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The Forum > Article Comments > Coal has a role yet in keeping economies as healthy as possible > Comments

Coal has a role yet in keeping economies as healthy as possible : Comments

By Gary Johns, published 24/2/2017

A developing country could spend its money trying to abate carbon dioxide emissions or it could invest in enough ­resources to adapt to climate change successfully.

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Before 'adapting' any further there is need for complete science and absolute scientific proof carbon is causing AGW, or climate change as it's now called.
Posted by JF Aus, Saturday, 25 February 2017 11:09:55 AM
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Aidan,

We might have a differing view as to what is 'material'. Based on the numbers used by the IPCC, if (a very big if) Australia adheres to its Paris commitments, world temperatures in 2100 will be about .004 degrees lower than a business as usual approach. I call that immaterial but you may have a different standard.

"instead our continued usage of coal is an excuse for other countries to do nothing."

Please advise which countries are using our coal use as an excuse to do nothing. Actually don't bother - there aren't any. China and India will continue to grow their economy and their emissions irrespective of what we do.

As an aside, since you favour reducing emissions, do you support fracking? I use that as a guide to see how committed people are to their emissions fantasies.
Posted by mhaze, Saturday, 25 February 2017 11:51:46 AM
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Marsh gas, is in fact, heavier than air Co2 and Some very well preserved species died as a consequence of crossing low lying hollows, filled with marsh gas, where they were effectively asphyxiated by the very local atmosphere, which was more than 20% Co2.

Aside from that the rest of the prehistoric world's atmosphere seems to have been a very healthy 51% oxygen now down to less than 25%. Which seems to have allowed various pathogens like HIV/AIDS to establish and prosper, when a higher more oxygen laden atmosphere, may well have effectively disinfected them.

That said and back to topic, if coal has a viable but reduced role in our future then it should be part of finished steel exports. And that's only doable with clean cheap safe abundant energy, automation and the locally invented one step process that turns iron ore directly into finished steel, and given all the above and genuine tax reform, at prices other folk find difficult to compete with.

But even more so if our exports are ferried to them on our own nuclear powered national fleet, and again where automation and our nuclear fuel costs (thorium and refueled once every 100 years) give us an unbeatable edge there as well!

Bulk freight forwarding remains one of the most profitable enterprises on planet earth. Therefore, we can use it and the aforementioned, to keep our own homeland economy as healthy as possible!

Benefiting the entire economy, will serve us all along with the currently privileged, who no doubt will also be ultimately better off! And in a thorium fired future, as opposed to a self destructive coal fired one!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Saturday, 25 February 2017 11:56:24 AM
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Alan B,

So we gone from dinosaurs dying out from CO2 poisoning to a coupla unlucky creatures dying from marsh gas.

And to try to justify your last set of bullsh!t numbers you create more bullsh!t numbers.

1. Marsh gas is 50% methane, and 40% nitrogen (on average) so, no, Co2 isn't 20% there either. A study in the USA showed CO2 as about 8% in marsh gases there. So another BS number gone.

2. Oxygen never made up 51% of the atmosphere. It never got above 30% +/- 5. But based on your previous evasions I expect you'll tell us that it once got above 50% in Upper Kumbukta West one day.
Oops another BS number gone.

3. The earth's atmosphere is 21% oxygen not 25%. Another BS.....

Really Alan wouldn't it be easier to just admit that you screwed up and move on trying to do better next time. All this effort to defend the undefendable is unedifying. Oh and perhaps a little circumspection the next time you attack someone else's intelligence.

As to the rest of your fantasies, well the best thing that can be said is that they make your BS numbers look reasonable. Thorium powered cargo ships - for God's sake.
Posted by mhaze, Saturday, 25 February 2017 1:59:34 PM
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It's a rare pleasure to see two sets of loopy fantasies on OLO on the same topic.

Alan B gets to run his thorium fantasy for the umpteenth time, along with a swag of dodgy numbers and factoids.

Aidan gets to run his usual spin to defend the Left against their malodorous errors in setting RETs which will - predictably and beyond doubt as the South Australia catastrophes have shown - cause brown outs and black outs on a large scale everywhere they are imposed.

Coal is the only reliable, cheap, baseline option for electricity generation in Australia for the foreseeable future. It's also a great job generator and export earner. Nuclear is an option, but would take many years to establish and no doubt hand the creepy green-Left another useless anti-Australian campaign.

And the really offensive aspect of Alan's and Aidan's fantasies is that they take no account whatsoever of the financial burden the RETs impose on pensioners and low income earners to achieve near as dammit zero result.

Now I recognise that Aidan regards wage earners as slaves. He has said as much on OLO in the past when postulating that all the money generated by wage earners and investors actually belongs to the government and that governments may from time to time graciously allow us to keep a few dollars by restraining themselves from spending even more. Aidan is nothing if not a pure socialist.

Sane people, however, rightly believe the money they earn is their own and don't like to see governments with their hands in our pockets to fund their moral posturing and grandstanding. It's even worse when our money is squandered on nonsense such as perpetual subsidies of wind and solar farms and renewables, obsolete submarines, obsolete broadband networks and the like.
Posted by calwest, Saturday, 25 February 2017 5:14:47 PM
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mhaze,
This is about a lot more than our (truly pathetic) Paris commitments; it's about the effect that our emissions are having on the world's climate. We should be world leaders in reducing our emissions; instead we're freeloading off other countries, and damaging the international political will to take action. The amount of action that countries agree on taking is way less than what's required.

Fortunately China's not waiting for us and is investing heavily in renewables.

As for fracking, it's not a simple matter of support or opposition to all fracking; it depends on the individual circumstances. We need tougher environmental standards, and regulators with much longer sharper teeth. And there are some areas that absolutely should not be fracked. But in the medium to long term, fracking should and will have a major role, as indeed it did before the shoddy CSG frackers appeared.

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Alan B,
What's this one step process to which you refer? I tried searching and found A one-step process for chemical coloring on stainless steel. But I did not find any new Australian process for making the steel itself. I know there is a more efficient way of making steel that has yet to be commercialised (molten oxide electrolysis) but AIUI that's not Australian.

BTW HIV is a virus - that's what the V stands for. It doesn't survive in the air, no matter how high or low the oxygen content. It only survives in the body and some bodily fluids such as blood.
Posted by Aidan, Saturday, 25 February 2017 10:19:20 PM
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