Silly says about Peter's concerns:

"I think that your expectations are slightly exaggerated."

In fact, Peter, being a very measured person, has in fact tended to downplay the costs of an ETS/Carbon tax.

Such costs should include government subsidies to wind and solar, which do not work. These subsidies will cost at least $13.2 billion by 2015 and will have their attendant compliance costs just as for instance there was heavy compliance and oversight of previous subsidies to such 'green' energies as wave, hot-rocks [Flannery's investment du jour] and pixie factories. [sarc off]

The fact is noone knows what it will cost to implement and run either the tax or an ETS; there will be no mention of the costs of fighting AGW in the budget and, as with all things to do with this wretched government and this equally wretched idea of AGW, the lack of transparency is no accident.

SillyFilly,
I followed your link but it did not lead to other than a mass of
legislation but no information on measuring (that I could find) CO2
or how it is taxed.

My question as yet unanswered is how do they relate a companies
electricity consumption to the CO2 and to what preportion of that
electricity came from Windfarms, solar systems, gas fired power
stations etc etc.

Frankly they cannot do such a breakdown so therefore the tax is fraudulent !

Bazz,

start here on the reporting and factors to be included:

http://www.climatechange.gov.au/publications/greenhouse-acctg/national-greenhouse-factors.aspx

Cheers

Sillyfilly;
The link led to a 432 page document. Here is the first paragraph on measurement.

Overview — methods for measurement
1.4
Emissions are rarely measured through direct observation and are most often
estimated by reference to readily observable variables that are closely related to
greenhouse gas emissions such as the quantity of fossil fuels consumed.

Further down is this paragraph;
At its simplest, emissions may be estimated by reference to
reportable data such as fossil fuel consumption, evidenced by
invoices, and the use of specified emission factors provided in these
Guidelines. For emissions from fuel combustion, for example, data on
consumption of a particular fuel would be multiplied by a specific
emission factor for that fuel to generate an emissions estimate.

Without wading through the other 431 pages it is clear that anyone
who made a demand for payment under these conditions would be
prosecuted under weights and measures acts.

Silly Filly @ 8 May 2012 2:31:15 AM”

“The companies that will be subject to the tax already have a substantial reporting system. …. So the systems are all in place.”

No, the systems to measure emissions are not in place. There are no measurements of CO2-eq emissions anywhere in Australia. Not even on the power stations. The links to EPA documents in the lead article provide an example of what is required to measure emissions. Only USA does that. But even what USA is doing is just a start; it is nowhere near good enough for trade.

The reporting we have in place at the moment serves its purpose because there is no money attached - no trade and no tax, yet. However, once money is involved the challenges, litigation and fraud will begin. Look how the ATO pursued Paul Hogan for a decade and ruined his life, only to give up eventually after they’d destroyed him. That sort of thing will happen in spades and all emitters will be vulnerable if we don’t have proper measurements in place. And how can we measure, precisely and accurately, emissions of CO2 and all the other Kyoto gasses. It’s impractical.

SillyFilly, if you think we are measuring emissions, you should be able to point me to a web site, e.g. AEMO, where the emission factors are reported for each generating unit for every 5 minute, or 15 minute or hour interval. No such data is available. No such data is collected in Australia. The emissions factors used for estimating emissions from power stations are the same for every unit in the power station at all times no matter what level of efficiency the individual units are operating at (e.g. running at optimum power or part loaded, ramping up or ramping down, old or new, etc.) http://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/Settlements/Carbon-Dioxide-Equivalent-Intensity-Index (Available Generators file, Column: ‘CO2 Emissions Factor’).

Clearly, emissions are not measured. They are estimates. The current procedures will not good enough for trade. Imagine what the compliance cost would be when emissions monitoring is extended to all emitters.

Peter, given that 'measurement' of CO2 emissions are at best guess-estimates what do you make of this:

http://www.climatechange.gov.au/government/initiatives/national-greenhouse-energy-reporting/publication-of-data/~/media/government/initiatives/nger/data/NGER-Greenhouse-and-energy-information-2010-2011-3-PDF.pdf