Quite a few arguable assertions here. I agree that carbon credits will continue to be a rort helped by the recent snow job enquiry. The point has been made that gas as a 'transition' fuel has risen in market price far more than any carbon tax would have. Yet coal plants will steadily close because some think we won't need as much gas in future. Recent trends confirm we still need plenty of gas to balance erratic wind and solar and that is unlikely to reduce much. Therefore even without carbon taxes we're shooting ourselves in the foot as far as the cost of electricity is concerned.

I fear the aluminium smelters at Tomago and Portland will be unviable when NSW and Vic close their last coal generators. Even if small nuclear arrives it will be more expensive than coal in recent years. Carbon tariffs on imports from China could help but ultimately all energy is going to cost more. Administrative carbon pricing has missed the bus.

When UN climate policy took centre stage 30 years ago, world population was only 5b. Now it is 8b. Emissions have gone up apace. Quelle surprise!

The whole mess of carbon taxes/credits/offsets, and UN "net zero", is just another proxy for endless growth and human war on the environment.

Germany's grand $45b program for exiting coal by 2038 turned on a dime, once the war threatened their Russian gas supplies. Down Under, Albanese's "43%" emissions reduction is taken seriously. Despite his radical population growth program, heavy fossil fuel reliance, and total reluctance to do anything about logging and land clearing.

With all this, it's disheartening that respected academic Ian Chubb would sign up to give Bowen a whitewash of our dodgy "carbon credits". That's putting ideology first and science second

Not only are such Taxes useless, they're also morally wrong ! We need to demand from our rather well-paid 'Researchers" to work for normal wages until such time that they actually make a useful & viable breakthrough. Way too much money goes to people who literally never warrant the funding spent by them. If a solution is found then yes, reward those instrumental in finding the solution.
Just look at Green technology which is more polluting in its manufacture than it saves in service.
This idiotic hype needs to stop receiving so much taxpayer funding.
The bureaudroids approving such funding need to be made accountable. Elite travel & literally anything associated with their doings is nothing short of hypocritical & criminally irresponsible.
If activities requiring fossil fuel were to be curbed to necessity level there wouldn't be any need for Green technology in the first place.

Agree with most of this, Graham. Except where you say coking coal can't be replaced in steel production. Other sources of replacement carbon including, bailed plastic waste and probably waste tires given the carbon black in rubber.

We confront a future where carbon tariffs will become a trade tool that could be used against us. As for our local emissions we can absorb all we currently create by universally practising regenerative farming practise. A practise which helps drought proof farms and improve most bottom lines.

And that's only the start, other things include using biodegradable plastics as ground cover to control both weeds and evaporation. The hilled land is so covered, and the crop planted through it in the gutters. This means when frosts come the land is warmer with retained heat and the frost melt to also become dew and mists that trickles into the gutters to help with soil moisture retention.

The there's desalination and if done as deionisation dialysis desalination, produce four times the volume for quarter of the cost! And cost effective in broad scale agriculture.

Pumping costs reduced to near zero by employing MSR nuclear waste burners burning ready to use fuel we are paid annual millions to take. Other sane options include MSR thorium and the quite massive medical tourism that would create through the spinoff production of miracle cancer cure, Bismuth 213! Waste burners could bring the cost of power down to as low as 1cent PKWH and MSR thorium to just 3 cents PKW.

One does not need to be Einstein to understand the huge economic upside that would create here for us.

As for our coal, our current export markets demand all we can mine and then some. If we have some left over when the world comes to its senses, there are a number of chemical processes that still need some coal and will likely do so until the turn of the century!
Alan B.

Not actually useless Graham.

They supply a nice boost in funds for ratbag spendthrift lefty governments, so they can subsidise more grid destroying windmills for their mates.

Nuclear power no longer more expensive than coal given current coal/gas prices. But that's only conventional nuclear power/massive power plants that take as long as 30 years to build/cost billions. Burn enriched fuel that is as rare as platinum, as expensive.

Operate at pressures as high as 300 atmospheres to keep super-heated water as a liquid. The enriched fuel is made into small ceramic pellets then loaded into hollow metal rods that are controlled with electromagnets. Power failure for any reason and electromagnets are just large chunks of useless metal. As are coolant pumps. (Fukushima!)

Something as small as a tiny hairline crack in the metal can result in the water flashing immediately to super-heated steam which instantly decomposes to its constituent parts, oxygen and hydrogen as a white-hot explosive mixture, (Chernobyl!)

The central rods taken out and shifted to the outer perimeter every 18 or so months. All rods replaced every 4.5 years with still as much as 90-95% energy quotient retained.

MSR reactors are walk away safe and if adequately shielded produce no more than normal background radiation. Moreover, the operate unpressurized at ambient atmospheric pressure, cannot melt down as they are already molten and designed to operate that way.

MSR thorium delivers all that fusion promises in a fusion powered future, today! And can be manufactured in a facility that could turn out a finished ready to operate, product each week. At a cost per unit roughly equivalent to a very large diesel engine.

All the claimed bugs, corrosion, tritium production have been ironed out along with all the, too long too expensive, excuses for not acting. Waste produced by MSR thorium is as little as 5-10% and even then, eminently suitable as long-life space batteries.

Power failure for any reason in MSR thorium or MSR NBR, the medium automatically drains into purpose-built tanks that separate the medium, so no critical mass is possible, the liquid allowed to cool naturally to a safe solid. That is why they are walk away safe.
Alan B.