The primary driver should be emissions targets not quotas and subsidies for preferred technologies. That way nuclear and carbon capture (if viable) get a look in. An oddity is that a report to the RET Review concluded the cost of CO2 avoided by the RET was $59 per tonne. When carbon tax was repealed the official price was $25.40. If Abbott's election can be taken as vote against carbon pricing it is odd that opinion surveys find 65% support for the RET. I suspect that is in part due to fears of losing the feed-in tariffs for home solar, a state government not federal policy.

I would drop the RET altogether and replace it with a tough ETS whereby emissions have to shrink 1% a year. Then we'd see if wind and commercial solar stood on their own merits as emissions reducers. At the moment our emissions are up, perhaps proving the RET is ineffective for that purpose.

Dear Taswegian,

While the CO2 story is a bad hoax, non-renewable still means non-renewable: what we take from the earth now, which accumulated there over billions of years, whatever intelligent species will come after humans are gone, will no longer be able to use. What right has the human race to plunder the earth this way, taking it all in ~200 years?

Perhaps this explains the difference in percentages between the smaller number concerned about CO2 and the larger number concerned about depleting the earth of its energy resources?

When David Leyonhjelm says "Nobody believes this is possible" what he really means is he can't see how it can be done. Or possibly he just thinks it shouldn't be done and creating the illusion of impossibility is the most effective way to get others to agree. But in reality the main thing preventing us from reaching the target is the politicians removing the incentive to!

If retailers cannot purchase enough certificates, the legislation requires that a penalty charge of $65 per MWh be imposed. That's 6.5c/kWh. How can that "nearly triple the cost of the scheme to electricity retailers"? And when have retail margins ever been part of the cost to retailers?

Hydro generators certainly should be in the RET, but broadening the scheme should not be used to reduce the effective target. We should commit to add 25 TWh in 5 years. And we should fund it with concessional loans to ensure that it results in cheaper electricity.

Taswegian do you really believe the authority claiming to state our emissions can be trusted. Obviously they could cease to exist if emissions are going down.

When the once trusted Bureau of Meteorology can no longer be trusted to call a category 3 cyclone a cat 3, but get caught trying to label it a cat 5, it becomes very hard to believe the pronouncements of a body with high vested interested.

Hell I can remember when you could trust the CSIRO, & believe it implicitly. You could once actually watch the ABC news, & believe their presenters.

I recently saw a satellite generated map of the CO2 emissions worldwide. The biggest plume of CO2 from any part of the planet came from the Amazon jungle. Australia was near the lowest emitter, but also very low, was the eastern half of the USA.

This didn't preach the right story, so was quickly discarded by academia to please their greenie mates. Hell we wouldn't want it realised by the public, that we could reduce CO2 emissions by bulldozing all that horrible rain forest, & building an industrial estate, now would we?

Hasbeen, do you actually believe, or even just think it possible, that we could reduce CO2 emissions by bulldozing all that horrible rain forest, & building an industrial estate?

Destruction of the rainforest is one of the biggest emitters of CO2, and also a big emitter of methane. Rainforests are big absorbers of CO2 - we once thought that once fully established a rainforest's effect is neutral, but we now know that not to be the case – it keeps on growing. However even in the Amazon jungle, forest fires do occasionally occur – and when that happens there are big CO2 plumes.

Our electricity supply is 87% fossil fuelled, 13% renewable of which half or so is 20th century built hydro. I'm fairly sure no new large hydros will ever be built so it comes back to wind and solar, 1.5% and 2.9% of our 2013 electricity. Reference BREE Energy in Australia 2014 Table 8.

Apart from electricity there is heating both industrial and domestic as well as transport fuels, overwhelmingly oil based. In future electricity may take over some but not all heat and transport tasks. If you think the small amount of wind and solar can expand say twenty fold but with more reliability I think this flies in the face of the evidence.

Side note; under the RET hydro is not eligible for the REC subsidy of around $40 per Mwh if built before 1997. Somehow some circa 1975 built hydros have wangled it. I think the Commonwealth Auditor General should investigate.

The problem here is what is the purpose of the RET, if it is to reduce carbon emissions then hydro dams are not helpful as their constantly changing water levels cover vegetation, leading to substantial emissions of methane. On the other hand if the purpose as the name implies is to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels then there is an obvious benefit.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/methane-emissions-may-swell-from-behind-dams/

I support view that the purpose of the RET is reduce carbon emission, thus I can see no merit in including Hydro dams in the RET especially as they are one of the cheapest ways to produce electricity and thus do not need any subsidies.

The whole idea behind a RET, was to allegedly reduce carbon!

I mean and for heavens sake. The Germans are shutting down their old nuclear power stations and replacing them with coal!

Well you need to produce carbon to trade and make money from it!

An international ETS will make carbon the most valuable and most traded commodity on earth!

So how in heavens name will that incentivate emission reductions!?

And who will pay for this brand new money (140 billion per) for shuffling paper, gravy train?

You guessed it, the dumb as doorknobs energy consumer; and moreover, for the veritable army of bureaucrats charged with policing it!

We have enough carbon free thorium to power the world for around 700 years; or Australia for thousands if we just keep it here for our own exclusive use and the (carbon free) half price power it will create for us and our own thoroughly resuscitated manufacturing sector.

And reliance on locally produced endlessly sustainable (carbon neutral) biogas, and ceramic fuel cells, will cut household power bills by half yet again; thanks to the four times better than coal, 80% energy coefficient of the ceramic fuel cell.

We will still need to mine some coal for steel production, but literally halve the carbon we create; making it, by relying exclusively on the locally invented direct reduction method and energy reliant arc furnaces/thorium power!

Thorium will also not only remove carbon production from smelting most metals including aluminium, magnesium and titanium, but given the huge reduction in production costs, the lowest costing metal production on the planet!

And if we follow that pragmatism by then building a nuclear powered bulk shipping fleet, ensure that our finished/value added products are forwarded for the lowest cost to us/massively boost trade!

Forget politics David and downright dumb and disastrous PPE's; and just think Lee Kwan Yu type nation building pragmatism!

If that then compels govt owned and operated enterprise all over the place so be it!

Time to take Tweedledum's blinkers off!
Rhrosty

Oh Dear oh Dear, when will they learn ?
David Leyonhjelm is a politician and they always think anything to do
with energy can be fixed by manipulation money around the problem.

NOW HEAR THIS !

Neither solar or wind can fix what is a related problem with CO2 and
energy supply.
It is important to realise that the Energy Return on Energy Invested
in both oil an coal has fallen quite significantly.
This means a change to some other system is needed but solar and wind
are non starters. They have too low an eroei to be more than a bit of
a fill in or, shall I be blunt, a hobby for greenies.

Note how the worlds politicians are fixated on increasing growth.
They are completely unaware that they are in the grip of diminishing returns.
It is impossible to generate growth at a time when we are entering
an era of zero growth. We are entering that era because of increasing
difficulty and therefore cost of energy extraction.

Politicians are attacking the wrong problem. All this talk of the RET
is stupid because everyone is thinking wind & solar AND THAT WON"T FIX IT !

Rhrosty, your claim that "The Germans are shutting down their old nuclear power stations and replacing them with coal" is FALSE. Though Germany, like Australia, generates a high proportion of its electricity from coal, that proportion is falling despite their gradual phaseout of nuclear. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany

Molten oxide electrolysis is set to revolutionize metal production in the coming decades, but that will happen with or without thorium fission. And not exporting thorium once there's a demand for it makes no sense – Australia has abundant solar energy; much of the world doesn't and is therefore more in need of nuclear power than we are.

As for nuclear powered ships, forget it! They'd be expensive to run and a security risk, and many countries are likely to bar their access.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Bazz, not only are you wrong but you're misrepresenting David's position in a way that unfairly favours him!

Throwing money at the problem could easily fix it. But David thinks that would be impossible, and in any case he's not interested in solving it; just meeting political targets by fudging them!

It is important to realise that (except at very low values) EROEI isn't and can never be the limiting factor; cost is, and costs can be manipulated.

We aren't entering an era of zero growth. And even if we entered an era of zero energy use growth, it would not equate to an era of zero economic growth. But energy use won't stop growing unless demand for it does, and that's unlikely any time soon.

Aidan, nothing stops you from continuing to shout your zealotry from the rooftops. Get a grip!

If we are going to throw money, let it be where is can affordably affect AGW in the time-frame available, nuclear base-load power.

PV's have run their race. They don't stack up, even before energy storage costs are factored in:
http://energyskeptic.com/2015/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/
The same affliction applies to wind and solar thermal.

If only wishful thinking, like prayer, worked. Alas, God will not save us, we have to save ourselves.

And here, linked to the cited website.

http://energyskeptic.com/2015/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/#responses

What is it about reality, as opposed to the hypothetical, you reject Aidan?

Time for arguing against the enormity of climate change impacts on our earth are behind us. There is absolute certainty that our profligate use of energy is really harming our world.

Arguments to reduce actions designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are fallacious.

In our country, that is experiencing reduced rain and longer more frequent heat waves, and in particular, reduced snow fall in our hydro areas, it is ridiculous to see new hydro as some miraculous solution.

Dear Tony,

<<There is absolute certainty that our profligate use of energy is really harming our world.>>

Please speak for your own world, not "our" - the world that I know cannot be harmed!

I think Aiden that you had better read this.

http://energyskeptic.com/2015/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/#responses

Prieto and Hall conclude that the EROI of solar photovoltaic is only
2.45, very low despite Spain’s ideal sunny climate. Germany’s EROI is
probably 20 to 33% less (1.6 to 2), due to less sunlight and less
efficient rooftop installations.

These two researches are probably, from what I have previously read,are
at the top of the scale in their field.

I must admit to being surprised at how low the ERoEI is for solar.
It certainly means the the RET really is a bomb.
The PVs that you referred to a while back with a magnitude increase in
output really would be a saver. Trouble is it might be like fusion;
Always 50 years away.

To Yuyutsu,
War in Syria and general uprisings in Egypt probably initiated by climate change. Huge fires and heatwaves in Russia, Ukraine, US and floods in Australia dramatically reduced Egypt's ability to import necessary flour for their staple diet. Of course the Egyptian population rebelled.

Mass migration from drought ridden Euphrates valley in Syria sent almost 1 million subsistence farmers to cities, where government gave no support - started uprising.

Massive floods in Pakistan a few years ago.

Statistics showing marked increase in death rates among the elderly during heat waves.

Your world obviously does not include such locations. Your world is devoid of scientists.

But, the tide is definitely turning against those who deny the science. Even the youth in the US are starting to use the law to charge governments for not protecting their environment, for polluting a common good - our atmosphere.

You can turn your blind eye to obvious climate related problems - but don't worry - others are working to safeguard your part of our world as well.

Dear Tony,

You did not relate to my statement: the world cannot be harmed even if all humans died.

Instead, you mention this silly and tired hoax of "climate change": Margaret Thatcher is dead and my brother is still waiting for the sea-level to rise by 61 metres so he gets a private beach, as promised by those clowns. If you like to speak about the environment, go ahead as there are indeed serious issues there for those who care about the continuation of the human race, but mentioning such nonsense in their place does not add to the credibility of your arguments.

Tony 123, sorry to prick one part of your bubble.
The problem with Egypt has nothing to do with climate change.
From when Egypt became an oil exporter the government has subsidised
food and fuel. This enabled the population to rise from around
40 million, which was the population that the Nile could support to
85 million today.

However their oil production peaked in 2000 and has been declining
since then. As it declined the government had to reduce the subsidies
and this caused the riots over food and fuel which caused Mubarik's downfall.
Somehow they have to get rid of 45 million people !

Bazz, I think YOU'D better read that last link yoiu posted. All of it. Particularly my April 19 comment that explains why their conclusions are erroneous.

I did read it all. The main objections are the boundaries.
I just do not see how you can ignore them.
Even if you restrict to the actual installation the result is not very good.

Yes Bazz, and add in buffering (storage) and the math tells us PV's are even more of a dud than than even the wishful thinkers believe, in the fight against CO2 (now tipping 400ppm worldwide) http://click.email.businessspectator.com.au/?qs=f953f411a11a0162cdae52767a19aee0aa794f611c6c6d06a18f503ab8f4952498ea7aa6350eeccb
Death to RET's, long live nuclear.

Bazz, the main differences are indeed the boundaries. Money is not energy; it belongs outside the boundaries for EROEI calculations. If they want to calculate energy returned over energy and converted money invested, they should be open about it rather than pretending that the EROEACMI figure is the true EROEI. I don't see how you can ignore that fact.

If Prieto and Hall are at the top of the scale in their field, it shows that most good researchers probably haven't bothered with that field. Probably because most scientists and engineers realise that technology is improving all the time, and we've long passed the stage where we were putting more energy in than we got out. Even the calculations Prieto and Hall fudged with non-energy inputs show positive net energy.

As for thin film solar cells, they're certainly not going to always be 50 years away. They already exist. Now it's just a matter of making them sufficiently durable before they go to commercial production.

"Even the calculations Prieto and Hall fudged with non-energy inputs show positive net energy."

Even without factoring in storage, PV barely tips in a positive value. If inputs other than energy were valued as energy equivalents into nuclear plants in the way P&H have with PVs, they still smash the ball completely out of the park in meeting civilization's needs.
RE (hydro excepted) has no leverage by comparison. It's trying to use a see-saw, pivoted in the middle, to lift something massive.

Producing a modicum of positive nett energy (PNE) does not qualify an energy source as a viable solution to the problem at hand. Besides the PNE being unable to rise much in the real world even with major technological advancement(P&H), there is the the sheer financial scale involved in delivering RE infrastructure for both the growing energy needs of advanced civilization the the aspirations of developing civilization.

It is completely and utterly fanciful for resources required to build this energy nirvana to be diverted from virtually all other human need and endeavour for the time necessary, time we don't have. Simply, it is a political and financial impossibility.

But, no, we can't let that stand in the way of wishful thinking, can we now?! It is simply astonishing that worldwide, such thought holds sway, and we fiddle while Rome burns. RET's squander money needing devotion to the only real solution there is, nuclear. Those claiming to be trying to save the world have no realistic appreciation of the magnitude of the task, nor the resources or time it will take, by their chosen path. They are a block to our survival.

Luciferase, the "barely positive" value becomes strongly positive in any honest appraisal.

Producing a modicum of PNE does not disqualify an energy source as a viable solution to the problem at hand. But even a high EROEI doesn't qualify an energy source as a viable solution. Cadmium telluride solar cells have a much better EROEI than silicon ones, but the use of scarce (and expensive) tellurium and toxic cadmium means they're less practical. And nuclear power has a very high EROEI but high costs meaning that in many circumstances it's not the best solution.

It is completely and utterly fanciful to claim the resources needed to switch to renewable energy as our primary source would leave virtually all other human needs and endeavours unsatisfied. There's a huge amount of spare capacity in the global economy at the moment. And because wind and solar generally have very low running
costs, they can work out cheaper in the long run.

Nuclear is certainly a solution worth considering, but it's far from the only practical solution and Australia's low population density weakens the case for it here.

Aiden, I have read your comment and I can see the argument you are making.
The boundaries need defining.
For instance the energy needed to produce the steel and the energy
needed to manufacture the vehicle that the man whose job it is to run
around servicing the solar equipment, should that be counted ?

If he did not drive around could he do the job by walking ?
If so the extra food he eats, could be added into the total overhead.
If he cannot do either then the plant will eventually fail.
Is there a way to convert the cost of that vehicle into overhead energy ?
That seems to be the crux of the argument.

In a coal fired plant are these factors not also real ?

I suspect that this argument does not materially affect the result
in the longer term. However they are real.

World-wide, Aidan, you blind-folded pied-pipers are leading us towards destruction with your wishful thinking and your RETs. But of course, don't let reality impinge upon your reverie.

Like, the success in France and elsewhere of affordable nuclear power, which will only get more affordable when the RE zealots, the primary placers of obstacles before it, are finally recognized as charlatans.They shout loudly of technology advances in PVs, as if that is all that determines their viability, while failing to acknowledge any prospect of nuclear becoming even safer and more efficient.

Or, like the real experience, not hypothetical calculations, surrounding PV's in Spain, and Germany, of their unviability as a solution to mitigating AGW, even before the issue of storage reduces it considerably further.

Well, it looks like things will just have to get worse before they get better while the dreamers keep us blind and befuddled, as if we even have time for that drunken luxury.

Bazz, whether the energy needed to produce the steel and the energy needed to manufacture the vehicle that the man whose job it is to runaround servicing the solar equipment should be counted depends IMO on whether the vehicle is exclusively for that purpose. If it isn't, it would probably be made anyway, so I'd exclude it.

But I'm not objecting to Prieto and Hall including that sort of thing in their figures. What I'm objecting to is their inclusion of such things as municipal taxes. They're not energy at all, but Prieto and Hall wrongly believe money can be converted to energy. This belief seems to be based on a failure to understand that money exists before a profit is made.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Luciferase, you seem to be attributing to me opinions other than my own. I've got nothing against the success in France and elsewhere of affordable nuclear power, and I think there should be much more of it in many countries including England. But I do object to the wishful thinking by which you see it as a panacea, and I also object to the limited imagination by which you claim that it's the only viable alternative. It isn't, and it's not always even the cheapest option.

RETs are not my favourite way of encouraging renewable energy; as I've said many times before, I'd much rather see concessional loans used instead. But however it's encouraged, more renewable energy does put a long term downward pressure on electricity prices. As does nuclear.

Aiden,
I would expect the vehicle in question would be equipped with
ladders, toolbox, instruments, perhaps some plumbing tools, gas bottles etc etc.

As far as local government rates etc, I think we should be comparing
like with like. So would coal fired stations pay rates ?
Would a large solar farms pay rates ? Would a wind farm pay rates ?
Well the land on which the windfarm was installed would have an increased
valuation and so increased rates.

UNless you equalise the overheads (all of them) how do you make
a comparison ?
I can see why Prieto and Hall included them. Afterall Prieto was
writing cheques to cover all these contingencies.

One way to equalise it is by the sale price of the electricity.
Afterall the sale of the electricity needed to pay a bill is a
loss that does not support the plants viability.
Too many of these will collapse the operation.
Ultimatly that is what counts.

"....I also object to the limited imagination by which you claim that it's the only viable alternative."

If we are to impact upon AGW, maintain civilization standards and grow them in the developing world, it is the only viable alternative for base-load. All your imagination and wishful thinking won't change that, but do carry on with your tripe.

Bazz,

I have no objection to comparing local government rates etc. If you want to make an equalised overheads comparison, go ahead. Just don't pretend it's still an EROEI comparison.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Luciferase,

Your claims about maintaining civilization standards are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what civilization requires. And in the developing world, where the gap between skilled and unskilled wages is much higher, the economics are less likely to favour nuclear.

Despite that, nuclear's often the best solution. But I can't think of anywhere where it's the only solution.

"But I can't think of anywhere where it's the only solution."

Have you thought of the planet Earth? That's what we're talking about, isn't it?

Largely, of course, the developing world can't leap to nuclear, but nor is there value in RE long-term, cost-wise or in mitigating AGW, as real experience teaches us. Hydrocarbons, in most cases, are the affordable pathway to the state of civilization to which is aspired, seguing into urbanization and nuclear. The developed world can head nuclear now, or hydro where EROIE viability and environment permits.

Whatever, enough of me chasing tripe-peddling dreamers through warrens. Either we sober-up and act logically or allow AGW to gallop away.

Aiden, I think I see the point you are making;
The energy required to be sold to pay the bill does in fact add to the
energy that the buyer needs for his business anyway.

The point of eroei is to measure the viability of the process.
If eroei = 7 and overheads reduce the viability eroei to 7-2 can it
function with an overall eroei of 5 ?

If it cannot then it fails because the eroei was not high enough and
cannot support itself.

I suspect that this is the reason solar and wind can never build the
next energy regime without coal.

So there are two ways of looking at this problem as above.
It is only a factor with plant with a marginal eroei to start with.

It is not a factor with coal because it has an eroei, from what I have read of 30.
Oil is becoming marginal because its eroei seems to be around 10.
This seems a likely figure as the major oil companies are having
financial difficulties with their return on investment in search & development.

Luciferase, I have thought of the planet Earth, but it receives an enormous amount of energy from the sun, and IIRC a previous study has found that (100km)^2 of solar panels would be enough to meet the entire planet's electricity needs.

If there's anywhere where nuclear is the only alternative to fossil fuels, it's likely to be a small densely populated island.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Bazz, the point of eroei is to measure the TECHNICAL viability of the process, not the commercial viability. If something fails commercially it's probably because the costs are too high. EROEI is one of the factors that influences those costs, but rarely is it the main factor.

In the early days EROEI was very important because energy returns were low and the energy invested was high; often higher than the return, and everyone knew it wouldn't be much use for on grid applications until that was addressed. But we're long past that stage now. EROEI measurements can still be of some use for checking the environmental credentials of renewable energy infrastructure are as claimed, but some people seem intent on assigning it a much greater significance. I still struggle to comprehend how otherwise intelligent people can believe the absurd proposition that an advanced society needs an EROEI of at least 7.

Oil is becoming marginal not because of EROEI but because oil prices have fallen. And nuclear isn't always a financial success despite its very high EROEI.