Mark Lawson here
Martin N - it would be a solution if anyone was going to switch to nuclear plus renewables and hydro, but the Chinese aren't gong down that road .. as this govt report makes clear http://www.bree.gov.au/publications/asia-pacific-renewable-energy-assessment

About 10 per cent (?) Chinese electricity now become from renewables, with the vast bulk of that being hydro, thanks to the Chinese obsessions with building dams.. that obsession is for party political reasons, incidentally - nothing to do with the environment. The true renewables of wind and solar have real problems on the unsophisticated Chinese grids at the moment. There are a host of other problems and, in any case, ther is still India, the US and Russia and everyone else..

Have they given up, or, have they come to their senses.

How on earth anyone can think we can continue to provide for an ever increasing demand, and cut emissions is in fairy land. All those research dollars would be far better spent Finding ways to deal with, use or store carbon, unless of cause we want to invoke global poverty.

Barnaby Joyce summed it up well when he said " you know, if you keep funding researchers to research, they will keep researching so long as they are getting paid".

At the end of the day, a healthy planner will mean little if there is mass poverty.

Thanks for the link to the BREE report Mark. BREE seems to recognise the use of RE in China but is rather silent on their use of Nuclear. China has and is building a large fleet of nuclear plants.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/China--Nuclear-Power/

Unless they are going to abandon them, we can safely assume that they are building them because they are the best replacement for coal plants.

Martin N,

I'd suggest the solution is not to do anything that requires more regulation, emissions monitoring (the cost of that would become enormous and prohibitive), top down fiat, targets and timetables, carbon taxes or ETS. The solution I urge we consider is mentioned briefly in the last section here: http://catallaxyfiles.com/2014/10/27/cross-post-peter-lang-why-the-world-will-not-agree-to-pricing-carbon-ii/

I have figures suggesting the large cost reduction that can be achieved and I've got a plan. We just need to get over this obsession with the big brother approach. It just won't work.

See also my last comment on that thread.

Co2 is helping to green the planet.
Clean coal plants have much less emissions.
I'm going to say something really ignorant now..
Those like Bill Gates who worry about Co2 emissions should spend a few billion giving people JOBS to plant trees, and updating storm water drains to collect rain water that otherwise flows back into the sea to water said plants..

Peter, Jardine, Mark you are missing the elephant in the room: Coal fired electricity is massively subsidized:
- Taxpayers pay for the health costs ( mainly respiratory illness and mercury pollution) through the Government health system.
- Nobody is paying for the cost of climate damage now the C price is repealed (I know Curmudgeon is saying but 'those kids over there are not going to pay either so neither should we'; I'll address that next post).
- These pollution costs are estimated to be $6- 9 billion per year
- Also taxpayers paid for the construction of 90% of them and government has sold most off for a song - the private owners don't pay capital depreciation anywhere near the market rate.
No wonder coal generation is artificially cheap!

The reason new clean power has to be subsidized is to offset the subsidies coal is getting.

And don't worry, subsidies rapidly reduce as the price comes down due to technology maturing. For example PV costs have gone down about 70% in 7 years; consequently FIT tariffs and lump subsidies for rooftop solar have been removed, leaving only the RET market-based subsidy which is still needed to offset the subsidies given to 'old coal'.

If the C price had been retained at or above $25/ t CO2 and there were a plan or pollution regulations (like the US has) leading to the the phased retirement of coal power stations (many of which are already over 40 years old and past their design life) then the RET would eventually be unnecessary. But given we now have none of the above it is imperative we keep the RET.

PS The C price was working well on the main sector it applied to - electricity. However I acknowledge that level of C price would have little effect on transport or agriculture emissions (7c/L for petrol and 10-15c for beef). Additional measures are needed to reduce emissions there.

Ben Rose