I agree that Australians have a naive belief in the ability of subsidised wind and solar to make inroads into emissions. It's both wishful thinking and disrespects the magnitude of the problem. Consistent with that our CO2 reduction targets are absurdly inadequate relative to our culpability. The cuts should be 25-40% not 5%.

I suspect carbon tax will need some elaborate spin doctoring to paint a rosy picture. No doubt we'll see happy families enjoying picnics in the shadows of new wind and solar facilities. The truth will be the CO2 savings aren't that great but the cost is high. The coal stations will still be there out of the picture. Unlike the US (for now at least) we can't assume a stable gas price will underwrite emissions reductions. Note the US has achieved significant emissions reductions via cheap gas and no 'additional' carbon price.

Some will point out that power demand is flatlining. That's not yet a major reduction which as the author points out needs to be of the magnitude normally associated with recessions. Sending steel and aluminium industries to other countries is just shifting the emissions problem elsewhere.

In a possible triumph for OLO we may get a government that sees no need to realistically confront CO2. I wonder if that is any worse than the present tokenism.

It's an interesting phenomena that power consumption is falling. One would expect with a rising pop that it would rise - but no. The rise of renewables is to be welcomed.

I'm always surprised when people who are against logging, coal power, etc, also bag solar and wind power. I'm still waiting for sensible responses from the greenie left.

A great article Tom. Well worth redistributing.

And Cheryl is right - it would be surprising to see power use flatlining while population is increasing - especially since both CO2 emissions and population in Australia increased by 30% from 1990 to 2006. Despite the government's rosy economic statements we can see real stress in the retail sector and everyone feels under stress from electricity price rises. So this is where population growth really starts to drive increases in poverty - when total energy use is flat but the number of consumers continues to increase. Not a happy story!

"I'm still waiting for sensible responses from the greenie left."

Best oxymoron of the year; sensible comments/greenie left.

Coal= Ultra SuperCritical; Thorium and 4th Generation, IFRs:

http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/12/13/integral-fast-reactor-ifr-nuclear-power-q-and-a/

And NOT Biofuels.

Wind and solar do not work; anyone who says they do is either a liar or stupid or making money from them; or all three.

Tom Bielger is getting there in the logic department, but still builds his edifice on the shifting sands of presuming carbon dioxide is bad. The economist, who wrote in The Age recently: "Give us a price incentive, and we find ways to reduce emissions with little damage to profits or our standards of living" is of the same unrealistic breed as the one on the desert island faced with the problem of opening a can of food 'Assume we have a tin opener'.
Where is the magic provider of the can opener or the 'price incentive'? Firstly, can he define emissions? Secondly can he distinguish between good emissions and bad emissions?
Carbon dioxide is demonstrably a good emission (it feeds plants and plants feed us) and there is no evidence that this trace gas controls the climate.
Bad emissions are particulate matter and noxious gases, plastic bags in the sea, rubbish by the roadside, uncontrolled bushfires fed by fuel loads resulting from poor forest management.
This amazing planet has vast resources of fossil and other carbon-based fuels. To restrict the argument to fossil fuels reinforces the perception that there were only so many dead dinosaurs and we will therefore eventually run out of this energy source. A rising understanding of what is happening beneath our feet points to the realisation that incredibly vast amounts of methane are being continually generated (ref the work of the late Thomas Gold), and that before a small fraction of our available carbon fuels are consumed, mankind will have found safe ways to utilise new forms of nuclear energy.
Coal, oil and gas have given us breathing space to develop the prosperity we need to defend ourselves from natural catastrophe.

Regards
John McRobert

Excellent analysis. It also highlights the real problem with CO2 that governments around the world refuse to face - serious cuts in fossil fuel usage necessarily imply a shift to a low energy economy. The impact of such a shift will in part be determined by the size of the population.

<blockquote>Carbon trading schemes assume that one technology can be easily substituted for another, but that's not real life.</blockquote>

Excellent point.

The rate at which the global economy is decarbonising is slowing. The rate of building nuclear and hydro-electric plants has slowed markedly.

To reduce CO2 emissions from energy by 80% by 2050 would require that the world decarbonise energy - i.e. reduce carbon intensity of energy (CO2 emissions per $ of GDP) at the rate of -5% to -6% per year to 2050. However, we are decarbonising at the rate of about -1.5% per year average since 1991. Furthermore the rate is slowing (from about -2% per year in 1991 to about -0.7% per year in 2009 http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com.au/2010/07/decelerating-decarbonization-of-global.html

Arguing about and focusing on energy efficiency is a diversion from tackling what is important and a waste of time. Energy efficiency will have only a small and slow impact on decarnbonisation. http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/reality-check.html

To decarbonise we must have cost-competitive alternatives to fossil fuels. They must be a genuine cost-competitive alternative without artificial costs being applied to fossil fuels (such as carbon tax and ETS). The reason is because the developing countries, especially the poorest, will not agree to raising the cost of energy – and nor should they. Energy is development. Development requires energy – lots of it. Therefore we need least cost energy.

It is the developing and the poorest countries which will show the fastest rate of development this century. They will consume energy at an increasing rate. If they do not have a cost competitive alternative to fossil fuels they will burn fossil fuels – and so they should.

So it is up to the developed and recently industrialised countries to provide a cost competitive alternative to fossil fuels. This explains how it can be done: http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2012/06/05/conservatives-who-think-seriously-about-the-planet/#comment-111744

The author made the point that his was an opinion piece. However he makes a number of interesting points, none more observant than the amount of time and money required to bring an alternative to commercial success?
We the people have poured billions into alternative development.
And the subsidies for a solar roll out has all but dried up. Nonetheless, we choose wind and solar voltaic as the two principle alternatives?
Why?
Well, they are the least effective or most expensive options.
Wind farms are only 35% effective, solar voltaic only uses 15% of the available light that falls on it and then only in full sunshine and daylight hours!
We know from the Chilean experience, that solar thermal is vastly more efficient and can actually undercut the cost of coal-fired power!
Which probably underlines the patent reluctance of virtually all Australian govt's, to actually invest our money in it.
Even though we can expect substantial and rising returns from the very long life of these solar thermal projects!
It would put the very powerful CMU and the coal mining industry, currently earning billions for the national economy; offside, and cost critical votes and or election funding?
This even though the widespread use of solar thermal arrays, would resuscitate the steel industry and local manufacture.
It is said that very large scale arrays and automation, would produce solar thermal projects large enough, with economies of scale, that would allow power to be produced for considerably less than current coal.
We have both the sunshine and the vast empty inland spaces, to make very long term solar thermal projects viable. And salt heat traps would cope with any foreseeable peak demand.
This is the sort of alternative, which along with wave power, have a chance to compete with current coal-fired power! And that is the only place or alternatives, we should be injecting limited taxpayer funds?
Rhrosty.

“Carbon pricing (of which the tax is a temporary start) is the standard economic remedy for problems like carbon dioxide emissions.”

It may be the economists’ proposed solution. But it has failed everywhere it has been tried so far and there is not sign of international adoption of such a scheme. The economists make many assumptions which are entirely academic and could never be achieved. http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=1325#82373 They are totally impracticable. Since they cannot be achieved in practice the benefits cannot be delivered. Furthermore, the costs will be much higher than is being admitted.

The Australian CO2 tax and ETS will cost $10 for every projected $1 of savings. But the projected savings will not be delivered and the costs will be far higher than is being admitted. http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13578&page=0

Australia is planning to spend $10 dollars for every $1 of benefit it hopes to derive - provided the assumptions about the consequences of AGW are correct. This suggests that our climate policies are flawed and need major change.

The assumptions are academic but totally impracticable to achieve in the real world. Here are some of the assumptions:

• Negligible leakage (of emissions between countries)

• All emission sources are included (all countries and all emissions in each country)

• Negligible compliance cost

• Negligible fraud

• An optimal carbon price

• The whole world implements the optimal carbon price in unison

• The whole world acts in unison to increase the optimal carbon price periodically

• The whole world continues to maintain the carbon price at the optimal level for all of this century (and thereafter).

If these assumptions are not met, the net benefits estimated will not be achieved. As Nordhaus says, p198 http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/Balance_2nd_proofs.pdf :

"Moreover, the results here incorporate an estimate of the importance of participation for economic efficiency. Complete participation is important because the cost function for abatement appears to be highly convex. We preliminarily estimate that a participation rate of 50 percent instead of 100 percent will impose a cost penalty on abatement of 250 percent."

In other words, if only 50% of emissions are captured in the carbon pricing scheme, the cost penalty for the participants would be 250%. The 50% participation could be achieved by, for example, 100% of countries participating in the scheme but only 50% of the emissions in total from within the countries are caught, or 50% of countries participate and 100% of the emissions within those countries are caught in the scheme (i.e. taxed or traded).

Given the above, we can see that the assumptions are theoretical and totally impracticable. To recognize this, try to imagine how we could capture 100% of emissions from 100% of emitters in Australia (every cow, sheep, goat) in the CO2 pricing scheme, let alone expecting the same to be done across the whole world; e.g. China, India, Eretria, Ethiopia, Mogadishu and Somalia.

Whatever you might think of global warming, as the author points out renewables are next to useless as a substitute for fossil fuels..

There is no indication that they will affect the rate of growth in energy markets, let alone make inroads into the market itself.

As part of that, there is a very real question about just how much carbon is saved by renewables. Activists may scream that I don't have any proof of this which is true, as no one with any expertise and claim to independence, has been asked to do a thorough analysis..

The assumption is that one megawatt hour from a renewable source is a megawatt hour saved from a a conventional plant, but it is known that there are losses because of changes that have to be made in the rest of the network and the way the other plants are run, changes in reserve requirements and so on.. activists will scream that all those concerns are exagerated but, okay, how do we know this? And, no, its not enough to point to activist-commissioned modelling.. what can we say about the existing real world networks with substantial renewables connected? Where is the analysis?

These hard questions have never been asked, and that is simply extraordinary.

Fossil fuel is a once only gift from nature, and will need to be eventually replaced! No two ways about it!
We currently import around 80% of our oil. These come to us as extensively refined products, which produce four times as much carbon as, local hydrocarbon products.
Given the sulphur content, one assumes that these products came from an increasingly volatile Middle East.
You'd think genuinely concerned, left leaning green activists would be climbing all over this and protesting!
Like those Canadian activists, who hung their protest banners over OUR infant shale oil projects!
Even as the Canuks were developing their vast long life extremely dirty tar sands, needing even more carbon creating processing!
We have to our immediate north hydrocarbon prospects, that could even exceed the entire know Middle East reserves.
Moreover, if it follows traditionally sourced supplies, it will leave the ground as virtually ready to use, locally available, low carbon, sulphur free alternatives. [Our own traditional sweet light crude leaves the ground as a virtually ready to use diesel, needing only a little insitu chill filtering to convert it into diesel. Conversely, NG leaves the ground as a sub zero product needing a little warming to prevent it freezing the delivery pipes!]
Norway had no trouble accessing and achieving huge permanent benefits from North Sea oil.
It used these very finite resources to build a truly formidable sovereign fund, rather than tax breaks for those, who clearly did not need them. And now pours significant sums into education and R+D, to set itself up for a fossil fuel free future.
We could do worse than emulate that most admirable Scandinavian pragmatism!
We absolutely must have income earning capital projects, to affordablly convert to a carbon neutral economy!
Rather than mindlessly kill the one we have now, by rendering essential energy just too dam expensive, along with all the things that rely on it, like affordable Australian produced food!
Rhrosty.

The confusion of the public can be easily cleared by telling them the truth.

Human emissions have virtually no effect on climate. Any effect is so trivial that it is not measurable.

The misleading nonsense of the IPCC has caused the rush for so called “renewables” and huge amounts of taxpayers’ and private investors’ funds have been wasted on giving incentives to this worse than useless sector.

We are fortunate in having vast deposits of coal, which supplies cheap energy.

The two reasons for not being concerned with emissions are firstly that they are trivial, and secondly that the last fifteen years of rising CO2 in the atmosphere, without any increase in warming, shows that the theory on the effect of CO2 on climate, needs a serious rethink.

Nuclear is the obvious answer for those concerned with human emissions, but better still would be for them to understand that their concerns are baseless.

“The AGW consensus scam is one of the most astounding frauds in all of history, not only because it is patently false, but also because it is being used to propel the most sweeping and authoritarian scheme for global economic, social, and political regimentation the world has ever seen. This is not merely a theoretical scientific debate; the alleged "science" is being used to drive policy and legislation — at a global level. The policies they have already succeeded in imposing have caused devastating impacts.”

Read the whole article at:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/7mvumju

There is little doubt in my mind that very low water use algae framing will eventually replace most of the liquid fossil fuels we use now. Dutch scientists have been growing algae for some years now, and were reportedly ready to produce commercial quantities of jet fuel as soon as 2010. Green technologies in Boston Massachusetts, were trialling algae as a natural smoke stack de-carbonising fuel producing product, around a decade ago. Their success apparently had them predicting a future, where all the diesel we need would be green. Silicon valley is following a similar line of research or enquiry, and was some years ago, running a couple of diesel powered Mercs, on the fuel they where then producing.
If you drive a diesel or petrol powered vehicle, you are driving one powered by algae laid down and metamorphosed millions of years ago.
Some algae are up to 60% oil, which is virtual child's play to extract, utilising waste power station or solar thermal heat.
Algae absorb 2.5 times their bodyweight in carbon emission. They can under optimised conditions, double that bodyweight and Co2 absorbing capacity every 24 hours.
Algae grown in closed cycle systems use very little water, which can be merely borrowed and returned to the environment, cleaner and with all problematic nutrients removed.
[Currently wasted, tertiary treated effluent is fine.]
Very large scale algae farming/bio-diesel production, would both rescue and greatly prosper the Murray/Darling basin and all who live in or rely on it!
Moreover, done on a large enough scale, as followed pragmatism/example, would eventually give all participating nations total fuel independence, and actually begin to reverse carbon pollution trends!
However, we do need to earn much more export income, in order to be able to affordablly convert our economy to a carbon neutral one!
We could do just that, by simply accessing our currently locked away; natural, lower carbon producing, income earning, hydrocarbon assets!
Rhrosty.

No private households need to pay for power again. Leave the dirty power for industry to sort out.

I always wondered who Tom was. Tom's letters are regularly featured in the letters section of the Australian "news"-paper.
They are instantaneously recogizable by their content and tone - recognizable without even having to refer to who the author of his letters may be.

Rhrosty
"There is little doubt in my mind that very low water use algae framing will eventually replace most of the liquid fossil fuels we use now."

You're joking right? Scientists have been able to create fuel with that stuff for years, but have you any idea of vast scale that would be required to replace petroleum production? Then there is the difficult question of whether you would use more energy making the stuff than you would get from the resulting oil. Biofuels now grown as crops have the same problem.. they exist because governments subsidy them, not because they make the slightest difference to the world's energy.

Once upon a time the technoligical genius of the USA was harnessed to produce the atom bomb via the Manhattan Project. And via the challenge by Russia via its Sputnik "victory", to come up with a technological solution to challenge and beat the Russians to put a man in space.

Why then can not the latent techological genius of the USA be harnessed to invent/provide a solution to the techological conundrum re the unsustainable increase and use of fossil fuels, and the obviously untenable use of the nuclear "option" with which all of humankind if faced.

Daffy, they already did. It’s called (today) the integral fast reactor based on US development some 20-30 years ago. It’s sustainable, uses up existing nuclear waste and can readily replace fossil fuels.

The only reason costs are talked about when talking about alt; fuel is because oil is cheap.
Algae will transform the fuel industry. 60% of an algae is vegy oil

In my opinion, if we want to cut GHG emissions the solution is obvious. But progress is blocked by the Progressives – i.e. they block economically rational solutions. I get the impression they want to prescribe solutions that support their ideological beliefs.

The solution is clear to me. Since there is no persuasive evidence that AGW is either dangerous or catastrophic, the decisions about what to do should be based on economics and cost benefit analyses. A cost competitive alternative to fossil fuels will allow the world to cut emissions as well as improve well-being

A cost competitive alternative to fossil fuels has been available for nearly 60 years. Its progress has been blocked by the Progressive-Left If we remove the impediments to the low cost alternative to fossil fuels, we can have both lower cost energy and reduced emissions. The lower the cost of the alternative to fossil fuels the faster it will replace fossil fuels and the faster global emissions will be reduced.

Small modular nuclear power plants could be produced in factories, shipped to site, run for many years, then return to factory for refuelling. They have been held up in the US nuclear regulatory process for a decade or more. The industrial countries could produce them as fast as we produce airliners, if we wanted to. The US was producing aircraft carriers in 100 days towards the end of the WWII. If that rate of production for a far larger and far more complex piece of machinery could be achieved 70 years ago, think of the rate that USA, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Russia, China, Korea and Japan could produce small modular nuclear power plants now.

The solution is clear. It is to educate the Progressive-Left or sideline them. As long as they block the development of nuclear, little progress will be made.

Peter Lang,

The error in your nuclear vs airline regulatory comparison is that the airline industry has been one of the most highly regulated (Not least regulated) at least in the most competitive sectors - and obviously excluding Russia and a few others. Cost pressures to conform to high standards (of maintenance for example), increasing fuel costs and competition between aircraft manufacturers are what has driven the technological innovations leading to greater safety and lower operating costs (and hence lower air travel costs).

If nuclear power production had been less regulated I suspect there would have been many more Chernobyl and Fukushima events, and with far more devastating consequences.

It would seem inevitable that nuclear will have to be part of the energy mix if living standards are to be maintained and extended to an increasing quota of the global population. But nuclear is inherently extremely dangerous if mismanaged - as amply demonstrated in WWII and more recent events. 'Safe' nuclear will probably be developed, but other alternatives should not be easily dismissed.

Rhrosty and others have mentioned the potentials of solar thermal, biomass and algae cultivation as viable and reasonably competitive contributors. Oz may be the perfect place to experiment with and develop these technologies, while others - eg China - work on nuclear. Individual circumstance, demography and topography should determine 'best fit' of technology, and not 'one size fits all'. As the author states: 'prudence and caution'.

Carbon tax and ETS are flawed. Emissions targets and higher energy prices may be the drivers, but new technology is the future, and government 'seed' investment (via higher general taxation) may provide the only effective trajectory. The mining boom should not be frittered on handouts, but invested in future resilience.

Argentina exported 1.7 million tonns of bio diesel to europe.
The ones lagging behind is us.
Nuclear power will not get off the ground, and not necessary.

579
While I haven't checked your biodiesel figure, there are severe limits to that resources.. biodisel from animal fat may represent an energy input, but diodiesel from other sources does not.. it can cost just as much energy to produce the stuff than you can get from it..

Biofuels are produced by government subsidy for political reasons, not for energy or environmental reasons..

Aa particularly balanced and informative submission, devoid of emotive pleadings and pie in the sky idealism. Commentary in the forum is lively interesting, on topic and informative. A most enjoyable and interesting read folks. Must admit I fall directly in line with Leo Lane's comment.

Saltpetre,

You said:
- “The error in your nuclear vs airline regulatory comparison”
- “many more Chernobyl and Fukushima events, with far more devastating consequences”
- “But nuclear is inherently extremely dangerous”

No, the only “error” is that you have succumbed to radiation phobia and anti-nuclear scaremongering.

You reiterated many of the common talking points of the anti-nuclear groups. These groups are responsible for global emissions being 10% to 20% higher now than they would have been if not for their 50 years of anti-nuclear advocacy. Their strident anti-nuclear advocacy has caused the irrational radiation phobia you have provided examples of in your comment.

Aircraft have accidents that kill hundreds at a time. But we keep flying because of the benefits. We recognise the risk is vey low. We’ve had only three serious accidents in nuclear power plants in 56 years and 15,000 reactors-years of operation. Only one accident has caused fatalities, and less fatalities than a plane crash. Let’s get some perspective. Sure there are predictions of some latent fatalities, but the amount is miniscule compared with the alternatives.

It is estimated nuclear regulation increased the cost of nuclear energy by a factor of four to 1990. It’s probably doubled again since. The excessive cost is preventing us having electricity generation that is 10 to 100 times safer than what we accept as standard practice now. Is that rational?

The other alternatives you refer to, like solar and wind, are totally uneconomic and never likely to be economic. http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/02/09/100-renewable-electricity-for-australia-the-cost/

The choice is simple. It’s either the world burns fossil fuels for energy, or the so called ‘Progressives’ in the developed countries unblock cheap nuclear power. The ‘Progressives’ are preventing progress and have been for 50 years.

You are correct that new technology is the future. But the main low-emission energy technology has to be nuclear. We need to remove the impediments to cost-competitive nuclear, not build in more artificially imposed impediments on low cost energy.

There are a lot of people in the US navy, who are not particularly bright, but have successfully run small nuclear power plants in subs & aircraft carriers, for quite a few years.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as I can't recall an accident with any of these, they must be damn near fool proof.

Those who are advocating a Nuclear solution seem to have the same blind spot as those who see renewables and energy efficiency as our saviour. The obstacles to Nuclear are even greater than for renewables. Firstly there is a global shortage of nuclear engineers and firms that can design plants that are safe - this is not a quick fix - that will take at least 20 - 50 years to turn around. Secondly if we look closely at what happened in Japan we can see that the disaster was a product of corporate greed rather than a failure of the safety features. If someone knows a way of fixing corporate greed so that they do not play Russian Roulette with safety then get ready to become rich. Finally Gen IV nuclear power plants although they have been around for a long time have yet to demonstrate that they are commercial.
So nuclear too is not an easy substitute for fossil fuels.

Curmudgeon; I do understand the vast scale that would be needed to grow enough algae to produce enough fuel to replace what we use now, that's why I propose it.
Unlike most alternatives, it doesn't require arable land, or food production conscripted for fuel.
You are absolutely correct, most alternative bio-fuels create an energy debt.
Not so algae, which is composed of up to 60% oil and can actually double its mass every 24 hours.
The very large scale requirement is exactly what the declining Murray/Darling basin needs, to not just survive but prosper.
Yes I do understand the lead time required to grow enough algae to replace fossil fuels, very little of which could be produced for many years; given the first stage, would be tied up just increasing the tonnages we could grow.
The billions set aside to rescue the Murray, should be used to achieve this; given, that by itself and the very low water use required for that purpose, would rescue the Murray and all who rely on it!
I also prefer it because it requires only 1-2% of the water requirement of traditional irrigation assisted farming.
It seems to me, it would be vastly more practical to transfer our food farming, to where there is hardly ever any water shortages.
North where rainfall is measured in metres; and to tiny Tassie, which has plenty of unused reliable water assisted production capacity; and, an economy in dire straights, simply because the rescuing tourism was more green figment than fact.
Ditto northern Q'ld!
Other crops with promise include native wisteria.
Native wisteria are salt, drought and frost resistant, and being a legume, improve the soil.
They produce a seed that has enough oil content to be commercially viable.
They thrive on land usually thought to be merely marginal, and would transfer to and assist many starving African nations.
The ex-crush seed material is an excellent source of high protein and almost alone, could sustain fish farming or feed lots.
Gatton Uni have developed a diesel tree, which produces 5 tons annually?
Cheers, Rhrosty.

Au contraire, we don't need to impose higher taxes or energy costs, to make carbon free energy alternatives much more desirable. We just need to put all of them and recent innovation on the table.
We also need to reform the tax act, so that all inland revenue is collected via an entirely unavoidable expenditure tax. The resultant savings, would prosper us all.
No more compliance to pay for, which currently rips around and averaged 7% from the bottom line. Moreover, the repeal of all the other then unnecessary taxes, would return up to 30% to profitability, and as much as 25% to household disposables!
Why do we reject that?
This would also deal with the destiny of demography; given the GNP, would pay all tax, rather than individual taxpayers! And revenue would rise with economic growth, rather than decline with an aging population!
The best forms of new or carbon free alternatives, will be the ones that walk out the door and be affordable for, and preferred by very disadvantaged third world countries.
[Many of the latter are already converting biological waste to very affordable carbon neutral energy!]
An expenditure tax can be set as low as 5%, yet collect more revenue than the total current complexity.
Given our expenditure, individual or corporate, very accurately measures or reflects our carbon footprints! An expenditure tax is the very fairest way, to ask us all to pay for our own carbon output/pollution!
There isn't any impediment to include inside the proposed 5% expenditure tax, a carbon component, or a states' share.
We should however, finally rationalise and resolve who does what; and, who pays for or assumes responsibly for it?
Real reform should also finally eliminate the blame game/shifting, and seriously downsize/eliminate duplication, and the agencies who practise or participate in it?
Rhrosty.

One Middle Eastern oil Minister is on the public record as saying, "that hydrogen could very soon replace oil." He went on to say, "that the stone age didn't end because of a shortage of stone." Unquote. He when pressed said, "that he thought hydrogen would replace oil as a preferred fuel, well before we ran out of oil." Unquote.
I believe he could be right.
The energy required to convert water to its components, can be halved without affecting output or production, just with the addition of a cobalt catalyst.
Normally, we lose as much as 20%, as energy loss, when we convert hydrogen back to electrical energy.
However, with the inclusion of the cobalt catalyst, and the halving of the initial energy input, the resulting maths tells us, we could produce a net 30% gain, via the inclusion of said cobalt catalyst.
A patented process!
We can also release hydrogen from sea water with radio waves.
I don't know how well that research is progressing.
We know that lighter than air hydrogen, will lift itself to great heights, where fuel cells could convert it to energy and pristine water, which could even turn a turbine or two on its way to its next user or process?
We used to separate hydrogen via the catalytic cracking of the water molecule.
I believe we will, not too far ahead in time; replicate/upgrade that very old technology, utilising modernity, endlessly available sea water and solar thermal heat?
To produce very low cost, endlessly sustainable, carbon free fuel.
While it is possible to power conventional or fuel cell powered motor vehicles with hydrogen?
Simple practicalities, like refuelling requirements, might limit it initially, to very large stationary power plants, set up to run high tech manufacture or very rapid very low cost, mass transit options, desalination projects etc.
Rhrosty.

BAYGON,

You misunderstand fundamental points:

1. Renewables are not economic and neve can be. So they are no solution at all. They are a diversion
2. Nuclear engineers are not a constraint. They will be trained and gain experience plenty fast enough. Small modular nuclear plants would be designed and built at factory and shipped out. They do not need massive numbers of operators. The plants are built in factories like Boeing and Airbus aircraft.
3. “if we look closely at what happened in Japan “ we see not a single fatality due to exposure to radiation. The fatalities are due to radiation phobia and the actions taken as a result of the widespread phobia. And that is due to 50 years of activism and scaremongering as you are doing.
4. Nuclear is about the safest electricity generation technology and about 10 to 100 times safer than what we accept now as standard practice for our electricity generation.
5. Cost competitive nuclear is prevented by the imposts imposed as a result of 50 years of scaremongering. It is irrational.

You are opposing safer electricity generation. Go figure!

A rational Greenie?
Sea grass by itself absorbs 3 times as much carbon as all the rain forests!
Dams built in the right places would limit the amount of alluvium that flow reef-ward with every major flood event, wiping out sea grass and all who depend on it!
Yet there they are, standing fast against any remedial dam measure and or flood mitigation damming!
Sea grass absorbs three times as much carbon as the world's entire rain forests!
So what do they protect with their chains and tree houses?
You guessed it, old trees.
Young trees, with their more vigorous growth, absorb far more carbon than old trees.
Yet it is always old growth forest they seem to be most concerned about? Rational?
Trees store carbon, whether vertical or horizontal!
They wax lyrical about a reef system progressively endangered by rising carbon and acidification, yet stand silent regarding the importation of fossil fuel products, that produce four times more carbon; in preference to that, we could produce simply by accessing the hydrocarbons contained in "that reef" or nearby systems!
Hydrocarbons which would produce four times less carbon; as fuel, than that which we and many other parts of the world import and use. Rational?
Is the problem rising carbon or our still surviving industrial base and or, food production capacity?
Well, they do seem to be fixating on population numbers and how they might reduce it?
I suppose widespread and extremely cruel starvation would do it, just as long as it's not their family and friends at risk?
Well?
And if the cap doesn't fit, don't choose to wear it by taking offence or responding?
It's all too easy for endlessly demanding inner city tower dwellers, or banner waving chanters, to simply take our food production for granted; or, think that things like milk and eggs, come from supermarkets, in a never ending guaranteed supply?
I don't suppose they ever stop and wonder why, we are losing four farmers a day, to suicide!?
Just who is the endangered species, I wonder? Perhaps it is rationalists?
Rhrosty.

It's possible biofuel production could be made very viable.
Who knows what modern technology might achieve.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/OMEGA/index.html

Who knows what modern technology might achieve?

Anyone with a brain and a modicum of basic science, that's who.

Modern technology is 100% based on net free energy.

Most of that comes from easy access oil reserves which are becoming scarce.

When net free energy per person reduces to a level that Caltex just in essence imposed on AUstralia by withdrawing self reliant refining capacity then people will do what they have done best throughout history:

De-risk their situations by killing and maiming their immediate neighbours.

The gullibility of Australian governments in allowing this while continuing NBN expenditure has sentenced Australia within 10 years to social and economic collapse.

Meanwhile the entire (Nth Hemisphere powers) world will collapse within a generation.

And in the aftermath of these collapses, diseases will cull the human species possibly to extinction. This is doubly likely since global medical investors have derisked medical practice by antibiotic scare campaigns. In essence antibiotics will be phased out and subsequent deaths will be blamed on overuse of antibotics rather than medical negligence.

Meanwhile the truth will be tested as poultry and livestock farms continue to use increasing amounts of the very same antibiotics to maximise agri business profits at all time record levels.

The bottom line:

Modern technology to Human greed and corruption is like one man's breath blowing against an Atlantic hurricane.

So what do you propose ? Build nuclear power stations ? Buy refined petroleum products from overseas refineries ? Mine more coal? Buy a kilo of smack and wait for the reaper to come ?

Whilst I think your interpretation is a bit flowery, in essence I agree, I wouldn't want to live in a post industrial society.

Talking about human greed, Rio Tinto is currently developing a massive coal mine in Mongolia.
There are also huge stockpiles being created by the Chinese!
Anyone currently investing in new Australian coal mines or expansion, is I believe, a greed driven ill-informed fool.
They would serve their own interests and those of their shareholders by agitating for; and or financing, exploration of those submerged mountain ranges in our north east economic zone. For their probable bonanza of lower carbon, liquid/portable fossil fuels.
Fuels which will allow, with their widespread use, an immediate 35% reduction in our total carbon output.
Every western style economy rests on just 2 support pillars, energy and capital. We with our 80% oil importations, are seriously compromising our ability to reduce our pro rata carbon output, the highest in the world.
We are far too reliant on coal exports for our current economic performance. Performance which is being seriously threatened by Mongolian mines, which will come into full production, as soon as 2014.
Not very much led time to seek and develop other export substitutes.
But in particular, with regard to the prospects of an international recovery any time soon, until or unless the world finds other less costly, more reliable oil supplies.
We will never ever understand the true scope of our potential hydrocarbon reserves, if we never ever look or buy the rubbish, we need foreign investors and their often massive debt funding paradigms, to do it for us.
Nor do we improve the prospects of saving the reef, by continuing to import and use much higher carbon producing fuels.
Ditto all other energy dependant economies.
Anyone can drill a hole, and we have all the local expertise we need.
All that is missing is the political will and the ability to risk a tiny portion of our tax dollars, to purchase the rigs, that would put beyond all doubt, the sheer size our own hydrocarbon assets.
Rhrosty.

Talking about antibiotics and their widespread use? Australian scientists, reportedly have developed a benign viral process, which apparently produces a protein, which looks very capable of destroying most bacteria, including problematic types like Golden Staphylococci?
I think those who simply bag the technological fix, because it is technological and for no other or more valid reason, are part of the problem and never ever any part of any sustainable solution.
We could go back to dwelling in caves and living on what nature provides or what we could run down and kill with a stone tied to a stick.
[The Green solution?]
The problem with that, there is an extreme shortage of habitable caves, and there is already enough carbon in the atmosphere, that without viable reduction measures, as would accrue with very widespread algae farming, will ensure that we cross a tipping point, 2C.
2C will guarantee enough ice melt to ensure the currently frozen tundra and continental shelves, give up trillions of tons of methane, which equals per unit, 21 units of carbon.
The amount of methane that could be released, without mediation, by any means, will very likely increase ambient temps beyond 5C?
5C, would e.g, return Great Britain, into a salt laden, windswept desert, with winds regularly exceeding 300 Klms PH.
Ditto almost every other country with shared latitude.
The sort of conditions that would then exist; as per the historical record, would first prevent most plant life from growing; anywhere, and given the rest of the food chain relies on plant life, oxygen and or herbivores; our only remaining option would be bending over, and kissing our kesters goodbye.
Rhrosty.

Well an interesting thread.
A few comments;
Baygon: The problem at the nuclear sites in Japan was not caused by
greed but the siting of the stations.
They should have been on the west coast instead of the east coast.
The plate division is east of Japan and that is where Tsunamis are
generated. I think you will find that there has never been a tsunami
on the west coast. Why is it that I am the only one to point this out ?
Rhosty; Hydrogen is an abandoned idea. Mercedes have experimented with
it for years and about the only place that it works is in buses.
Too many problems with distribution, underground car parks, size of
tanks in cars etc etc.
BTW we import about 55% of our oil usage not 85%, but it will soon be
more like 95% as our decline rate is about 14% per year.

Now we know why they are closing all the refineries. The won't be any
local oil to refine.
WE are exporting all the gas so we won't be able to use that either.

Make no mistake, if the Iranians closed the straight of Hormuz today,
tomorrow we would have petrol rationing.

None of the comment here made any mention of "The End of Growth"
which can only be mitigated by alternative energy.
If we are not to go back to the age of steam we need to get some
form of liquid fuel and electricity generation on a larger scale than
we have now. Geothermal and nuclear seem to be the only way for the
next few hundred years.

@BAZ

Points well made. Most people I speak to with an engineering background treat present renewables wind / solar with derision.

If one can accept the risks of nuclear there is no question it provides plentiful low cost energy. In my opinion the risks are wildly exagerated in most peoples estimation.

I am all for it.

Geothermal is an intriging one. I saw a GT plant in Birdsville and it was the most wonderfull piece of equipment.

Most drillers and geologists I speak to just dont know.

I would like to know what the hard science is there.

[Deleted. Entirely off topic.]

Bazz, it was BMW, as memory serves, that experimented with hydrogen for years? They reportedly powered conventional motors with it?
Their problem was, they relied on the fossil fuel industry to supply their fuel, which was extracted from NG, and cost well beyond $6.00 a litre, when we were still paying less than a dollar for a litre of petrol!
It is possible to convert NG to methanol, by passing NG through a catalyst. The process produces a little hydrogen as the waste product.
I believe that was how the hydrogen was collected for the BMW experiment.
Yes you are right, initially using hydrogen as an alternative, would be and as I pointed out, very limited.
Large stationary engines/fuel cells, powering various very high tech production, desalination or very rapid transit options etc?
I see the catalytic assisted cracking of the water molecule, as the only method that would make very large hydrogen production both economical and for far less, than we currently shell out for petrol or diesel?
Moreover, I see only very large scale solar thermal projects being able to supply enough low cost energy, to make the whole thing economically feasible, which could be proved by a reasonably large scale govt funded pilot project.
[Low cost energy projects, are never ever a waste of public money!]
Given biogas is methane and given we can convert methane into petrol replacing methanol by passing the gas through another catalytic process, it and bio-diesel created through large scale algae farming, are likely to figure prominently, in future fuel supplies/menu?
Cheers, Rhrosty.

Pebble reactors are arguably safer than coal-fired power! They can be mass produced in factories and then trucked onsite, as ready to produce modules, which can simply be endlessly added to with demand, making them ultra-competitive with coal.
The design feature which coats pebbles of fissile fuel, with grapefruit sized balls of carbon; effectively preventing any melt down, even where the coolant, helium, were shut down for any reason.
Then we have thorium reactors, which fell out of favour in the seventies, because there was no weapons spin-off. They produce very little waste, which is far less toxic than oxide reactors, and is eminently suitable for very long life space batteries, communication satellites etc. And therefore, another cheaper than coal option?
City dwellers produce 2.5 times more carbon than their country cousins.
This could probably be reversed by converting all biological waste into localised electrical power!
Given the efficiency of the system, [40% with a stationary engine and 60% with methane fuelled ceramic fuel cells,] for far less than we shell out for, [20% efficiency,] centralised coal fired power.
Moreover, both of the localised options provide endless free hot water!
Furthermore, the local options are rarely vulnerable to heat, forest fire of flood event caused breakdowns, brownouts or blackouts; nor is the captive market energy consumer, asked to carry the can for entirely unnecessary infrastructure renewals, private corp debt servicing, shareholders dividend demands and or, the eternally rising cost of fuel.
Human waste is always freely available, wherever we have human populations, and we should stop wasting it or sending trillions of tons of increasingly expensive fertilizer out to sea, where it causes inevitable environmental damage!
Rhrosty.

Rhosty,
Yes, BMW did burn the hydrogen in IC engines. Unfortunately it is there
that the most energy is lost in heat.
The alternative is to use fuel cells. Unfortunately as I was told
directly by the MG of Dennis, the fire engine and bus manufacturers,
who did a lot in this area, the lifetime of fuel cells just is not economic.
For cars, they cannot be parked in underground car parks.
We could use natural gas, economically, for vehicles but the cost is
very high to convert everything.
Also we would have to immediately stop export of natural gas.
We use about 1 million barrels of oil a day in Aus, and to replace it
with anything else is a really big job.
Some say that we just cannot borrow enough money to do it.

I understand that electrolysis for hydrogen is possible but it would
require eight times the number of present petrol tankers to distribute the hydrogen.
Also the tanks for the cars are quite big and leak.

I think the ultimate solution is to forget cars altogether.

Rhrosty,

I can't understand why some are so dead against solar thermal being a viable part of a sustainable energy strategy - as by absorbing part of the sun's energy falling on the planet it could both supply energy (electricity) and reduce part of any global warming caused by the greenhouse effect on our industrial emissions. A win, win?

Some quote the area (and the cost) of the very large scale arrays required as being a major obstacle, but I could see, as you have mentioned at least once, that we have large arid areas which could lend themselves to such arrays. Additionally, I have proposed establishing massive greenhouses beneath the array mirrors, requiring only sea water and treated or untreated human waste to be pumped from the coast to provide these greenhouses with the remaining ingredients required to achieve large-scale food and/or bio-fuel production - probably incorporating algae farming. Cities could also be established in the precincts of such arrays, and, with sufficient water pumped from the coast (and desalinated by distillation using part of the array's energy) arid land surrounding the array could conceivably be reverted to productive farmland. Oases in the desert.

Ok, we don't really want a substantial increase in population, but such arrays could support the development of satellite cities to alleviate part of the congestion and related deficiencies being experienced in our major coastal cities, and these satellites could have all the mod-cons, including artificial lakes, streams and even forests. If Dubai and such can turn desert into five star resorts, we could conceivably develop cities. Perhaps, eventually, such an approach could eventually convert our arid inland to a new Gondwanaland?

Who knows, if such an approach could be effective here, deserts around the world could be rehabilitated, reliance on fossil fuels be substantially reduced, and oil use diverted to those products totally reliant on it - such as lubricants, plastics, etc.

A brave, new world?

Saltpetre, interesting suggestion on inland solar thermal.
I suspect that the amount of energy needed to pump water from the coast
to the plant might use up most of the energy produced.
Water after all is very heavy.
Like many of these ideas I think yours will fail because of ERoEI,
Energy Return on Energy Invested, even though the energy invested is free.
The cost of the plant would make the energy too expensive to use.
Still someone could do the maths. There must be some data now on the
cost of large scale solar arrays and the cost of pipelines per 100km
plus the pumping costs.

That should keep you involved for a few weeks, hi !

I Apologies to the Forum for straying off topic.

However, as Baz points out, ERoEI is at the heart of the question of why there are NO easy substitutes.

The suppression of that true and correct ERoEI information is actively pursued by our Federal Government and State Governments, making discussions here fruitless.

None of us here are ALLOWED to explore this important avenue in assessing which future fuels can "non-easily" substitute for coal & oil and WHY they are urgently needed.

It's already clear to me that the only two baseload, 24/7/367 options with the ERoEI credentials are nuclear and Geothermal.

I dare not say any more as I need to explain why neither is meaningfully in the current government mix.

And THAT friends is off topic ..