The fact is the Renewable Energy Target is exceedingly generous in terms of both guaranteed market share and subsidies yet it fails to prevent emissions increasing. In 2015 we had 19 Twh of renewable electricity (excluding legacy hydro) but the 2020 target is 33 Twh, a virtually impossible increase. The LGC subsidy has been about $80 per Mwh or 8c per kwh when the wholesale price of brown coal electricity is about 3.5c per kwh. Solar farms get about 45% of their capital cost paid for by ARENA.

Against that however is the reduction in solar feed in tariffs ordered by state governments so that residential solar takeup is far less than in say in 2012. Some say batteries will have a revolutionary effect but so far few have been installed, no doubt due to the long payback period. We will still require increasingly expensive gas generation to back up the grid in wind lulls and weak light conditions.

I'm all for wind and solar provided they earn their place as low carbon generators not via quotas and subsidies. On the other hand 15 GW of nuclear baseload would knock 30% off Australia's emissions and set us up for overnight charging of electric cars.

Well they're not alone here and as history and the paleontological record shows, two if allowed will all but guarantee five and unavoidable catastrophe, as the permafrost and the also formerly permanently frozen tundra melts, releasing millions of tons of (at least 21 times more efficacious as a greenhouse gas) lighter than air
methane.

And seen as once again history repeating itself that all but wipes out all life on planet earth? This cause and effect result happened before and the recoverable paleontological record shows just that!

If we can't prevent it, we must prepare and adapt for it and before it's too late.

Push our coastal economy inland, preferably before it's inundated and not after! (Inland shipping canal and linked rapid rail, a national fleet of cargo carrying nuclear powered submersibles) Get busy decarbing the economy with (cheaper than coal)carbon negative and carbon neutral energy provision, which if rolled out as publicly supplied, owned and operated very low cost not for profit energy has massive economic upsides.

And we'll need massive and truly affordable energy provision to cool our overheating dwellings and power the myriad underground systems which will in all likelihood include most food production and transport and piped desalinated water supplies!?

Almost unbelievably, the hottest planet in our solar system is very nearby Venus, rather than an airless mercury, which is vastly closer to the sun!

The difference? Venus has an atmosphere of mostly heat trapping sulfur laden Co2 gas, some of which is both highly acidic and toxic! We should be so lucky!

We have enough (cheaper than coal) thorium to power the world, we're told, to power the world for 700 years; and enough time for the planet to recover, build a sustainable and better future and begin our migration to the next frontier, the stars.
Alan B.

They probably know that a recent poll on climate change showed public interest to be at an alltime low, only 44% of respondents being non-scepitical. For the majority, it is a non issue now.

The Abbott govt decimated Australia's developing renewable energy industry - to the detriment of IP (intellectual property) and export earnings.

Australia's electricity grids can indeed be powered by wind and solar, for a price increase of less than about 2c more per kWh
http://www.sen.asn.au/modelling_findings

This study, which I co-authored, shows how 85% renewable electricity can be installed in Western Australia by 2030, creating thousands of jobs. It also shows 4 other scenarios for 100% renewable power and compares these with nuclear, which is far riskier and more expensive.

WA is an isolated grid, so there are no inter-connectors and there is no need for base load power (either coal or nuclear). Over 80% of energy will come directly from wind and PV, 5 % from storage and about 15 % from gas turbines (OCGT's) powered by gas or biofuels

Roses1 you must do this to prove the doubters wrong. A cautionary tale is that Germany spent €23.7bn on renewables subsidies in 2015 yet their emissions went up 1.1%. Maybe there was a flaw in their analysis.

Roses1, why did you cowrite a paper showing a cost increase instead of assuming a lower cost of capital and showing a cost decrease?

CHICKENS, CHICKENS, CHICKENS!

Shame on the so-called "Liberal" party for mumbling insincere apologies about this "climate change" thing. Why can't any of them have the guts, dare to say the truth and call this "global warming" propaganda what it really is - the biggest fraud ever!

Yes, renewable energy is still a good thing because it is not right to rob the earth in a brief couple of centuries of its energy resources that accumulated there for billions of years and may still be needed by future species long after humans are gone. Yet this has nothing to do with the so-called "pollution" lie: CO2 is a good product for plants to grow and produce our food and shelter.

Yes yuyustu, Plants do extremely well if exposed to increased Co2, and it's referred to as the greenhouse effect! Moreover, an acre of trees evaporates 2.5 times more moisture than an acre of open water.

And as is much more noticeable in the cooler months, atmosphere with more moisture as evidenced in an overcast night, is warmer than a cloudless starlit night where even in tropical northern Queensland, one may need to light the fire and unpack the donas.

Which demonstrate that atmospheric moisture traps heat and more of it thanks to bulked up plants using Co2 as bodybuilders use steroids.

More evaporated plant provided moisture traps more of it!

And given the roll out of cheaper than coal carbon free or carbon neutral alternative energy along with the huge economic upsides that could produce if retained by we the people!

One wonders what the real problem is with just simply unwinding our dependence on coal, which by the way, can still be used in a carbon neutral economy as the source of coal seam gas used in ceramic fuel cells to produce the lowest costing energy anywhere in the world.

Which as you likely know produce mostly pristine water vapor as the exhaust product. And all we might do just by using the brains we were born with, comes with a massive economic upside!

So what problem do you have with that or applying the precautionary principle on just the basis of observable known changes and effects, all of which have a cause!
Alan B.

Graham this activist tripe has no place on any serious forum.

I am surprised this junk was published here.

If solar and wind were any sort of solution subsidies would not be needed. The fact that they are just proves what nonsense we have fallen for.
Great big solar array in Mildura has been mothballed and they blame reduced subsidies? Rubbish, all the usual suspects ripping our tax dollars with flim flam and scam!

PricewaterhouseCoopers in November 2012; hardly a radical Agency, stated that to make a real effort to ward off dangerous temperature increases emissions must be reduced by 5% every year. The LNP goal is far off this goal, Labor needs a much more stringent policy.

Quote from Forward of Report:

"It’s time to plan for a warmer world.
The annual Low Carbon Economy Index centres on one core statistic: the rate of change of global carbon intensity.
This year we estimated that the required improvement in global carbon intensity to meet a 2°C warming target has risen to 5.1% a year, from now to 2050.

From:

http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/sustainability/publications/low-carbon-economy-index/assets/pwc-low-carbon-economy-index-2012.pdf

Data in relation to the degree of radiative forcing by greenhouse gases from a reliable source, if you disagree watch the Professor Kroth film clip:

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi.html

The column at the end of the reference shows that 2.974 watts were created per square metre in 2015 taking into account all greenhouse gases.

Psychologist, ProfessorJerry Kroth, states he believes that deniers of climate change including luke warmers are delusional.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnEO2ysnO6Q

Another psychology study shows how when data from climate science is put into a different context statistians and economists agree with the data put to them. Disproving the opinions deniers suggest.

http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskyGEC16.html

Many countries are in strife around the Planet in relation to water and food resources.

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/may/30/el-nino-is-over-but-it-leaves-nearly-100-million-people-short-of-food?CMP=share_btn_tw

We should all embrace LFTR (Liquide Floride Thorium Reactor) safe, reliable, cheap nuclear technology, the only viable electricity generation technology left on the planet at today's technology scale.

It can produce cheap electricity, transport fuels, medical isotopes, safe U238 plutonium fuels for space power requirements. If we do not we are idiots.

Forget renewables, they just don't cut the mustard at today's 24/7 requirements.

Sit down, take off your blinkers and watch this: https://youtu.be/YVSmf_qmkbg.

Cheers
Geoff

Ant, sorry to burst your bubble but Price Waterhouse Coopers? I would call them prostitutes but that would be a disservice to prostitutes. PWC ask "What is the answer?" before looking at anything.
I could call them money-grubbers but then that would give you, know how it goes.
Here is a thread what other descriptions can readers find for PWC?
Game on!

Thank you, JBower.

You have illustrated the denier technique on two counts.

Firstly, you make disparaging comments about PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Secondly, you take what you perceive to be the low hanging fruit, ignoring the rest of my references.

There is a degree of consilience in my previous post.

I worked for Price Waterhouse and Co; Chartered Accountants 48 years ago. They were very ethical in how they dealt with matters at that time. Chartered Accountants have a code of ethics; so any complaints should be investigated. The PWC reference is an aside to the one about radiation forcing by greenhouse gases. Like professionals in other fields, they place a high price on the service they provide.

Please find evidence against:

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi.html

You need to remember in doing so that we are up to satellite modelling of data Mark VI, and that the modelled slabs of temperature measured is showing a substantial increase (per Dr Spencer).
Also, you need to be able to debunk the many experiments that show how radiated infrared operates, particularly the 11 year ARM research project. The 11 year ARM project was based at two locations and took data pretty well on a daily basis.

http://phys.org/news/2015-02-carbon-dioxide-greenhouse-effect.html

You might also like to debunk the fact that Arctic sea ice is at a level weeks in advance of normal melting. Or, the Fort McMurray extremely early wildfires have burnt a record amount of area for the time of year. Meanwhile, the drought continues in Southern California; and Houstan has been rain bombed several times this year.

Ant PWC and the GFC? I need say no more. You just carry on son, you are doing a great job. Good on you, saving the planet lol!

JBower

Once again you prove my point, please debunk the ARM and ERSL NOAA references.

Dear Alan,

I am not interested in discussing this stupid "climate change" hoax. It started off as a ploy of Margaret Thatcher in order to suppress the British coal miners and their unions and subsequently it was taken over by the "United-Nations" as part of their plan to control the world and us in it. If need be, I rather have the world boil up than come under their control.

As I said, it is indeed a good thing to unwind our dependence on coal and other fossil fuels - but the reasons have nothing to do with this ridiculous claim of "pollution" since CO2 is not a polluter. Conversely, the theft of earth's resources is not a myth or a con: we dig and use up fossils at a rate of about 1000 years of accumulation per hour and that doesn't seem right and shouldn't go on.

Yuyutsu

You need to look at the history of climate change in greater depth.

At the beginning of the 20th century the risks of emissions from coal was already being discussed in a short newspaper article ( July 1912). Margaret Thatcher had not even been born.

Around that time also; Svante Arrhenius, was calculating the impact of CO2 emissions on temperature.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/100645214

Stephen Hawking, if he does not process the greatest mind of our time; he is not far off.

He states:

“A more immediate danger is runaway climate change,” Hawking said. “A rise in ocean temperature would melt the ice-caps, and cause a release of large amounts of carbon dioxide from the ocean floor. Both effects could make our climate like that of Venus, with a temperature of 250 degrees.”

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/05/31/3783216/stephen-hawking-donald-trump-climate-change/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cptop3&utm_term=1&utm_content=53

Bloomberg uses graphs to show what is happening with climate.

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/

Yuyutsu,

This video discussing AGW appears to pre-date Thatcher's Prime-Ministership by quite a few years:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6YyvdYPrhY

But you just keep telling yourself it's all a hoax.

So Ant, in the 1970's The Whitlam Government had Australian scientists join in a movement that said we were heading to another Ice Age?
I can only suppose 99 per cent of scientists agreed with that too? All flying on first class expenses of course.
This is why I do not trust this nonsense.
Suggestion, read Eisenhowers famous speech about the "Military Industrial Complex". Right after he equally cautioned about research expenses leading to more and more research.
This is all fine until they want me to start paying them more than I have for this junk.

JBower

In the 70s there were more science papers published about global warming than about cooling.
Scientists working for ExxonMobil (1970s) were writing about the impact of greenhouse gases creating an increase in temperature.

This is what happens in a warming atmosphere:

Texas is being hit hard by rain bombs in 2016. Here is a reference showing the devastation being caused in France and Germany recently by rain bombs, note the last photo:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36429381

Here we go again wasting more time & electricity on the wrong problem.
The Global Energy Group at Upsalla Uni showed that the IPCC models
use too high a figure for AVAILABLE oil & coal.

It does not matter whether CO2's global warming is true or not.
We cannot afford to burn enough of the coal & oil to do it.
Likewise we cannot afford to build a fleet of nuclear power stations.
Look at the financial difficulty the UK is having to build just ONE more.

It is doubtful that we can afford to build enough solar & wind farms
to generate a 24/7/7/overcast days amount of power in one sunny day !
Nuclear power might well be cheaper, especially thorium.

Labors/Greens renewables targets are pointless without bringing into account the CO2 emitted in their production, in the production of their backup requirements, and in maintenance.

Sure, the fuel costs nothing, but what is the point of it all if it has no impact on global emissions. We'd simply be transferring emmisions to wherever the hardware is made.

Also, what inanity is it to try to match cheap overseas producers of the hardware at their own game. The supposed jobs bonanza in renewables touted by Labor/Greens would only be in their pointless erection.

Of course, we have to be looking like we're doing something until the penny drops and we buy in nuclear. But whether it's Direct Action (including tree-planting, FCOL!) or renewables, its all just poncing about until biting the real bullet.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/thorium.aspx

Yes Luciferase, it does seem to be a lost cause to try and reduce CO2
by building solar & wind power.
The crux of the matter is we if did not use oil or coal, solar & wind
could not build themselves.

We have built our present industrial system on the high energy density
of oil & coal.
At present we have no other similar high density energy source available.

It comes down to the ultimate question; presuming we are able to build
a complete solar/wind energy system using coal & oil then after they
are gone can it be maintained and/or be extended on solar/wind alone ?

A very unhappy circumstance, a spike in temperature of 2C above pre Industrial levels has been seen in the Northern Hemisphere.

Quote:
" ... recent days, the temperature had reached approximately 2.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The graphic has been replaced with an updated version showing a less dramatic temperature spike, to approximately 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, though still exceeding 2 degrees Celsius when measured from pre-industrial levels."

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/03/01/february_2016_s_shocking_global_warming_temperature_record.html

Fair enough Ant the hottest of the hottest. Here is a challenge for you. Call up Karoly or Flannery and offer to buy their waterside properties. Let's face it we are all doomed so they will accept a packet of salted nuts for land next to the water surely.
Let me know how you go.

JBower, all you are doing is creating a diversion.
The 2C spike in temperature above pre Industrial times for the Northern Hemisphere should be a jolt; when La Nina kicks in the rise in temperature globally might be slower but continues to go up.

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20160120/gistemp_graph_2015.png

Something else to think about:

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/may/30/el-nino-is-over-but-it-leaves-nearly-100-million-people-short-of-food?CMP=share_btn_tw

Also:

Since 1979 the amount of radiative forcing has been monitored, it has been worked out to be 2.974watts/square metre for 2015. The Earth’s area is 510 million square kilometres. So by multiplying 510,000,000 by 1,000 to obtain the number of square metres we derive 510,000,000,000 square metres. To obtain the number of watts involved we multiply 510,000,000,000 by 2.974 to get the number of watts created over equilibrium (1516,740,000,000 watts). The amount of energy created goes up on an annual basis by over 1%

Global temperature has continued to rise since Dru Pearce created the graphs using themperature data:

https://vimeo.com/12814116

My apologies the vimeo clip is wrong. The one I tried to send has Dru Pearce explaining the movement to the right of standard deviations when increase in temperature is graphed. Much more than two standard deviations; it provides information that backs the 2C spike.

Alaska is extremely warm at present.

Try:

https://vimeo.com/128141163

Ant any word from the professors yet?

JBower

As I stated your question is just a diversion.

Temperature spikes in the Northern Hemisphere, the sea ice extent of the Arctic Ocean and temperatures of Alaska are of more consequence.