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The Forum > Article Comments > The cost of inaction on carbon emissions > Comments

The cost of inaction on carbon emissions : Comments

By David Leigh, published 19/7/2011

Australia needs to get on with the job of bilaterally tackling climate change and leave the politics out of the discussions.

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David. Clearly you passionately believe in the need to abate CO2 emissions. Are you at all aware, using your undoubted critical thinking faculties, of the weaknesses in the arguments claiming that CO2 is the main close of supposed global warming? Really, you should have a look.

More importantly though, I find it interesting in a post headlined "The Cost of Inaction On Carbon Emissions" that no cost information at all provided. What, David, actually is the cost if we take no action.

This government is big on ambitious projects paid for by the taxpayer, but without a skerrick of standard cost benefit analysis that you would apply if you were building a new chook-house.

We now know the costs of the policy (more or less, likely higher than claimed) but we know very little about the benefits. Is our carbon tax going to make any material difference to Australia? The planet?

I encourage you to set down the actual cost of inaction as you see it, and then we might have something that could persuade some of us.
Posted by Herbert Stencil, Tuesday, 19 July 2011 7:51:18 AM
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I see alarmists have given up citing the wonderful example of European climate policy, which is probably wise, given its increasingly rapid slide into bankruptcy. Britain's current environmental agenda is all talk, but if they attempt to adopt them the same result will inevitably follow. And of course it's a common tactic for Greens to cite other countries' lunatic plans as if they were realities. There are probably Greens in Britain right now explaining what a wonderful reception Gillard's Carbon Tax has had. Sigh.

Just what IS it about 'we can't feed, clothe and house and educate seven billion people on sunlight, wind and good intentions' that the Greens don't understand?
Posted by Jon J, Tuesday, 19 July 2011 7:53:15 AM
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Shut the gate to the bottom of the garden, the fairies are escaping.

Anyone who is not rolling on the ground laughing, at the suggestion that Scotland could convert to 100% renewables by 2020, & suggest this is good policy, must be off in fairyland.
Posted by Hasbeen, Tuesday, 19 July 2011 8:10:50 AM
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David, you tell us that <<Offshore and onshore wind farms are already in place and contributing heavily to the mix of power generation in the U.K.>>

Yep! But what you didn’t tell us was;

“The Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) and The Sunday Telegraph asked Colin Gibson, former power network director at the National Grid, for an estimate that takes into account these production costs.
His figures suggest that across its whole life, onshore wind will cost as much as £178 per megawatt hour of electricity generated, three times nuclear (£60). Offshore wind, with its much higher construction cost, is more than four times dearer, at £254 per megawatt hour.”
“Mr Gibson stresses that, though most of his calculations are based on official data, some have to be based on his best judgment, and aren’t definitive. But the broad picture is clear. “If you take the costs of a mixture of on and offshore wind, it is very roughly £140 per megawatt hour higher than a mixture of nuclear and gas turbines,” he says.
“Multiply that by the number of megawatt hours we use, and you get a figure in the order of maybe £11 billion a year, which is about £550 per customer per annum [extra] for wind power. That is quite frightening.”

You also told us that <<The Scottish Government has committed to a target of 100 per cent renewable energy by 2020.>>

Yep! But what you didn’t tell us was;

“Also, wind farms in Scotland will not only be selling electricity to England, but England will also be trading its emissions to Scotland. So, England will be paying twice to Scotland.”

(Extracts from UK Sunday Herald, 17 July. Research by Andrew Gilligan)

You should do your research before we do on OLO, then you won’t look so unprofessional.

See; Analysis by Waters Wye Associates.

“The Cumulative Impact of Climate Change Policies on Energy Intensive Industries Update on UK Energy Intensive Industries Update Against New Government Policy”

http://www.waterswye.co.uk/EIUG%20Carbon%20Tax%20Update%20201103.pdf

Check out page 14 in particular, then tell us how good this will all be for us!
Posted by spindoc, Tuesday, 19 July 2011 9:51:16 AM
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David, almost forgot.

The other thing you forgot to tell us was;

Stuart Young Consulting on behalf of the John Muir Trust entitled “Analysis of Wind Power Generation, November 2008 to March 2010” (Actual data from wind generators grid connections)

1. Average output from wind was 27.18% of metered capacity in 2009, 21.14% in 2010, and 24.08% between November 2008 and December 2010 inclusive.
2. There were 124 separate occasions from November 2008 till December 2010 when total generation from the wind farms metered by National Grid was less than 20MW. (Average capacity over the period was in excess of 1600MW).
3. The average frequency and duration of a low wind event of 20MW or less between November 2008 and December 2010 was once every 6.38 days for a period of 4.93 hours.
4. At each of the four highest peak demands of 2010 wind output was low being respectively 4.72%, 5.51%, 2.59% and 2.51% of capacity at peak demand.
Also, during the study period, wind generation was:
• Below 20% of capacity more than half the time.
• Below 10% of capacity over one third of the time.
• Below 2.5% capacity for the equivalent of one day in twelve.
• Below 1.25% capacity for the equivalent of just under one day a month.
The discovery that for one third of the time wind output was less than 10% of capacity, and often significantly less than 10%, was an unexpected result of the analysis.
Posted by spindoc, Tuesday, 19 July 2011 9:53:53 AM
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Leaving aside the small matter of David Leigh completely failing to address his title topic, the cost of inaction on climate (it’s a huge subject on which environmentalists and economists have done a lot of work without yet agreeing), we have here lots of words but no numbers. And that’s the problem. All of the energy ideas cited ‘work’, but that is a far cry from their being able to replace our current energy sources. The kinds of good intentions displayed, for example by the Scots and the Welsh, have actually been around for 10 years or more. Have a look and see how they are going – if you can get reliable data. It won’t impress.

What’s worse, the core message of this and similar articles, that switching to renewables is cheap and easy and just a matter of correct party political ideology, turns out to be viciously counterproductive. It has always been clear to energy experts that giving up the bonanza of solar energy stored in fossil fuels would adversely affect future prosperity. Any honest government should have driven that message home for as long as it took the electorate to accept it. Then, and only then, it could have proceeded, with some prospect of success, to start implementing measures to move towards more expensive and/or less popular (like nuclear) energy sources.

Instead, we now have a sorely divided community driven apart even further by a stupid carrot and stick approach designed to get acceptance of populist measures that people don’t understand or don’t want, and probably won’t work. What a mess.

The only hope left is that the climate scientists have got it wrong. The chances are slim, but I suppose no worse than getting a rational policy to attack climate change without the costs exceeding the benefits
Posted by Tombee, Tuesday, 19 July 2011 10:11:49 AM
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