By 2024 Bangladesh should have two nuclear power plants with the money lent by Russia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooppur_Nuclear_Power_Plant
In contrast by 2024 Australia will have lost a comparable amount of generating capacity with the closure of Hazelwood and Liddell.

It beats me if Qld think they can go from 7.5% renewables in 2016 to 50% in 2030 why they don't offer that expertise to developing countries. I wonder if by 2030 Australia will still have higher per capita emissions than India, Bangladesh and indeed most other countries. Perhaps they've cottoned on to something we haven't.

Adapt, what like those pesky dinosaurs, who found, when their atmosphere was more than 20% Co2, they asphyxiated! As we will when the plant life renewing our oxygen is destroyed by the purveyors of fossil fuel. Or rather the consequences of refusing to adapt to other safer, cheaper, cleaner carbon free energy provision!

You Gary keep on insisting we need coal? Why? And just more rubbish in rubbish out garbage that seeks to retain a coal reliant income stream?

I think it must have escaped your selectively deaf, feeble attention span, but there's cleaner, cheaper, safer than coal, energy. And if the principle part of our energy mix, we can go from strength to strength. without needing to adapt.

Or failing that grow gills so we can still live along the coastline after it is inundated by melt water? Like Kevin Costner in WaterWorld?

Or better yet, adapt to an economy no longer reliant on the absolute stupidity of endless population growth fuel by planet killing fossil fuels.

Some of us could even adapt to that as the richest no wucking furries, folk in the graveyard? Your legacy or epitaph?

As we automate there will be less jobs and we'll need fewer people to fill them!

Is that what you meant by adaptation? And even more intense record breaking heat waves and even more oldies tottering off the mortal coil, years before their appointed date with destiny!

More of your preferred adaptation Gary?

As they say in the classics, please engage brain before putting mouth into gear! At least that way you might even appear intelligent? Nothing however can improve non existent, human empathy!

Perhaps you could adapt into a fair dinkum human being and create some in some unusual and rare for your kind, adaptation?
Alan B.

Churchill famous opined that "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."

We are the same. Coal is the right thing for Australia and we will return to it after all the other lunacies have run their course.

Why do we need renewables? Even if its true that the world needs to reduce emissions, we are such a small player that our contribution is immaterial. Maybe we need to be part of a world-wide effort? But the world isn't making an effort. China and India are increasing emissions willy-nilly and the US will almost certainly pull out of the Paris 'agreement' some time this year.

If people really were concerned about emissions they'd be barracking for fracking but they aren't because they don't.

Coal is the cheapest form of energy available to Australians and will remain so for a few decades yet. As things start (or continue?) to go pear-shaped for the economy, self-interest will out-weigh RET fantasies and we will "do the right thing". But its gunna be a bumpy ride until then.

I've been trying to leave Alan B alone since it just seems cruel to pile on to his constant rubbish. But I can't let this one pass.

" what like those pesky dinosaurs, who found, when their atmosphere was more than 20% Co2,"

20%. 20%!!

Around 70 millions years ago when the dinosaurs died out, CO2 levels were around 800 ppm. That's 0.08%. 20%...struth.

And apparently we're headed back there. We are currently at 400ppm and might get to 550 ppm by 2100. But Alan thinks we're not far from 200,000 ppm.

Being monumentally ill-informed isn't a crime and can be endearing in the young or ageing buffoons. But when you combine that with attacks on the intelligence of those of clearly superior abilities (describing Johns as having "selectively deaf, feeble attention span"), well it ain't a good look.

Anyone who thinks that Australia can survive without coal is a blithering idiot. We need to get back to coal, using it and selling it to countries like India and China, who don't kowtow to the god of environmentalism or to the climate demi-gods.

The blithering idiots in charge, Team Turnbull, have done nothing commendable by fixing RET and 23.5%. If they want to win Brownie points, they have to scrap the entire RET rort altogether.

This whole subject has become stupid and boring. If it's not coal, it must be nuclear. Wind and solar are a childish fantasy.

Hypocritical article, whinging about an allegedly misleading claim that renewables aren't to blame for power cuts, and then making the thoroughly misleading claim that they are!

SA's last blackout (earlier this month) was the result of the NEM insisting on load shedding after underestinating demand and failing to get Pelican Point power station to switch on half its turbines. 'Tis a bit of a stretch to blame renewables for that.

The statewide blackout last year was a different matter. The way two wind farms abruptly shut down was one factor in the catastrophic chain of events that started with powerlines blowing over. So renewables could be blamed, but as it was a settings problem not an intrinsic problem with renewables, it is not safe to draw any conclusion from that abut the economic effect of renewables.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Taswegian,
Going to 50% renewables in Queensland (or any other Australian state) is relatively easy because of our low population density and sunny climate. Where population density is very high, as it is in most developing countries, the choice is effectively between nuclear energy and a much less energy intense economy than we have.

___________________________________________________________________________________

mhaze,
Though we are a small player, our contribution is far from immaterial. We could be inspiring other countries to do more, but instead our continued usage of coal is an excuse for other countries to do nothing.

Before 'adapting' any further there is need for complete science and absolute scientific proof carbon is causing AGW, or climate change as it's now called.

Aidan,

We might have a differing view as to what is 'material'. Based on the numbers used by the IPCC, if (a very big if) Australia adheres to its Paris commitments, world temperatures in 2100 will be about .004 degrees lower than a business as usual approach. I call that immaterial but you may have a different standard.

"instead our continued usage of coal is an excuse for other countries to do nothing."

Please advise which countries are using our coal use as an excuse to do nothing. Actually don't bother - there aren't any. China and India will continue to grow their economy and their emissions irrespective of what we do.

As an aside, since you favour reducing emissions, do you support fracking? I use that as a guide to see how committed people are to their emissions fantasies.

Marsh gas, is in fact, heavier than air Co2 and Some very well preserved species died as a consequence of crossing low lying hollows, filled with marsh gas, where they were effectively asphyxiated by the very local atmosphere, which was more than 20% Co2.

Aside from that the rest of the prehistoric world's atmosphere seems to have been a very healthy 51% oxygen now down to less than 25%. Which seems to have allowed various pathogens like HIV/AIDS to establish and prosper, when a higher more oxygen laden atmosphere, may well have effectively disinfected them.

That said and back to topic, if coal has a viable but reduced role in our future then it should be part of finished steel exports. And that's only doable with clean cheap safe abundant energy, automation and the locally invented one step process that turns iron ore directly into finished steel, and given all the above and genuine tax reform, at prices other folk find difficult to compete with.

But even more so if our exports are ferried to them on our own nuclear powered national fleet, and again where automation and our nuclear fuel costs (thorium and refueled once every 100 years) give us an unbeatable edge there as well!

Bulk freight forwarding remains one of the most profitable enterprises on planet earth. Therefore, we can use it and the aforementioned, to keep our own homeland economy as healthy as possible!

Benefiting the entire economy, will serve us all along with the currently privileged, who no doubt will also be ultimately better off! And in a thorium fired future, as opposed to a self destructive coal fired one!
Alan B.

Alan B,

So we gone from dinosaurs dying out from CO2 poisoning to a coupla unlucky creatures dying from marsh gas.

And to try to justify your last set of bullsh!t numbers you create more bullsh!t numbers.

1. Marsh gas is 50% methane, and 40% nitrogen (on average) so, no, Co2 isn't 20% there either. A study in the USA showed CO2 as about 8% in marsh gases there. So another BS number gone.

2. Oxygen never made up 51% of the atmosphere. It never got above 30% +/- 5. But based on your previous evasions I expect you'll tell us that it once got above 50% in Upper Kumbukta West one day.
Oops another BS number gone.

3. The earth's atmosphere is 21% oxygen not 25%. Another BS.....

Really Alan wouldn't it be easier to just admit that you screwed up and move on trying to do better next time. All this effort to defend the undefendable is unedifying. Oh and perhaps a little circumspection the next time you attack someone else's intelligence.

As to the rest of your fantasies, well the best thing that can be said is that they make your BS numbers look reasonable. Thorium powered cargo ships - for God's sake.

It's a rare pleasure to see two sets of loopy fantasies on OLO on the same topic.

Alan B gets to run his thorium fantasy for the umpteenth time, along with a swag of dodgy numbers and factoids.

Aidan gets to run his usual spin to defend the Left against their malodorous errors in setting RETs which will - predictably and beyond doubt as the South Australia catastrophes have shown - cause brown outs and black outs on a large scale everywhere they are imposed.

Coal is the only reliable, cheap, baseline option for electricity generation in Australia for the foreseeable future. It's also a great job generator and export earner. Nuclear is an option, but would take many years to establish and no doubt hand the creepy green-Left another useless anti-Australian campaign.

And the really offensive aspect of Alan's and Aidan's fantasies is that they take no account whatsoever of the financial burden the RETs impose on pensioners and low income earners to achieve near as dammit zero result.

Now I recognise that Aidan regards wage earners as slaves. He has said as much on OLO in the past when postulating that all the money generated by wage earners and investors actually belongs to the government and that governments may from time to time graciously allow us to keep a few dollars by restraining themselves from spending even more. Aidan is nothing if not a pure socialist.

Sane people, however, rightly believe the money they earn is their own and don't like to see governments with their hands in our pockets to fund their moral posturing and grandstanding. It's even worse when our money is squandered on nonsense such as perpetual subsidies of wind and solar farms and renewables, obsolete submarines, obsolete broadband networks and the like.

mhaze,
This is about a lot more than our (truly pathetic) Paris commitments; it's about the effect that our emissions are having on the world's climate. We should be world leaders in reducing our emissions; instead we're freeloading off other countries, and damaging the international political will to take action. The amount of action that countries agree on taking is way less than what's required.

Fortunately China's not waiting for us and is investing heavily in renewables.

As for fracking, it's not a simple matter of support or opposition to all fracking; it depends on the individual circumstances. We need tougher environmental standards, and regulators with much longer sharper teeth. And there are some areas that absolutely should not be fracked. But in the medium to long term, fracking should and will have a major role, as indeed it did before the shoddy CSG frackers appeared.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Alan B,
What's this one step process to which you refer? I tried searching and found A one-step process for chemical coloring on stainless steel. But I did not find any new Australian process for making the steel itself. I know there is a more efficient way of making steel that has yet to be commercialised (molten oxide electrolysis) but AIUI that's not Australian.

BTW HIV is a virus - that's what the V stands for. It doesn't survive in the air, no matter how high or low the oxygen content. It only survives in the body and some bodily fluids such as blood.

calwest,
"Coal is the only reliable, cheap, baseline option for electricity generation in Australia for the foreseeable future."
If that's all you can foresee then you're very shortsighted!

"It's also a great job generator and export earner."
...and health wrecker.

You misunderstand my position completely. I'd actually like electricity to be cheaper. We're already close to (indeed I believe we've already reached) the stage where it's only the funding inefficiencies which make renewables a more expensive power source, and technology is still pushing the cost down further. Meanwhile the overall effect of the RET is unclear - the NEM is so inefficient that the RET is known to drive costs down, but AFAIK there's no definitive answer on how that benefit compares to the cost of the RET itself.

If you think I regard wage owners as slaves, your comprehension level's even worse than Jardine's! What I'm not sure of, though, is whether it's my position or reality you fail to comprehend. If you think all duty is slavery, it's the latter.

It is simply a statement of fact that when someone has paid tax, they no longer own the money they have paid; the government does. Conversely, the taxpayers are not liable for the government's debts; the government is. The government is accountable to the people (indeed it should be more accountable than it is) but legally it is a separate entity. And (although I doubt anyone who self identifies as a "pure socialist" would regard me as one) like most socialists I want the government to be in a symbiotic relationship with the people, and I don't want the government to waste its money.

Correction to the above: in paragraph 4, "wage owners" should be "wage earners".

The 2014 RET review concluded that the cost of CO2 avoided by the RET was $59 per tonne. At the time the LGC subsidy was about $35 per Mwh now it's $85. The late carbon tax closed at $24.15 per tCO2. The sight of all those windmills and solar farms apparently gives warm fuzzy feelings to Shorten and friends but it is costing plenty for minimal emissions reductions. Time to try something else.

Lighter than air methane might well be generated in marshes, but doesn't hang around in hollows or over water, to become marsh gas, like heavier than air Co2!

And just labelling something you don't like as BS, doesn't make it so. Nor does par for the course, abuse! Go read a book, (scientific tome) perhaps once this lifetime? As opposed to burning them or just hitting them with your BS stamp?
Alan B.

Very good Adian, and blood carries OXYGEN to all parts of the body!

Where more is usually better!

Ask any mountain climber!

Some countries use oxygen saturation to naturally disinfect town water supply. I prefer to include UV as part of that strategy.

And should you want to travel, there's a handy battery powered UV wand, you can buy online, that you can stir around in a jug of seemingly clear water for just a few minutes before you brush your teeth or drink as safe (when it stops fluorescing) to rehydrate, given tea, coffee and alcoholic beverages, are quite effective diuretics.

Failing that, boil your water if you actually can?

Diabetic and tropical ulcers can be notoriously difficult to cure! But may respond well to oxygen saturation in a hyperbaric chamber? And about as cheap as (the mortal enemy of big pharma) medicine gets!

And all manner of afflictions can be assisted by/respond to, the simple cost effective, (cheap as chips) (millionaire exclusive) preventative medicine therapy. Including strokes and paraplegia, always providing it happens extremely early in the management regime.

In the hospital bound ambulance/chopper, not too soon. And inflatable chambers accommodate that as stock standard trauma management!

Many viruses may be also killed by an atmosphere rich in oxygen, introduced into the host. Ancient 51 % ( a world almost coast to coast forest) being twice as good as modern day 25%! Where we clearfell a football field's worth of forest daily!?

In any event, oxygen is implicated in all healing, and we may well become dependant on it, ask anyone drowning, suffering emphysema, or cresting Mount everest, without some tanked supply.

Liquid nitrogen sprayed onto your birthday suit and inside a purpose built cabinet for a maximum 30 seconds, kills all manner of pathogens too numerous to mention? along with all evidence of libido, for at least several hours!
YYYYYIPE YYYYYYYIPE MMMMMMMUMMY!
Alan B.

A nuclear powered Bangladesh clearly has something we don't? A leadership that actually has a informed, erudite, thinking brain to share between them?

And possibly the source of that strange burning smell? Or is that the curry? I've heard the way to tell if it is a really good curry? It has to burn as much on the way out as it did on the way in?
Alan B.

Rhosty: "And just labelling something you don't like as BS, doesn't make it so." - In general this is true, however it doesn't mean that when someone says you are talking rubbish that they're always wrong. And in this case mhaze is right and you're wrong!

Many times over the past few years your misunderstandings and flaws in your scientific waffle and drivel have been pointed out to you and corrected. However, you NEVER seem to acknowledge or admit that you could possibly be wrong. It is YOU that needs to read a book on science (and while you're at it read a book on economics!).

(Bye-the-way- I have personally corrected you a while back about your 50%+ oxygen claim. At the time I called you out, said it wasn't so and even went on to explain that oxygen is TOXIC to us at this level (it is toxic to a lot of other species as well). I supplied a web-link to wikipedia as a reference. But you just ignored it and are still making this bogus claim.

PLease, please, please: if you're going to make scientific sounding claims- at least do some research first!)

Aidan,

There is a very strong correlation between the amount of renewables in a country's grid and the cost of electricity.

I guess that Jay Weatherill is deeply regretting his cock up.

I prefer the economics drive power policy not subsidies or ideology. If an industry can exist on renewable energy then sure do so but right now its at a higher price that is coming down for solar at least.
Heavy industry its not so true they need scale of economy and a reliable energy source with redundancy that at least for SA does not exist. The focus on renewables has taken the focus away from good practice, closing power stations was just plain stupid and SA seems to have a poor grid design relying on Victoria ?
My view on that approach is why have an SA government at all if they are going to abdicate responsibility ? I don't want to start a debate on useless state government not being required but the SA government is a good reason to do so.

Surely it is economists who abdicate responsibility in the advice they don't provide involving the negatives such as cost and life of batteries essential for nighttime solar.

A couple of significant points:

BOM, and other Agencies are suggesting there is a likelihood on ENSO going back into an El Nino phase for 2017. Unusual circumstance as El Nino occurs cyclicly; not yearly, 2015 had been suggestive of an El Nino event could happen.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/

The other matter relates to APRA, watch the short video.

And quote:

"Australia's greenhouse gas pollution jumped in 2015-16 as coal use continued to rise after the scrapping of the carbon price, making it harder to meet its emissions targets.

Overall emissions are up 3.4 per cent compared with 2014-15 and up 7.5 per cent since the Abbott government eliminated the carbon price in June 2014, the Australian Conservation Foundation said, citing new data released under the National Greenhouse & Energy Reporting Scheme."

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/disastrous-australias-carbon-emissions-jump-as-coalfired-power-ramps-up-20170228-gunc8f.html

Coal being cheap might appear so on the surface, but, there are many hidden costs, health being one of them.

Further significant points:

Shell knew about the impacts of climate change in the 1990s:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/28/shell-knew-oil-giants-1991-film-warned-climate-change-danger

Though

ExxonMobil scientists had already stated that fossil fuels have an impact on climate in the 1970s.

And

A New Zealand paper discussed the anticipated problems with fossil fuels in 1912.

Another matter:

Huge areas of permafrost thawing in North West Canada. Permafrost does not thaw unless temperature increases and remains in an increased period for some time.

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/27022017/global-warming-permafrost-study-melt-canada-siberia

I'm sorry I didn't get to this sooner, but I've been busy.

Aidan said on 26 February 2017:

If you think I regard wage owners as slaves, your comprehension level's even worse than Jardine's! What I'm not sure of, though, is whether it's my position or reality you fail to comprehend. If you think all duty is slavery, it's the latter.

It is simply a statement of fact that when someone has paid tax, they no longer own the money they have paid; the government does.

But on 23 May 2016, Aidan said:

Government money is government money, not other people's money. The government may choose to return it to the people (or not take it in the first place) but doing so has economic consequences.

There is only one way to interpret that statement: all money belongs to the government, which may on occasion choose to "return" or "not take it in the first place". And the lowly wage earner is a slave whose wages belong to the government to do with as it will.

That is the problem with socialists: the individual counts for nothing. And history shows that that sort of thinking has given us millions upon millions of deaths under Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and others "for the sake of the greater good", which will turn into Utopia at some unspecified time in the future. In every case, that delusion became apparent all too quickly.

Still, Aidan, no doubt would have been there in his kommisar's uniform organising the firing squads "for the greater good".

Here's a lesson for life, Aidan: you might as well tell the truth, because then you won't have to remember what you said last time.

Gary Johns again? When is Online Opinion going to let a climatologist address some of these articles?

Climatologists can address any article on this site just by commenting or writing their own article.

Shell had a film produced in 1991, the message is quite clear; in dong nothing about climate change the risks are high. ExxonMobil scientists were stating the impact of fossil fuels in the 1970s. A short newspaper article published in 1912 warned of the impact of fossil fuels. Alreadyin the mid 1800s experiments showed the interaction of CO2 and light.

http://youtu.be/0VOWi8oVXmo