
1) it will never achieve 80% CO2 cuts
2) oil replacement (esp. diesel) could double demand
3) some regions will run out of gas early
4) power bills will soar.
It is noteworthy that the UK went from having plenty of gas to now importing large amounts from Siberia at some political and physical risk. In Australia SA, Vic and Tas are supplied by the Cooper, Otway, Bass and Gippsland gas basins, all mature. This could be why the operator of Hazelwood is resisting appeals to switch to gas as the fuel cost will several times greater, even with a heftier carbon tax on brown coal. In the long run these southern basins may have to be supplemented by pipelines to Queensland.
The current crop of Australian politicians display little of the long term thinking of RFX Connor in the Whitlam era. It seems likely we will take the gas route and end up like the UK with inadequate domestic energy resources,. At least the Brits have NP.
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John Newlands, on 9 September 2010 at 7.41 — Unless they actually get busy, they too will shiver in the dark.
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An article from Climate Spectator which is actually worth reading:
http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/untapped-power-change#comment-1590
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It seems I’ve inadvertently linked direct to my own comment. Oh well, the article’s still there.
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I’m with you Huw. We know that the designs we have now work, and we should be building them in bulk. You are not alone in this, at all; although there are strong voices for advanced and alternative designs, and I would certainly support enabling further NP development in various directions, what’s needed now is just lots more nuclear power, which LWR and CANDU can provide.
The one problem I have with those who push for thorium, breeders and other good development paths is that they sometimes try a little to hard to conjure up problems with the current generation of NP plants – sometimes glossing over equivalent problems in their own favorites. For example, I have heard it said that molten salt reactors cannot be a proliferation threat; but actually a strong neutron source at near-atmospheric pressure could easily support a sideline in transmutation. Now I don’t personally believe that any power reactor is actually a proliferation threat – but fanciful scenarios can always be sketched.
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Peter Lalor,
Since you have become the court jester of this website, I’ll make it brief. There is no evidence that the so called ‘nuclear-engineer’ is in reality a nuclear-engineer. This is the internet, you can dupe idiots into believing just about anything, especially idiots who browse conspiracy blogs. The concerns you linked were essentially generic concerns about spent fuel pools, which have already been discussed elsewhere time and time again. Your specific example was explained away very well on depleted cranium. Unless you can provide evidence that the ‘nuclear-engineer’ was in actuality a nuclear-engineer, that EMP is in actuality a threat to commercial nuclear plants, and that all the information regarding spent fuel-pools is wrong, then I’m sure your claims will be ignored – just like most of the garbage you post to this website. Don’t bother replying.
Oh, and RIF. I never claimed either DV8 or buzzo were nuclear engineers – but that’s irrelevant.
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Huw Jones, on 9 September 2010 at 6.17 Said:
I agree. Our focus right now should be on what can give us the least-cost, clean electricity now, and what can be built quickest from now.
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Huw Jones, please read this piece for my perspective on Gen III:
IFR FaD 5 – the Gen III and Gen IV nuclear power synergy – why we need both
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Greg Meyerson
I think the anti-nuclear advocates need to take a look at themselves. While they remain opposed to clean, low-cost electricity many people will see them as hypocritical and more interested in using AGW to promote their other agendas. It is difficult for some people to take their protestations seriously while they remain stridently opposed to clean, cheap electricity.
If we want to bring on board the many people who are concerned about the economy and the fraud that would be associated with an ETS or carbon tax, we need to direct our effort at converting those who are opposed to the win-win solution – low-cost, clean electricity.
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greg meyerson, on 9 September 2010 at 2.51 Said:
This is interesting. I’d agree with much of this but point out the following:
1. We cannot go very far with nat gas before we suffer the problems UK has –consume it all and have none left for future needs. As John Newlands frequently points out we will need nat gas for many other purposes
2. Nuclear cuts emissions to near zero whereas gas cuts emissions by only about half that of coal. So natural gas for electricity generation is a stop gap measure, not a long term solution.
3. Gas is cheaper for electricity generation than nuclear at the moment, but this is mostly because of the high financial risk premium for investors given the current political and regulatory environment in most western democracies. Furthermore, most of the cost of gas generation is in the fuel whereas most of the cost of nuclear in is in the plant. The cost of gas is projected to increase rapidly and continue to do so. However, even if the cost of uranium does increase in the future it would have little effect on electricity prices from nuclear generators. For these reasons gas is not the best solution for the long term. The reasons nuclear is so expensive is what we, the community, has done to handicap it over the past 40+ years. If we could unwind the unnecessary impediments and all the imposts that make nuclear more expensive than it could and should be, then nuclear would be cheaper than gas and coal. It should and could be the least cost electricity generation. I recognise it will be a long time until we unwind all the imposts – perhaps not until advanced, mature Gen IV – but we can remove a lot of them. If Russia can produce floating NPPs that produce electricity at a cost competitive with the Victorian brown coal plants, we should be able to too. If India and China can produce low cost nuclear, we could too, if we wanted to. If the Indian NPPs have demonstrated, over a 40 year period, they are safer than our power stations and many of the chemical industries we have operating in our cities now, then Indian NPPs are plenty safe enough and would give us a substantial increase in industrial health and safety over what we have now. The same goes for Russian, Chinese, Korean NPPs. The point I want to make is we should be focusing on finding out what we need to do to get NPPs in Australia at a cost less than coal. I urge we not avoid this issue. Let’s confront it. BNC could lead the way on this. But I sense opposition or reluctance to get the matter out on the table. It seems to be easier to defend the politically attractive symbol of a carbon tax or ETS (This comment is not addressed at you Greg. It is addressed to those who seem to want to avoid this issue).
I believe many people who want AGW to be taken more seriously are shooting themselves in the foot because they are vitriolic in their opposition to the technology that could do most to give us clean, low cost electricity. These same people are generally indifferent to the economic consequences of the schemes they propose, like ETS and Carbon Tax while banning nuclear. The people who are most concerned about AGW should be most strongly supporting whatever it takes to get cheap, clean electricity generation, not opposed to it.
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Thanks for that climatespectator link, Finrod. I agree, it’s nice to finally read something of sense on that website.
I particularly like this quote: –
A simple but compelling argument for a carbon price.
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Tom Keen,
You say a “simple but compelling argument for a carbon price“. This argument, of course, is very well known and understood. However …
Did you see the beginning of this video (first 16 minutes)?
It presents some arguments as to why we should focus on lowering the cost of clean electricity rather than focus on raising the cost of the dirty competitor.
(the remainder of the video contains some interesting tit-bits too)
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Come on across to the oil thread Peter, you have some questions to answer.
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eclipsenow,
There is no point me attempting to converse with you on the matters you hold so dear. We have different areas of interest and different skill sets; all our previous attempts to discuss energy issues have been a disaster, so I hope you will understand that I will pass on you request to converse.
While I am at it, I take the opportunity to apologise to all BNC contributors for my recent (and past) displays of frustration. From here on I will attempt to avoid such displays (no guarantees of course).
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Peter, that’s very gracious, and a good instance of leading by example.
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John Morgan,
Thank you. You and many other of BNC’s top contributors are an example of how I should have behaved always.
I’ve also got to try and develop the “art of gentle persuasion” skill set.
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John,
I appreciate that Peter’s a respected contributor here. I like the new tone — I really do. But we have some unfinished business here.
Peter insisted on writing a long piece on the reliability of ABARE. He insisted that I was off with the pixies for daring to disagree with him. Then he wrote:
Peter, please prove it’s a separate issue mate! If there is ANOTHER agency more competent to advise the Australian government about the future of oil, then tell me! I’m all ears.
Then Peter admitted he hadn’t covered peak oil.
OK, that sounds fine, and maybe Peter just isn’t interested in defending ABARE against the charge that it has fundamentally let the Australian people down by not studying peak oil. The head of ABARE admitted as much on Four Corners! But here’s the thing that really gets up my nose about the new ‘polite’ Peter. He pretends he has addressed these issues!
Did you defend ABARE’s failure to advise the government on peak oil or not? Because I certainly missed it if you did. ;-)
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I was bored and did my own ‘study’ on costs on a 500 watt solar array.
Assumptions:
1. 15.25% capacity factor.
2. No inflation or change in grid electricity.
3. No financing, installation, or energy storage cost included. This is extremely optimistic.
4. I used average module prices from solarbuzz.com and assumed that the record cost decreases from Febuary 2009 and September 2010 will continue indefinitely. This is extremely optimistic.
5. Cost of maintenance assumed to decrease at same rate as module price.
6. Grid electricity is average of France and United States for domestic only.
Thoughts?
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Thinking…
Break point is around 2020. Then you are payed up before 2032.
OTOH…if you can do thinfilm when you are building your roof you should do it.
Tiles or facades are huge potential powerplants.
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A modest tax on fossil carbon won’t cause any more cheating problems than exist with existing taxes such as road tax (fuel tax), taxes on sins such as (potable) alcolhol and tobacco.
The proceeds could go toward subsidizing alternatives to fossil carbon to provide transportation fuels. Incidently, coal burners would be properly assessed as well making (Indian) NPPs all the more attractive.
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David B Benson
Any tax, once implemented, will be increased every time the government needs more money to pay for its prolific spending and to ‘buy’ elections.
Australia has just completed an election where the level of ‘pork-barelling’ was unprededented. The government was promising $ billions in funding for programs in marginal areas. The funds being promised were from its proposed mining tax that hasn’t even been passed by the parliament yet. The more tax a government extracts from the economy the more of it will be used to buy off the voters.
The tax will always be ramped up. It will not remain modest.
And if it was modest, it wouldn’t have a significant impact on emissions.
Of course it will.
1. CO2 is an unmeasurable substance. You can’t weigh it on a scale. All the emissions quantities are estimates. If we attempt to trade an unmeasurable commodity of course there will be fraud, massive fraud.
2. There will be fraud at every level. Countries will cheat, industries will cheat, businesses and organisations will cheat, banks and traders will cheat. Everyone will cheat.
3. The drug trade would be dwarfed by emissions trading fraud.
4. We’d need carbon cops in every activity to try to control the fraud. We’d need such a huge Carbon Cop Force (CCF) there’d be no one left in the work force to do any real work. Everyone would be a public servant – paid from the taxes collected from the workers – but there would be no workers doing real work. (there might be a twinge of exaggeration here, but you get the picture :) )
We can’t even control internet fraud now. How could we control fraud with $ billions being traded on an unmeasurable substance?
And what would all this trading and cheating achieve if we ban, or make too expensive, the technology we should be embracing to provide clean energy?
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Peter Lang, on 10 September 2010 at 7.18 — A democracy only survives with intelligent and educated voters.
Your assertions about a fossil carbon tax are without merit; a fossil carbon tax is easily extracted from the vendors of fossil carbon, similar to alcohol and tobacco.
Before making sweeping denuciations of tax schemes, learn something about taxation through the ages, hmmm?
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David B Benson,
I agree. But the ‘chattering classes’ do not have a monopoly on being the ‘intelligent and educated voters’.
Most of the ‘intelligent and educated voters’ are out creating the wealth for the country and the world. They are the real ‘intelligent and educated voters’. They are the ones who understand what makes the world go round. They create the wealth for society we all live off. So we do need to take notice of what they believe. We need to listen because they rarely speak out. They are too busy.
I wonder why half Australia is concerned about a carbon tax or ETS, yet I am the only one pointing out the concerns on the BNC web site. What does that say to you? Do you think the contributors are a fair cross section of the ‘intelligent and educated voters’ or are we a special interest group with a specific agenda?
I see. Thank you for that unsupported comment.
I wonder why no one has commented on the first 16 minutes of this video (which presents a case for reducing the cost of clean electricity rahter than raising the cost of dirty electricity – yet!)?
I think the reasons no one has commented may be that the point is at odds with the beliefs of those contributing here. If so, this demonstrates that symbolic gestures like a carbon tax are more important than substantive policies that would actually make substantive cuts to emnissions. That is what I am inclined to believe.
Please demonstrate how a carbon tax in Australia would significantly cut CO2 emissions, while bans and other imposts are maintained on nuclear power, without damaging our economy relative to other economies.
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If the Greens get their $23 a tonne carbon tax I fear it will be game on. For starters big companies that get credits for tree planting under State run schemes will insist on a carbon tax deduction. Ditto for waste heat recovery projects or alumina waste sucking back some CO2. Then there will be renewable energy certificates and credits for sheep that fart less and for sustainable basket weaving and other worthy deeds.
My suggestion to Ms Gillard is don’t just talk about bring in the carbon tax from 1/7/11 and see how it goes. Remember the ETS was originally supposed to start in 2009.
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As any chemist would tell you, it’s fairly easy to calculate the amount of carbon dioxide created. To calculate essentially all you need is the quantity of fuel that has been burned. Other than that, I have no opinion on the subject.
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David B Benson,
This argument could be turned around of course to something like:
Before proposing for massive new tax schemes, demonstrate that such schemes will achieve the desired objective(s), hmmm?
Which leads me to ask you to clarify what is the objective of the proposed ETS or carbon tax? Is it to:
1. Raise revenue?
2. Redistribute wealth?
3. Create wealth and prosperity?
4. Help poor countries to improve their standard of living?
5. Change the world’s climate?
6. Change Australia’s climate?
7. Lead the world by example?
8. Cut GHG emissions?
9. Win and hold power?
10. Act as an agent of change to help impose other agendas (hidden) on society?
I believe the answer to each of questions: 1, 2, 9, 10 is YES
The answer to each of questions: 3, 4, 5, 6 is NO
The answer to question 7: that may be the intention of a few, but they are naive in the extreme.
The answer to question 8 is: That might be the stated intention, but it is not demonstrated it can work. I seriously doubt the intention would be achieved, without seriously damaging our economy, while we maintain bans and other imposts on nuclear power.
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John Newlands<
Are you serious. Wouldn’t this be the height of incompetent government? To seriously risk our economy for a symbol with llittle chance of seriously cutting emissions?
Isn’t that like the poorly considered policies that got the Rudd and Whitlam governments into so much trouble? The ‘Pink Bats insulation fiasc, the Building Education Revolution waste to buy the tradies’ votes, the Mining tax, the Carbon Polution Reduction Scheme, The Nationalised Broadband Network, the masssive Health waste of transferring massive funding to the states to waste in more bureaucracy with no proper controls over the waste.
The carbon tax or ETS you are advocating would damage our economy to powers of ten compared with these previous fiascos. It would be waste and fraud on stereoids!!
Let’s be honest. You are supporting the ETS or carbon tax not beccause it is a genuine solution, but because it is proposed by the political party you support. Your support is motivated by politics; it is not a policy you can argue for on a rational basis.
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Peter,
I’m with you when it comes to trying to make nuclear cheaper by putting it on the production line, and maybe even granting some emergency powers to streamline inspection standards and prevent protesters slowing the whole thing down. Making nukes cheaper this way would really appeal to the market. But I think you’re underestimating just how much political work it would take, and how much government *interference* in the marketplace it would require. For governments ramming nuclear through against significant public protest (even if ignorant) would require that they pass special legislation banning ‘normal’ legal challenges and rights of appeal.
Basically, you’re ignoring the substance of David’s statement because it doesn’t fit your right-wing political bias, when in some ways your proposal for making nuclear cheaper requires even more government ‘tinkering’ in the marketplace.
And the means by which you try to bypass some of David’s arguments by simply misrepresenting them and ignoring them stinks of the same diversionary tactics you seem to use so frequently in straw-manning anything you don’t like. (Including the valid charge that ABARE ignored peak oil).
For example, David Benson wrote:
A tax can be introduced at the point of use. We can tax per ton of coal, cubic metre of gas or litre of oil depending on which point of the supply chain you want to tax it. Trying to measure the CO2 coming out of various industries! The very complexity of the ETS / CPRS was one of the reasons I was against it, as well as all the other concerns (subsidies to polluters, etc).
But a straight tax at the beginning of the fossil fuel pollution chain? That’s an easy matter to implement. Forget your childish straw-man of a whole force of ‘carbon cops’: the price would flow through the marketplace from the source. This is so obvious that I can only assume you’re not thick enough to misunderstand it, just not honest enough to admit it.
This is priceless…
Oh no, it’s the reds under the bed! The commo’s are out to get us! Absolutely priceless when you consider what you would ask governments to do in ramming through nuclear without the public’s right to challenge it! Isn’t that the act of “big government”? I might agree with that tactic given the urgency of peak oil, but at least I’m honest enough to admit it, and not carping on and on and on against other political tactics that might be used to address climate change.
Straw-manning opponents is a fundamentally dishonest tactic, and you’ve been applying it liberally lately. I’m beginning to wonder if you use the same tactics with Ender on renewable energy matters? It goes to the heart of your credibility mate.
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Scott,
Most are aware of how CO2 is calculated when carbon fuels are burned if you know the quantity of carbon, how much is not burned and how much is emitted as other compounds. The difficult part is to accurately measure the quantity of carbon. In the Victorian coal fields it is estimated, very roughly, from the amount of material mined. The coal is not even weighed. It is just estimated. The inaccuracies are large. And Australia is one of the countries best able to measure its fuel use and estimate its emissions. How do we expect to be able to make an ETS or carbon tax work in the developing countries?
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Eclipse now,
You are misunderstanding and misinterpreting what I’ve been saying consistently in posts for a long time. Please do not misrepresent what I’ve been saying.
I am not arguing to add distortions. I’ve been arguing to remove the distortions we’ve added over the past 40+ years. I recognise it can’t all be done at once, and some costs will have to be carried by the tax payer until we have unwound some of the the costs we have caused by our 40+ years of anti-nuclear protesting. However, what I am proposing is no different to what we are doing now, wrongly, to try to force uneconomic renewables on to consumers. It is no different to what we’ve done, wrongly, to support the car industry, textile industry and others. But this time, we have to do it, not to create distortions, but to unwind the distortions we have imposed through 40+ years of bad policy (caused by us, the voters). Now we realise we want to clean up our act. We’ve made massive mistakes (and we still are). We will have to pay, one way or another, to clean up the mess we’ve made (by 40+ years of bad policy). The least cost way is to remove the impediments we’ve imposed, not to create more. Especially when the ‘more imposts’ many are arguing to impose (ETS, carbon tax) will have little effect on achieving th aims but will seriously damage our economy, if we do not remove the bans and other imposts on nuclear first.
By the way, just to be clear, I am proposing we remove all the government imposed impediments to nuclear. To achieve this as quickly as possible we will have to use tax payers’ funds, and/or government loan guarantees and other non monetary incentives, to: 1) offset the ‘First-of-a-kind-in-Australia’ costs and 2) the investor premium caused by our strongly anti-nuclear pubilc opinion.
Blah, Blah, Blah. There is no point me trying to converse with you EN. I think it best if I let your comments flow through to the keeper.
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Australia’s emissions (in 2008) were estimate to be 578 Mt/a (CO2-e)
http://ageis.climatechange.gov.au/#
At a price of $20/tonne CO2-e the value traded or the tax revenue would be $12 billion per year. The accuracy of estimating the quantity is probably 10% to 20%. Therefore, around $2 billion per year could be subject to fraud.
The inaccuracies involved in measuring the emissions from agriculture and Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry are greater still. I’ll use 25% for ease of calculation. Australia’s emissions in 2008 from these sectors were estimated to be:
Agriculture = 87.4 Mt/a
Afforestation and restoration = -23.0 Mt/a
Deforestation = 49.7 Mt/a
Total cheatable = 160 Mt/a
Value traded per year = $3.2 billion/a
Subject to fraud per year = 25% x $3.2 billion/a = $0.8 billion/a
With that much money being traded on an unmeasurable substance, the fraud will inevitably be huge.
If it is tax, the government will waste it. If it is traded, much of it will be diverted to fraud and profits that do not add to the national wealth. They would be like the funds that caused the GFC.
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Agree John Morgan. I’d stab Diesendorf in the other eye as well. You are a very patient person Barry. Congratulations. Check out my piece in the September issue of the Adelaide Review.
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Just plucked that out of the air did we?
Not if we tax at the SOURCE Peter. Tell me, what is the average UK car efficiency and the average USA car efficiency? By how much as UK fuel consumption increased compared to how much American fuel consumption has increased? (Make sure you adjust for comparative percentages in population increase over the last 20 years as well). Which country comes out ahead as far more fuel efficient per capita? Why? Could it be something to do with higher fuel taxes flowing through the economy? Could it be that history shows fuel taxes WORK?
Taxing fossil fuels at the point of use is far, far easier than you are portraying. History shows it works. And we may just need it to kick-start the nuclear economy. So if we end up with an ETS, I’ll be a bit saddened by some of the silliness that goes with that package. A carbon tax would be a lot simpler.
But I’m just pointing out that I don’t *really* care how the job gets done, as long as it gets done, but you come across all ideological.
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eclipse: “but you come across all ideological”
Please pay attention to the BNC commenting rules, specifically: “Civility – Clear-minded criticism is welcomed, but play the ball and not the person. Rudeness will not be tolerated. This includes speculation about motives or what ‘sort of person’ someone is. Civility, gentle humour and staying on topic are superior debating tools.”
Thanks, Barry
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If we’re looking for a nuclear power technology that will be cheaper than coal, then I would argue that we already have it. Even the plants which were built in the US during the eighties, when high interest rates combined with cost blowouts and interminable delays to drive the final price of gen II plants through the roof are now delivering cheaper power than we have here in Australia with our coal-fired plants built virtually on top of the coal seams supplying them. The cost of power from those NPPs was high for a while, but amortisation does sooner or later occur, and those plants are then without peer in the delivery of cheap power for the remainder of their operational life, which is likely at least fifty years, and possibly a whole century. Given the extreme importance of developing cheap CO2-free power sources, it is entirely appropriate that the government take all necessary steps to ease the financial path these plants must tread in their setup.
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EclipseNow,
These are all ifs. And you are still missing the point. Before we implement taxes or ETS that will damage the economy, we’d better be sure that they will do what they are intended to do. So far I see a lot of hand waving and big “Ifs” everywhere by those proposing an ETS of carbon tax.
You didn’t address the substance of the questions above about what is the real intention of the tax. Instead you tried to throw mud at the actual questions and implied they should not be asked. Now that is ideolgical!
There are serious questions to be addressed about the real purpose of an ETS or carbon tax, what will it achieve, what is the cost versus the benefit. To try to avoid such questions suggests to me the purpose of wanting an ETS or Carbon Tax is idelogical rather than a genuine attempt to reduce emissions.
As for the red-herrings, I’ll just let them go.
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EclipseNow,
By the way, the 10% to 20% was not plucked out of the air, although it was plucked from my memory bank (which admitedly is not infallible). I’ve seen the figures previously and they are higher than I quoted. I wrote them from memory, but you can go and find out for yourself what is the estimating uncertainty on the CO2 emissions, especially for the agriculture sector, and for the land use, land use change and forestry sector. If I have overestimated, show me (from an authoritative source). Anyway, arguing about the exact uncertainty figures misses the point. The uncertainty in emissions estimates (not measurements) is huge so the room for fraud is huge. That is the point I was making. I quantified the magnitude, roughly, for those who are OK with using figures to get perspective.
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In an earlier post I estimate that the value of carbon trading that is “cheatable” is around $2 billion per year for all sectors and about $0.8 billion per year for Agriculture sector and the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry sector. However, I suspect it is much higher than this. These figures are the net figures. They are comprised of many debit and credit transactions which in total would be far more then the net figure. So the total “cheatable” might be ten times the figures I quoted, or more. How much could be cheated? who knows. But all this should be out on the table before we commit to such a massively destructive tax or ETS with no certainty it will achieve the result. In fact, it is not even clear to me that we know what the real purpose of the tax is.
On the other hand, we know for sure that if we go down the route France embarked on 40 years ago, it will succeed. That is a certainty!!! It’s been demonstrated.
The how? to achieve that at least cost is what I urge us to focus on, not on arguing for another symbol that has likely massive negative consequences for the Australian economy – and hence for our ability to achieve our goals (all the expectations of society).
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In view of Brook’s “don’t play the man” injunction to Eclipse in this thread to alter his language to Peter Lang, it is striking by contrast that J Morgan and T Krieg are both free, and unadmonished on BNC, to express their wish to blind Mark Diesendorf by stabbing him in either eye.
This will possibly be Brook’s “civility and gentle humour.”
But as I said at the time, the hatred poured out over Jim Green of FOE as a renewabilist on BNC some months ago also bore no relation to what wiser bloggers have been pointing out on BNC: that King Coal is the public enemy, especially in the world’s leading carbon exporter, Australia.
As regards playing the man, ie Diesendorf’s apparent attack on Brook months ago as a non-mathematican, it is interesting that the pro-nuclear Rod Adams was permitted, without it raising any comment on BNC, to attack the US wind energy advocate recently on BNC for not having an engineering degree.
There is an old saying, “sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”
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The world is full of hypocrisy, isn’t it Peter Lalor? No one is immune. I agree with you; even in jest, talking about stabbing people in the eye is not amusing. I also don’t agree with Rod Adams attacking Michael Goggin’s credentials. It was not a factor to me, which is why I was happy to post his rejoinder. Questioning the credentials or motivations of a debator is not a practice I ever undertake anymore (though I was certainly guilty of it in my youth). I hope this philosophy will evolve to become standard practice in BNC, and I’m glad you pull up various examples here.
Eclipsenow, I agree that the ABARE comments behaviour was intolerable, and it forced me to revise the commenting rules as a result. The part I cited to you was a result of that revision. I am loathe to delete comments on BNC, as they remain in the comments RSS feed anyway, but will do so in future if pressed.
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As regards playing the man, ie Diesendorf’s apparent attack on Brook months ago as a non-mathematican, it is interesting that the pro-nuclear Rod Adams was permitted, without it raising any comment on BNC, to attack the US wind energy advocate recently on BNC for not having an engineering degree.
I’d see Diesendorf and Goggin hanged for attempted genocide. Make of that what you will.
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Peter Lalor,
There’s a big difference between attacking someone at a public debate, and an off-comment in the comments of some blog. With that said, I agree 100% that we should be consistent and non-hypocritical on this issue.
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@ Barry,I agree. I’ll try to calm down. But I guess you were busy travelling when the ABARE thread happened? It took quite a bit of ‘heat’ to finally get Peter to admit that he had not answered my issues with ABARE, and in fact had no intention of ever doing so. Before getting that admission I had to respond to 20 or 30 condescending replies that smugly ignored the point. The thread was so one sided that John Bennetts told me to drop dead without any moderation. No wonder by the end of it I was writing such cranky material! But now that Peter has demonstrated he completely refuses to ever answer Four Corner’s charges against ABARE, I’ll just chalk that one up as settled by the evidence from Dr Fisher’s own mouth. @ Peter,When you get serious about answering my Top 10 questions for peak oil sceptics (latest version here) I might consider leaping into answering questions that were not specifically addressed to me. My general point is that we know fuel taxes work from history. The UK has not increased overall fuel consumption in 20 years: it is too expensive. Efficiency standards throughout Europe are far better than in the USA, because of both taxes and legislation. Considering that you want such a fundamental legislative shift as a move towards nuclear power in Australia, I’m just surprised that you are so hyper-sensitive to any other form of market intervention. On the one hand you support mechanisms to restrict free speech and remove the rights of people to challenge actions through the courts, thus driving up nuclear prices. But on the other you’re all nervous about being seen to ‘interfere’ with the precious market? Whatever. I don’t really care. I just want the job done, and I’ll support whatever government mechanism that might achieve that. We both agree on the ultimate goal — why can’t you be more tolerant of people with different means of getting there? Does Fran ever visit here, or did your fight with her drive her off for good? I nearly left over the ABARE thing!
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Eclipsenow,
I’m afraid you misunderstood the remark I made to you that you have taken as an admission. It was not such thing. As I have explained many times to you, and you continue todistort, the ABARE thread was intended to demonstrate that ABARE’s projections are the best we have on the matters they are responsible for advising the government on. However, you are so emotional about peak oil that it would be a totally pointless esercise trying to discuss it with you.
You took the view that the ABARE article was addressed solely to you and was about peak oil. It was never about peak oil. I was never intending it to be a discussion about peak oil. My ‘appology’ to you was that the article did not satisfy your interest. It was not an apolgy that is was wrong. It was intended as a nice way to say – bad luck mate; you want something I was not intending to offer you; you are not the only person on BNC and the article was never intended to address your obsession anyway.
Your passion is not my primary interest.
So can you just drop it. You’ve misunderstood or misrepresented much of what I’ve said to you on this, so it is pointless going on about it. Get over it.
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And what would that be, hmm? The future of oil pricing? And how is that set again?
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Eclipsenow,
I don’t know how to get through to you. My ABARE article was not about peak oil. It was never intended to be about peak oil, no matter what you might have hoed for or misinterpreted my intentions as being. Can you understand that? It was about the accuracy of ABARE’s projections. They are consistently good. No one has done consistently better, as far as I know. That is what the article is about. You want to discuss your obsession. So you wrote an article on it. Go and discuss your obessiion there. You seem to be so blinded by the one sided material you have read, I have no interest in trying to discuss it with you. There is no point in trying to discuss something with someone so obsessed. Discuss it with those who want to discuss it with you. I don’t, because it would be pointless. Can I be any clearer? Get over it.
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Peter, I just don’t know how you do it. You’re using the same tactics as always Peter, insult and divert. You just called me obsessed and then use sleight of hand to wheedle your way out of the oil thing. But way back when I first criticised ABARE you said:
You asked, and so I wrote a whole article explaining why a new body of independent oil geologists called ASPO have more credibility projecting the global oil situation than ABARE! The Australian Senate enquiry into peak oil even seems to give ASPO more kudos than ABARE. The head of ABARE even admitted he had never modelled global peak oil! And yet YOU call them the peak body advising the government on our resources?
Great! We’re stuffed then! Because as I have said a million times, the HEAD OF ABARE HIMSELF ADMITTED THEY HAD NEVER MODELLED GLOBAL PEAK OIL!
I nearly fell out of my chair when I heard him say it! But hey, we can all trust ABARE to advise the government on oil prices! ;-)
If you don’t want to discuss peak oil that’s fine with me — I’m bored of the continual repetition of the ‘insult and divert’ tactics you use. But don’t go around pretending you’ve defended ABARE’s ability to advise on the price of oil when you don’t even want to discuss it. Go off and model another Australian resources situation… that’s what your good at. But the last time I looked oil prices were part of a global marketplace, with global supply constraints gradually driving the price of oil up, up and away.
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EU carbon emissions trading scheme has delivered 0.3% reduction in emissions over five years according to a report in The Guardian. The ineffectiveness is attributed to the cap being too high, especially during the period of the economic downturn.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/10/eu-emissions-trading-savings
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Thanks Quokka, I’m building a page on why I don’t like the ETS. Straight taxes, on the other hand, have had demonstrable effects.
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Someone help me here… even ABARE say they have a responsibility to advise the government on international matters.
http://www.abare.gov.au/corporate/about_us/about.html
Yet… they’ll forecast ‘energy’ without addressing ASPO’s consensus on peak oil?
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2006/s1683060.htm
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I believe the Labor-Greens alliance is obliged to bring in some form of carbon pricing because they have a mandate, albeit slim. Otherwise political promises count for nothing. Today I helped replace or repair two resistive element water heaters and I discussed the several factors which will inexorably raise power bills. Imposed carbon pricing may seem like a cruel twist on top of those other factors but it’s hard to see change happening otherwise.
The de facto trend seems to be more gas fired generation with electricity consumers having few options. An ALP-Greens carbon tax of 2-3c per kwh on coal fired electricity and 6c/L on petrol may raise howls of protest but it should force the public to think of real alternatives. I suspect (if we don’t have another election) that any carbon tax will be delayed, have the rate reduced or get shot through with freebies. If so we revert back to the status quo on emissions, namely doing bugger all. Kind of like Groundhog Day but where nobody does anything.
FWIW I favour something akin to the old ETS but with 9x% of carbon credits disallowed and no special deals.
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Gas main explosion in California. A few points:
1. It will be off the media within a day or two.
2. If it had had anything to do with a nuclear power plant it would be brought up by all the ant-nuke groups and kept alive in the media for the next 20 years.
3. It reminds us again that gas pipes do rupture. So imagine the consequences if a Carbon Capture and Storage pipeline ruptured. The consequences would be far more serious. All people and animal life down slope and down valley from the rupture would be killed. Cars could not run so there would be no escape even if you knew it was there and donned an oxygen bottle. The CO2 would flow down valley and fill the valley like a dense fluid.
So far the hazards of CCS have had no serious scrutiny. It is far more dangerous than nuclear, and that has to be added on top of the hazards of the conventional fossil fuel power stations which are already 10 to 100 times more dangerous than nuclear plants; see:
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For a bit of back of envelope calculation for a “fair” carbon price we could start with the estimated external costs of coal fired electricity generation:
Click to access externpr.pdf
The figures are all over the place but 0.05 EUR per kWh looks to be somewhere in the middle.
At ~800 grams/kWh carbon emissions, we get a figure of 800 * 0.05 = 40 EUR/tonne. Or at current exchange rate ~AUD 55.00 per tonne.
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John Newlands,
Why do you expect a carbon price would cause significant emissions cuts?
What evidence is there? Is it just wishful thinking?
Is there any indication that the Greens or the environmental NGOs would become pro-nuclear, or is it just whishful thinking. Can you provide any solid evidence from anywhere? (not wishful thinking)
How can a carbon price cut emissions significantly without allowing nuclear?
Do you think we will stop using electricity or oil? Or do you think renewables will save us? At what cost?
Did you look at the video I posted which presents a case that we need to focus on reducing the cost of clean electricity, rather than raise the cost of dirty electricity – yet?
Here are some of the slides if you prefer (slides 29 to ?), but the video (up to 15:45) is much better.
Video:
Have you considered the real cost to the economy of imposing a price on carbon, sufficient to have a significant impact, but in the absence of cheap nuclear?
Why do BNC contributors keep saying “a carbon price is the solution” but are not willing to engage in a discussion as to whether there is sound evidence to support that belief?
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John Newlands,
That seems like a pretty dodgy reason to me. In the first place I’d disagree that they have a mandate for any of their policies. But even if we set that disagreement aside, there is also a mandate to do a whole lot of things they wont do. Anyway, surely this is not a sound argument to support a bad policy. BNC contributors are interested, I believe, in promoting a policy that will cut emissions, give us long term security of energy supply, cleaner, safer and other benefits. So, surely it is the role of contributors to consider what is genuinely the best way to implement sound energy policies and then promote that to all we can influence. If we are just here to support the government’s policy, when we know better, then I wonder what is the agenda? I also wonder, if the Coalition had been elected if you would have argued they had a mandate for no carbon tax or ETS. I expect you would not have? I am making this point to try to show that it is a pretty dodgy argument to say we should support a carbon tax or ETS because it is the government’s policy.
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As I have said, the UK has much higher taxes on oil than the USA. So the USA uses 68.672 bbl/day per 1,000 people, while the UK only uses 29.008 bbl/day per 1,000 people. Higher taxes = less oil uses. QED. With electricity generation, well, it will make nukes more competitive, and maybe even provide some cash for various start up or R&D funds.
In other news, Dr Brian Fisher admitted:
Yes, the material is out there. ASPO have analysed it, and found we’ll peak this year. The French version of ABARE are far less concerned. They’ve given us to 2013! But ABARE have left it up to ‘the marketplace’. Phew, that’s a relief! Glad ABARE are there to help! ;-)
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Why AGW deniers should support the IFR and Nuclear energy:
(Skip the denialist crap, page 203 onward)
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Peter Lang,
I am pretty lukewarm about a carbon price in the absence of nuclear power. In the absence of a (capable) clean alternative to current energy sources, there’s no discretion available to the energy consumer to respond to the price signal, so I am pessimistic about how much it could achieve, and frustrated by a public discussion that often seems to treat it as an end itself. I think my efforts are better spent advocating for nuclear power than for a carbon price. I’m also deeply suspicious of carbon trading because of the inevitable shell games and would rather see fossil fuels taxed directly at some point in the supply chain. But I can’t get too excited about it without a nuclear alternative available.
So, nuclear power comes first, a sine qua non.
But I’m interested in the situation where nuclear power is an option. If we had the option of commissioning nuclear plants for new generation, then a carbon price should improve the economics of nuclear relative to coal and gas, and favour a faster displacement of fossil fuels.
Peter, whats your position on a carbon tax when nuclear power is available?
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I don’t know if anyone here is still interested, but after my early interest in Kitegen, I decided to do some research. I would appreciate if some of the energy buffs from this website would ‘peer review’ my estimates.
Looking on the website, its stated that the kites fly at 800m height. From this I tried to work out the ‘Aerial footprint’ or the equivalent area that would have to be dedicated to each ‘stem’ – I’m assuming the area around is totally dedicated to a single one, to prevent the possibility of the lines getting tangled. I was perhaps overly fair to the technology in assuming that the angle between the ground and tether to be 45 degrees. So I calculate that each 3MW Kitegen would require:
((tan 45)⋅800)^2⋅pi = 2010,619.3 m^2
And energy density to be 3/(((tan 45)⋅800)^2⋅pi) = 1.4*10^-6 MW/m^2
Okay….
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I forgot. This is the other great reason we should all relax about ABARE.
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2006/s1683060.htm
Well, if he’d read the Hirsch report and actually looked into how long it took to set up those CTL plants then he might not have said such a silly thing. If he’d looked into global peak coal he might not have said such a silly thing. If he’d thought about the CLIMATE implications he might not have said such a silly thing. If he looked into the fact that electric cars allow emissions free transport without any air pollution and all the lung-cancer we get from burning coal and oil, he might not have said such a silly thing.
But despite these 4 good reasons not to say it, he went ahead and said it. Yay ABARE!
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eclipse: the u.s. transport infrastructure is different from the U.K. There’s much less convenient public transport, some urban areas excepted.
a major carbon tax plus price increases related to peak oil (assuming your view is right) would be passed on to the consumer in a really bad economy, which would be made worse by the price increases. due to the passing on of price increases, and the inelasticity of demand (given lack of transport infrastructure), the oil companies would largely continue with business as usual, especially given their huge sunk costs in fossil fuel related infrastructure.
I don’t see how many nukes can get built safely and run well without state led development, on coordination grounds alone. On the other hand, our states (U.S.) are not neutral with respect to powerful interests. If I had total power, I would slash the military budget and build nuclear power. But no real U.S. leader will do this unless the military spending became blatantly dysfunctional for u.s. geopolitical interests.
when deutschebank predicted 165 bucks a barrel for 2016, I don’t know if that included a big carbon price on the order of 15-40 bucks a ton of CO2. I doubt it.
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For those who consider that rapid nuclear roll out is a necessary prerequisite for an acceptable future, Barry’s report on his return from the States and subsequent information in links and comments made here provide sobering reading. The lesson I have learnt is that democratic states with liberalised energy markets will not succeed for fairly obvious reasons.
The high up front costs and uncertainties over build times and future electricity prices make private investment in nuclear power unattractive to free market investors. This is not a criticism of free markets, but an indication that it is the role of governments to make (or guarantee) inter-generational investments.
Finrod is almost certainly correct to state that , averaged over 60 years, nuclear electricity will be cheaper than any other form of electricity. Investment in nuclear makes sense in the long term. Peter Lang is correct in wishing nuclear to be competitive with coal and appears to be reconciled to the view that this will not be achieved by making it less safe (from an engineering perspective). He points out that he accepts the need for taxpayer funds to kick start the process, just as governments have accepted the fact that, without support, renewables wouldn’t get built. John Morgan would support a carbon tax once nuclear is treated as an “honorary” renewable.
The global recession has, in some ways, made transition to clean energy more difficult, but I am wondering whether, politically, it might also have provided an opportunity. Keynesian, make- work, solutions are often favoured in recessions as economic stimuli and partial alternatives to non productive unemployment payments. Given the quantitative easing that’s going on, does one really need to increase taxes directly (rather than debauching the currency!)? UK banks, saved by QE, are now pseudo nationalised concerns and are attracting criticism for sitting on loadsamoney rather than lending it to potentially productive companies. Unfortunately, many such aren’t going to prove as productive as the owners think and banks are being told to become more risk averse. What better way for banks to use their surpluses to stimulate the economy than investment in government backed nuclear power? Pension fund managers should also receive encouragement from government backing to identify a secure long term return on investment from nuclear.
I think most voters realise that things are going to get worse in the short term. Currently, politicians are promising that all will be OK once we resume economic growth, necessary for the survival of the capitalist system. We need them to make the next logical step – the realisation of the necessity of a plentiful supply of affordable energy as a precondition of resumed growth. The recognition of peak oil (energy security threat) will probably act as a more urgent spur to them than AGW in making this next step. However, if it is made, I think at least some democratic leaders will emerge and stand a chance of convincing their electorates that nuclear rollout is both a necessity for survival and, simultaneously, offers a chance of re-establishing economic activity, growth and prosperity.
Having said all that, an hypothecated carbon tax and a level energy playing field still seem quite attractive. I think hypothecation could be a political selling point. However, I don’t think the money raised should necessarily be returned as dividend, though I can see the merits of that too (and the bureaucratic complexities). I would prefer the money raised to be used in support of nuclear rollout (or, perhaps, clean energy rollout).
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“For those who consider that rapid nuclear roll out is a necessary prerequisite for an acceptable future, Barry’s report on his return from the States and subsequent information in links and comments made here provide sobering reading. ” – Douglas Wise
Douglas, Barry’s problem is that he has not hooked up with Oak Ridge. Oak Ridge, and Hanford, are the places where the term rapid nuclear rollout have true meaning. No trip to Oak Ridge would be complete without a visit to the K-25 site. K-25 was the huge uranium separation facility built during World War II. The thing is taking a lot longer to demolish than it took took to build, and it was in 1945 the largest building under a single roof in the world.
The X-10 Graphite reactor was the second reactor ever built. it was 100 times more powerful than the original Chicago pile, and was built in 10 months.
When Y-12 could not git enough copper to wire its Calutons, they simply borrowed 14,700 tons of silver from the United States Treasury, to wire up the things up.
Yet Oak Ridge, was nothing more than a few mountain villages in 1942. By 1945 it was a huge industrial/scienific complex . That was the first nuclear roll out.
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Hey Charles Barton, have you ever watched Star Trek: Vovager? Watch this video from about 3.25 onwards –
:p
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A new front; the dinosaur Greens scent an opportunity:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/rooted/2010/09/08/the-best-opportunity-for-renewables-we-may-ever-get/
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Props to ‘Cyril R’ over at energy from thorium for discovering this:
Simple Levelized Cost of Energy Calculator (BETA)
http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/lcoe/lcoe.html
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Huw.
The reason windturbines have to be spaced wide enough from each other are the turbolences.
A kitegen needs about 1/4 the space (+the airspace obciously). They can reach higher than 800m.
7000h/a at around 2500m.
There are 2 lengthly discussions over at theoildrum with Massimo from kitegen replying.
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5538
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5554
There could be rapid rollout. All parts are available and even 3rd world countries could built hundreds of kitegens every year.
Shipping of components is easy. No huge blades.
It would also create hundreds of jobs (lines have to be changed every 6 month, they have to be recycled.) and still yield power competetive with cole.
Wind is cheap already but kitegen can really push the limits.
I am working in investment. We have financed gas, biomass, cole and wind. We are in contact with kitegen since 3 years and first in the line when they sell their technology. It will take some time to understand the technology for legislation. There are huge profits to be made for those that built the first plants. In countries where you are guaranteed to sell renewable you can directly compete with gas/coil when conventional wind and solar are not working.
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Charles Barton:
Thank you for your reply. However, I think you may have missed the point. I wasn’t suggesting that rapid nuclear roll out was not technically feasible. In fact, I have great faith in the fact that it is, but only when national leaders give it high priority – as suggested by terms such as going on a war footing or adopting a Manhatten style approach. Laissez faire free market capitalism won’t hack it.
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Wind is cheap already but kitegen can really push the limits.
I am working in investment. We have financed gas, biomass, cole and wind.
Wind is not cheap, kitegen is unproven, and ‘cole’ is spelled ‘coal’.
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Wind is cheap already but kitegen can really push the limits.
I am working in investment. We have financed gas, biomass, cole and wind.
Wind is not cheap, kitegen is unproven, and ‘cole’ is spelled ‘coal’.
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coal is spelled “Kohle” if you speak a nicer language than English ;)
Wind is a great investment and our tech people are all fired up when they get new data about the kitegen. (they also tell me internet forums are useless.)
I don`t really care, I am in marketing but like the kites.
BTW…anything that has not been built yet is unproven, does that mean it is no good idea?
I don`t understand your opposition to this idea. 6-2cent CO2 free renewable energy from a technology that could spread fast and be built everywhere. Isn`t that what everybody here is looking for?
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[quote] 6-2cent CO2 free renewable energy from a technology that could spread fast and be built everywhere. [/quote]
According to the website and the video, the availability factor is dependent on location. This looks good for the med, but In my own country, maybe not so good. I hope a few do get built here in the UK though, as they look cool, and the music in the video is soothing.
Also, even the 60% odd availability factor isn’t reliable enough for base-load, or really anything else.
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Wind is a great investment and our tech people are all fired up when they get new data about the kitegen. (they also tell me internet forums are useless.)
I don`t really care, I am in marketing but like the kites.
Wind is a great investment for the investors so long as the subsidies are maintained. Once those are dropped, no-one will touch it with a barge-pole. In other words, it cannot be sustained on its own merits, and financiers know this full well.
Your techniocians may well be enthusiastic about projected numbers for kitegen, but they are meaningless until demonstrated in the commercial world.
If you think internet forums are useless, why are you here spruiking kitegen?
BTW…anything that has not been built yet is unproven, does that mean it is no good idea?
No, but it does mean that it should not be relied upon as a sure answer to serious problems, and just about the only context I see kitegen being raised in is as an alternative to proven, reliable nuclear technology.
I don`t understand your opposition to this idea. 6-2cent CO2 free renewable energy from a technology that could spread fast and be built everywhere. Isn`t that what everybody here is looking for?
Those figures are not yet demonstrated. Remember that even with a capacity factor of 60%, the outages are still unschedulable, so expensive backup still needs to be built and used. This will blow those rosy figures out of the water.
Also keep in mind that large aerodynamic structures intended to be airborne for extended periods have a goood deal of environmental stress to deal with. This concept is far from being proven.
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Also, even the 60% odd availability factor isn’t reliable enough for base-load, or really anything else.
Baseload coal plants get by with CFs the same or only slightly better, but their outages are usually predictable, so they don’t require the massive backup that chronic unscheduled outages would demand.
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There is no way we would invest in nuclear without guarantees. You know about the cost of nuclear in Europe and yet believe that it will be profitable for investors the comming decades?
Nuclear can only live with heavy subsidies in Germany. They cap safety investments at 500mio (when it costs 2.3b) and gives guarantees to not raise fuel tax.
Power does not get cheaper only because power companys make more profit every year.
And they won`t invest in new nuclear plants because they are too expensive.
Runtime is also limited.
When we invest in German wind power the money stays in Germany.
You also can`t built nukes in Australia. Better not waste time and start building kitegens to get it proven fast.
The carousel would be an even more powerfull design with higher CFs.
You can always overbuilt by 30%, built storage and still get away with less carbon for only a little premium over nuclear. +no waste problem, more jobs,…(we are still talking gen3 not unproven gen4…not that gen3 has proven economy in future market situations yet).
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Stefanie I have problems with Nuclear can only live with heavy subsidies in Germany. As in
1) how come they want to heavily tax the nuclear industry in Germany? Might as well just drop the subsidies if that’s the case.
2) why doesn’t the nuclear industry get both a feed-in tariff and obligatory purchase of its product? It seems to me wind and solar can’t lose in Germany because the economics are distorted.
3) what’s with the proposals for new coal fired plants if renewables are so good?
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@ Greg Meyerson,
You raise some really good points and I was being a little flippant. Of course the UK has better public transport, as does the whole European Union. As a rule on a per capita basis, the EU uses half the oil of the average American because of their better Urban planning and public transport. I also agree that there are other factors, such as EU legislation on vehicle efficiency, that affect how much oil they use. It’s *not* just the effects of a ‘Carbon tax’.
AND I agree with you that there is a point where nations just must use oil, or something like it. So a ‘Carbon tax’ on oil would probably only damage the economy further, especially after peak oil. My point was not what to do now going forward but what fuel tax policy has accomplished in the past. I can’t remember where I read it, but I remember hearing that the UK has not increased their oil consumption on a per capita basis in 20 years!
But what about the ‘Bumpy plateau’ effect that many predict as a result of feedbacks between a rising and falling price of oil flowing through into causing a boom and bust economy? Alternative energy sources won’t have clear market signals because the marketplace will be all over the place.
http://oildepletionprotocol.org/theprotocol
Agreed! But here’s another thought.
(And this is just a personal reflection: nothing here is nailed to my support of nuclear power — this is a totally different topic!)
Does the USA really need so many legislative bodies? How much does it cost to administer 50 states? Why do you need 50 State legislatures? What about amalgamating them into 20, or 10? What is so good about having multiplication of paper work, tradespeople that have to learn new rules as they move between states, multiple education policies and cirrocumulus, etc? Dr Mark Drummond of “Beyond Federation” has estimated that Australia would save $50 billion a year by rolling our states over into a unified National Parliament that would create Nation-wide legislative unity, while letting the Local governments deliver various services. It saves business having to waste money educating employees about the requirements of various State laws, and saves the taxpayer paying for 9 Parliaments instead of one.
If we could save $50 billion a year abolishing our few state parliaments, then America would surely save so much more! Just a thought.
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