http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/we-wont-be-going-nuclear-rudd/story-e6frg6nf-1225831551975

It is dawning on the rest of the world that without nuclear any ETS cannot work. Is Rudd too mired in the past when voters were scared of nuclear, that his slim majority might slip away?

We need a leader with cajones that does not need to pander to the looney green party to make a decision. Going nuclear is never popular, but it is the least of the evils available.

Or maybe Rudd has the hubris to believe he must be right and the rest of the world is wrong.

We will be going Nuclear and if not Rudd it will be his party that leads after changing its mind.
We have no other path.
Quaint thou that rest of the world stuff.
Abbott is unaware the rest of the world is going for ETA schemes but we can ignore what we do not like cannot we shadow.
Nuclear is the future cleaner safe as any other and watch America boom for using it, Kevin waky waky bloke.

Perhaps Rudd simply doesn't want to subsidise the nuclear industry to the tune of USD$8.3 Billion in government guaranteed funding to get the first ones built, as the US now finds itself having to do.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/02/16/obama-nuclear-loan.html

As you can see for the story, that is just the first drop in the bucket. The US government is planning to inject some $50 Billion over time.

I could have sworn yesterday you were complaining Labour was spending too much money.

It appears the money is going to fund two AP1000 reactors. Anticipated cost in $7B per reactor, each reactor generates 1.1GW.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/obama-administration-announces-loan-guarantees-construct-new-nuclear-power-reactors
http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/stories/2010/02/15/daily8.html

The AP1000 isn't anything special. Just your standard, low efficiency dirty reactor generating wastes that last geological time scales. Remember me saying if the world flipped over all electical generation to this type of reactor, we would run out of fuel for them in a few decades. You said current designs are better now. Apparently not.

In trying to find why that $8B was needed, I came across a startling statistic. Apparently 42% of new capacity added to the US last year was wind. They are aiming for about 20% of the total from wind in 2030, which is as high as they can go unless some magical solution to the storage problem is found.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_States

You can see why they would prefer wind, once you learn the capital cost for wind is around $1/W, or $4/W once you allow for the fact that they average 25% efficiency. Capital cost for these reactors is $7/W just for construction. Then you add around $1/W to pull them down, plus waste disposal costs.

Anyway these numbers - $8B, $50B, they are enormous, and they don't even give you a long term solution. I presume the development effort required to create a practical reactor that is a long term solution is of the same order. If Rudd's plan is to let someone else spend that money, and then take delivery of a working nuclear solution, I'd say he has it exactly right.

I could be wrong but wasn't the last reactor built 30 years ago and nothing has been built since? The issues of liability, insurance and REinsurance are significant. Not to mention the time frames.

Is this why AREVA just bought Ausra Inc (CLFR solar thermal steam plant technology) for a reported $418million?

Rudd is a dinosaur for many other reasons.....

By now everybody understands that Rudd could never make a decision.
This sad person is clearly unable think beyond the square.
His bosses in China have told him what to do,sell out Australian and their interests.
His will to persue Chinese energy technology will mean he will never accept anything that is Australian,European or American.
The quicker a clear thinking Gillard becomes the PM the better for all Australians.

Rstuart,

Because of its haphazard approach, and the reengineering and approval from scratch of nearly every project, the construction costs of nuclear in the US are nearly double that of anywhere else.

The cost in Europe per W is closer to $4000 (Far less in France and in China and India about $1300), Similarily, the cost of wind power both in the US and Europe is closer to $2000/W. (maybe you forgot the transmission requirements.)

When the 25% efficiency is taken into account this makes wind nearly double the cost of nuclear. Then finally as you alluded to, that the wind generation is completely out of synch with the demand requires back up base load generation (nuclear) if the generation exceeds 20%of total.

Considering that power demand is projected to increase by nearly 20% by 2020 wind only gives us about a decade's breathing space, before the cost of storage doubles the total cost of wind generation again.

As far as fuel supply goes, the few decades calculation is based on discovered low cost reserves a decade ago. If the price is doubled (to 0.2 c/kWhr) and recent discoveries added the reserves are sufficient for centuries for these older type reactors.

As far as the next generation reactors, nearly all those going into China and India are of CANDU type format, and can consume the spent fuel. Given the labyrinthian approval procedures in the USA, the older type generators are far cheaper to install.

Why are you guys even going on about this?
You make it sound like the Rudd government introduced the ETS in a sincere attempt to tackle global warming, and definitely not a bit a posturing to score points to the lobbyists while having a new excuse to boost taxes.

Shadow Minister and others have not taken into account two rather
important things.
Peak Coal will occur around 2025 for the world.
Peak Oil has occurred and the cost of fuel for ships will go that
high that the cost of shipping coal to China, India and Japan will be
more than the customer will pay and indeed need.
Unless of course, greenies permitting, they build coal fired steamships.

Therefore we will have a lot more coal than is being put into the
calculations of the government and others.
They have got themselves into this bind because peak oil is a non-subject.

We may not need nuclear power for a considerable time if we are not
exporting coal.
However at some time in the future the lights will go out and the
public will want a nuclear power station next morning.

Shadow Minister: "China and India are of CANDU type format"

No, not in China. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China#Major_nuclear_power_plants_under_construction

They are a mixture of AP-1000's and CPR-1000's. AP-1000 is Gen III, CPR-1000 is Gen II (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressurized_water_reactor ).

Yes, some are in India. But if you look at the planned new reactors, all are conventional PWR designs. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_India

This is hardly surprising, given the CANDU is very expensive design.

With respect to it being cheaper to build plants in India and China. It may be so, I could not find anything convincing one way of the other. But it probably isn't relevant to Australia, as our costs are likely to higher than the US is anything, given we have no expertise in the area.

This is an interesting table:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_VyTCyizqrHs/SkVXM9-1qQI/AAAAAAAAELc/CGg-1b2uivs/s1600-h/Levelized_Cost_Table_for_Electric_Generating_Technologies-EIA.png

I have no idea how accurate it is, except it does have the right feel to it. For example, the 400% price of Solar Photo Voltaics versus conventional power is about right. You will be happy to see it says wind is 40% more expensive than nuclear. The downside for nuclear is the capital risk is much higher, and while wind generation prices are still declining whereas nuclear power plant prices have been on a trend upwards. Anyway, it wasn't wind I wanted to draw your attention to. Geothermal can do base load. Look at its line.

Kinga Hazza: "Why are you guys even going on about this?"

People go on and on about AGW. But AGW is a minor side issue compared to energy and population. I don't think it is possible to discuss energy topics "too much".

As for the ETS being an excuse to introduce a new tax - swallowed Abbott's posturing on the issue hook, line and sinker, have you? Pity. Whatever Rudd's reasons for introducing the ETS, wanting to introduce a new tax wasn't one of them. I am sure if there was some way to do something about AGW without imposing an impost on the voters, he would leap at it.

Rstuart,

Sorry, I misread. China has only 2 CANDU reactors whereas India has many more.

Whether they are used as primary reactors or as "trash" spent fuel reactors, they are more expensive to build. Their main advantage is that they can burn very low enriched uranium or other fissile material. (which is why Canada and India are very interested)

However, given the very low cost of uranium presently the cost of capital in building a power station far outwieghs the cost of fuel and waste handling, and the APR 1000 (gen II+) or CPR 1000 is likely to dominate for the next half century.

The main reason the French reactors (based on a US design) were so cheap is that there was only a couple of reactor designs approved, and the plants were largely photo copies of each other, which avoided the repeated costs of one off design, review, testing (each with different state laws) etc that nearly doubles the costs and construction time in the USA.

Any sane Aus government would not choose to follow the US model, and I doubt that labour and construction cost deviate much from Europe. Probably not as cheap as France, but probably in the $4000/w range.

As far as geothermal is concerned, while the "hot rocks" technology is yet to provide a single commercially viable plant world wide, there is a little publicized achillies heel that has the potential to torpedo its use in Aus. That is the high level of water leakage into the rocks (about 10-15%) per cycle, which makes it several times more water hungry than any other power plant. Given the desert situation of the hot rocks sites this is a potential deal breaker.

As far as the ETS is concerned, my way to sell it to the public is not to tax and spend the same amount, but to use the revenue to replace say GST (which is another tax on everything)

If the man on the street gets an effective ETS for free, I personally would go for it. I also think that Abbott's plan is rubbish.

We will go Nuclear, and we will sell our uranium to more too.
Worth looking at the words of Paul Howe's on AWU web page.
Rudd seemingly fears the greens, and does not want to chase more ALP voters into their camp.
He must take them on, increasingly they are failing conservation movements.
King Hazza would do well to consider this, why is most of Europe and much of the world going for ETS?
And why are so very many countrys now using or planing to use Nuclear power.
Fact is Rudd may well be concerned, and should be, at decreasing demand for coal in the next few decades.
We know nuclear is coming to more of the world every year.

I think rstuart is missing some rather important angle to Australia's ETS vs the European version (Belly you might also be interested):

Simply compare the amount of access and promotion of alternate power sources and fully-electric vehicles in, say, Sweden vs here.
You might find the difference is substantial attempts to promote these sources of energy and convert to them- with even the car-recharge infrastructure ALREADY INSTALLED, with the other country (ours) doing close to bugger all to actually implement the alternatives the public are SUPPOSED to be converting to as being the justification of increasing the cost of dirty fuels.

In other words, one country actually raising the cost of dirty fuels and also implementing the alternatives for the consumers to switch to, the other simply raising costs and actually doing little else.
You do realize that all of northern Europe are actively converting their power sources to green energy, both on the governent and domestic consumer market level?
Yet- where exactly is Australia in Solar Power generation compared to other countries- particularly ones that don't get half the sunshine we do?

And don't forget the rather generous compensation to the coal industry, for um, what?

And don't try to paint some 'Liberal propaganda' garbage on me- as I never read a Liberal member's speech as it would also avoid the important points, and if they were in government- would have done the same thing.
It may be hard to try to actually analyze a situation outside what TWO political parties have to say about it, but do try.
I don't think *I'M* the one who was caught "hook line and sinker" at all.

But if you think Australia is joining the world on cleaning up our energy industry- you're a LONG way off.

King Hazza: "compare the amount of access and promotion of alternate power sources and fully-electric vehicles"

The difference between you and I King is I am more right wing, although that may perhaps come as a surprise to Shadow.

And OK, you win. You got it right when you asked "Why are you guys even going on about this?". Except as a source of amusement and education to those of us doing the chatting, it is meaningless noise. I would no more have the government go round forcing us to drive electric cars, provide tax breaks to ethanol substitutes for petrol or PV solar units than I would have them force electricity companies to build nuclear plants.

If you think CO2 emissions are going to cost us dearly in the future, you nudge our capitalist society into fixing it. The straight forward way to do that is to charge the CO2 emitters now for the damage the CO2 will do to future generations. That is exactly what the ETS does. Where is it efficient to do so, individuals and corporations will avoid that cost and move to processes that produce less CO2. It is hardly rocket science.

The ETS seems to make a fair attempt to doing what Shadow wants: it charges the emitters and gives the money back to poorer consumers. It is revenue neutral. The net result is electricity that doesn't generate CO2 becomes more attractive, as for that matter does simply using less electricity. Who knows, maybe using the money to install insulation is more attractive than using different generation techniques.

This attempt to compensate consumers won't be perfect. There must by definition be winners and looses, otherwise we would not change. Besides, they could not resist the opportunity to do some social engineering, and use the ETS as another means redistributing income from the rich to the poor. I happen to think that an egalitarian society where the difference between rich and poor is small is in the end good for all of us, rich and poor alike, so I don't mind that.

Back to the discussion at hand.

I view what Rudd's declaration as essentially meaningless. We are not going to develop substantial expertise in nuclear here. The enormous investments required means it is an area of expertise singularly ill suited for a tiny country like Australian. It is becoming a centre of expertise that takes time, whereas the decision to get someone like Westinghouse to build a nuclear to build a plant can be near instantaneous. Thus Rudd's declaration can be reversed on a dime, without any ill effects. Thus unlike the ETS, I view this "Dinosaur Rudd" examination of Rudd's nuclear policy about as worthy of discussion as Abbott's budgie snugglers.

That is not the case for all replacements for coal. Installing a small wind power base sounds like a good idea. Unlike nuclear, the incremental cost is small, and our electricity people need the experience in handling its unique effects on the grid. And also unlike building nuclear plants, a wind generating building industry is certainly viable here. A small poke from the government to get the experimentation started sounded like a wonderful idea to me, and Howard did exactly that. Ditto for solar, geothermal and so on, which Howard didn't do.

The difference between nuclear and these other technologies is the poke required is small. A few hundred million reserved for pushing experimentation in renewables over a decade could dozens of these explorations into new areas. Granted most of them would be failures, but it would not fund one Nuclear plant.

Shadow is gradually wearing me down on nuclear. We disagree about fuel availability, but I have to acknowledge there is enough around last the lifetime of any plants we build now. There are other problems. The thought of radioactive wastes with geological lifetimes and nuclear proliferation gives me the willies. Shadow will say we can develop economical technological fixes and I think he is right, but as of today it is still an article of faith. I prefer not to leave such things to faith, if at all possible. Holding back is one way of doing that.

Just wondering, apropos this topic, whether very many OLO viewers read the OLO article 'Clean electricity, cheap electricity, safe electricity' by Alex Goodwin, published on Wednesday, 23 December 2009? See: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=9857&page=0

I found the comments thread to that article to be one of the more interesting and constructive interactions of recent times on OLO. There seemed to be far less vitriol and defending of established positions by resort to the labelling of other posters: perhaps this was because so much of the subject matter appeared to all to be a quantum leap ahead of the more common understanding of the promise (if that's the right word) of nuclear-fuelled power generation. See: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9857&page=0

Could it be that there are effectively vested interests in, or deriving from, the regulation of the construction and operation of erstwhile conventional nuclear power stations that are threatened by the seemingly simpler, and above all, claimedly environmentally safer, Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) design? Perhaps the patentability of the LFTR is seen as being insufficient to make it attractive to corporate investors that would perhaps see their return on investment largely coming by way of the sale of rights to use of the design, rather than from economies in power generation achieved by it in any specific application.

I wonder whether the relative ubiquity of Thorium in comparison to that of Uranium has played any part in the seeming world-wide reluctance to at least trial this technology, and if so, what possible vested interests are seen as being threatened, and in exactly what way?

I can't escape the feeling that the Rudd government is intentionally foreclosing on all power generation options that have any existing, or foreseeable, prospects of viability in the context of the publicly-owned utilities model clearly favoured by an overwhelming majority of Australian electors.

I can't escape the feeling that Chevron corporation is intendedly being given the inside track in regard to future monopoly energy supply in Australia.

Forrest Gumpp: "Just wondering, apropos this topic, whether very many OLO viewers read the OLO article 'Clean electricity, cheap electricity, safe electricity' by Alex Goodwin, published on Wednesday, 23 December 2009?"

I did, obviously as I posted a comment on it. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9857#159029

My personal view was Alex Goodwin had written an ad for Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, and it was about as balanced as an ad. I didn't say that directly in my comment, but that was the point I was trying to make. Now that you have drawn my attention to it, I see the supporting link I in the comment was bad, thus rendering the entire thing useless.

The link should have been:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/all/1.html

It is not the article the link points to that is important although it isn't bad. It is the comments that followed. I think some nuclear engineers decided to battle it out in there.

The impression I had of LFTR's after reading that link wasn't diametrically opposed to what Alex said, it was more a matter of degree. It removed Alex's sizzle to reveal the realities of the sausage underneath, if you like. Alex's article left you wondering what the planet wasn't covered LFTR's already. By the end of the reading comments posted at the link above, it was clear why not. It was also clear LFTR's weren't the only proposal on the plate. There are many others out there, each with seemingly as good prospects.

They all also had nits. The nits had to be ironed out. The problem is once you have come up with a plan to iron them out, it takes a several $ billion experiment (ie, building a plant) to see if you have succeeded. I think Alex was spruiking for the Australian government to invest in just such an experiment. If so, as you can see from my comments above, I think it is a singularly bad idea.

Rstuart you have the wrong idea about me- I am NOT a socialist or "left wing" person at all- I thought that would have been rather obvious by now.

I'm just pointing out that while most governments of other 'greening' countries are doing something useful and actually assisting in providing and investigating serious alternative power sources for consumers to offset any ETS some of them have or may not have forced on their public, Austrlia isn't doing jack.

Basically, the whole idea was paying more for 'dirty' fuel with a serious attempt to move from dirty fuel to 'green' fuel in a manner convenient to the public and consumers;

In Australia it seems more of a case of paying more for 'dirty' fuel and trying hard to maintain the 'dirty' fuel industries using taxpayers and ratepayers cash- whilst putting in almost no effort at even applying the same intervention in the market to subsidize green energy, including Hybrid or full-electric cars which for some reason are still highly limited and quite expensive compared to ordinary models.
As most Australians use and need electricity to do their work and are going to need their cars, all you are doing is paying more for your living in this scenario.

But to make it clear, I am AGAINST an ETS.

And by extension, why is it so much harder to use the involuntary jump in dirty fuel prices to subsidize green fuel costs more, or actually put some real effort into at least connecting us with some European green markets, advertising for green energy products, etc?

Apparently, it's ok for government to interfere with our markets and pricing, but NOT ok for them to actually attempt to implement some infrastructure- or at least help someone else who is willing to do it.
(and personally I always thought that governments actually doing this kind of thing was the purpose they existed to serve- provide services).

rstuart

Thanks for the links. The discussion strengthens my belief that the pause in nuclear technology has little to do with greenie protesters and everything to do with nuclear weapons.

Good to see Forrest around again.
King Hazza would be good if you did not put words in my mouth or thoughts I do not hold in print.
Little surprised you do not see the reason we are not as advanced as some with electric cars.
Time/Distance /costs forbid it yet.
See I get 1800 klm every week some times double that.
I could not do it in an electric car, it is hard enough to often to find LPG
Why in any case divert the thread.
We will go Nuclear, in my view it may well be Rudd who eats his words.
In the words of a going to be great young man, this country can meet its ETS target by just going Nuclear and sell uranium to others so they can too.
His words not mine, such action reduces not just our footprint but the worlds.

You think Garrett copped a reaming?. Imagine if there was a nuclear accident. All you people saying how much a of a great idea it all is will be first in the lynch mob.

I agree with StG.

The nuclear decision is one thing the Rudd Government has got right.

Kinda Hazza: "governments of other 'greening' countries are doing something useful and actually assisting in providing and investigating serious alternative power sources for consumers to offset any ETS some of them have or may not have forced on their public, Austrlia isn't doing jack."

You are dismissing the ETS because it doesn't directly tell anybody to do anything. At the same time you are praising countries that had electric cars and what not which you say they got because government's invested directly in them. Call it what you like, but it reeks of someone who has much more faith in centralised government than Adam Smith's invisible hand.

King Hazza: "Apparently, it's ok for government to interfere with our markets and pricing, but NOT ok for them to actually attempt to implement some infrastructure- or at least help someone else who is willing to do it."

Yep, that isn't a bad summary, but I'll add a few minor corrections.

Firstly, raising the price of competing products is helping someone willing to do it.

Secondly, the government actually controls a lot of infrastructure. Roads for example. Public transport is another. It is this way because we want roads and public transport, but haven't come up with a way to subject them to the disciplines of markets and competition. Without such disciplines, Adam Smith's invisible hand doesn't work. Obviously in such areas where government choose to invest makes a huge difference.

Sydney's transport system is a wonderful example. The NSW put all their money into road systems, and none into public transport like rail and buses. The net result is that people living in the cheaper suburbs are paying $6,000 in road tolls just to get to work, with no alternatives available. Add to that, that it is much easier to make trains and buses AGW and peak oil friendly, and you have a complete balls up.

However, you aren't referring to that are you King Hazza? You want the labour government to do something akin to building a electric car factory, market forces be dammed. Sorry, I think that is nuts.

Now we know for sure that there is no problem in burning coal, to produce our electricity, why are we even having this discussion? Do we still have some hang ups about CO2?

There is no requirement for nuclear in Oz, as we have the coal, the wealth of which is the only thing allowing our urbanised life style.

Rstuart, there are now quite a few studies showing that more fuel is consumed per passenger mile by public transport, than is consumed by private transport. This doesn't worry me at all, so long as we don't have the people of the bush subsidising city public servants transport. Charge the true cost of public transport, & that $6000 in tolls will look like a really good bargin.

Hasbeen: "Now we know for sure that there is no problem in burning coal, to produce our electricity, why are we even having this discussion? Do we still have some hang ups about CO2?"

That would be the royal "we" I presume. Obviously it can't be the inclusive "we" as there are people contributing here who don't agree. But yes your majesty, if you believe CO2 is not a problem this is a pointless discussion. And sorry, no, I don't know why you choose to join it if you considered it pointless. Maybe your real motivation was to was to discuss something else entirely, like whether AGW is real or not?

Hasbeen: "there are now quite a few studies showing that more fuel is consumed per passenger mile by public transport, than is consumed by private transport."

Please, if you are going to quote "studies", provide a link to what you are talking about. As far as I am aware those studies refer buses that are mostly empty. And as you say, it only covers fuel efficiency, not say capital costs that far outweigh the fuel. Well, it does for cars anyway. A new bus costs very roughly 10 times a new car, travels much further, and replaces a dammed sight more than 10 cars, and uses up less road space and less parking space.

I think we've already gone beyond the whole "market forces be damned" thing when the government altered the pricing in accordance to the carbon trading industry, rstuart.

And I'm against the ETS for the simple reason that it just makes life harder and more expensive.

Funny you should mention western suburbs and roads, because an ETS scheme is like installing tollbooths and closing lanes on roads to supposedly and theoretically FORCE motorists to use public transport- without actually bothering to provide many decent transport systems.

In other words, I don't like government merely slugging us with an adverse condition just to hopefully bully us into taking the expense to change to some ideology.

And as our current alternatives are close to non-existant, I'm convinced that 'changing our ways' isn't the point.

Within recent days I have seen a televised report of the profitability of the various Sydney metropolitan tollways, most if not all of which I understand to be public-private partnerships. The results, if correctly reported, seemed, from a commercial point of view, to be very encouraging.

My question is, if the level of investment required for transport infrastructure is able to be made, and the return is what it is, why is public (taxpayer) investment in such not equally able to be made, with the expectation of comparable returns in due course flowing into the public treasury?

Another question I have is as to why, given that the grid infrastructure is largely already in place, similar public investment in low-emissions power generation capacity would not be equally viable for the grid-connected Australian public as the PPP toll roads appear to have been for the private consortia that have received these profit opportunities at the hands of, for example, the NSW government, over recent years?

rstuart,

Would I be correct in thinking the following quote, from the comments thread to the article to which you provided a link, explains why LFTRs do not already cover the planet?

"The current energy companies also have hundreds of
billions invested in the way everything is currently done.
New technology means changing the infrastructure
and there is little incentive for that. Especially if
changing the infrastructure means changing the pricing models.

Heck, it would be possible to make neighborhood-sized
thorium plants and both limit the big companies and
increase competition.

So, we have the government against the idea, the embedded
oligopoly against the idea, the radical environmentalists
against the idea, and most of the energy companies against
the idea. Since this is also a complex subject that uses
the “nuclear” word, it would be easy to drum up fear,
uncertainty, and doubt in the general populace.

This is an example of a great idea that is most likely doomed."

All the foregoing discussion, of course, resting upon the premise that coal-fired electricity generation constitutes an ongoing and unacceptable environmental threat.

Forrest Gump: "Would I be correct in thinking the following quote ... explains why LFTRs do not already cover the planet?"

No, or at least not in the sense I meant it. It explains why there have been no new nuclear reactors in Australia and the US for decades. But new plants are being built apace in other parts of the world, and none of the planned new plants are LFTR. That quote does not explain why. You would expect them to be, given Alex's writeup.

I thought the quotes I listed in http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9857#159029 did explain why.

Forrest Gump: "Within recent days I have seen a televised report of the profitability of the various Sydney metropolitan tollways ... from a commercial point of view, to be very encouraging."

It is easy for a government to get "very encouraging" commercial returns for any endeavour they take on. They can easily (and sometimes do) make large profits on water, sewage, waste collection, electricity and a whole host of other essential services they have a monopoly on. And as King Hazza pointed out, the toll operators have had road shutdowns, guarantees of no competing new toll roads and what not written into there contracts. King Hazza is right. That sucks. You could use the same tricks to ensure a train service is profitable.

Forrest Gump: "expectation of comparable returns in due course flowing into the public treasury?"

What? That is absurd. The public treasury is _expected_ to make a loss. If they made a profit, they would not need to tax us. There are two ways we run these things. We can pay a private company to do it, or we can pay the government. We are far better off with a private company doing it if there is strong competitive market. But if the market tends toward a natural monopoly, having a monopolist running the show is far worse than putting elected officials we can hold to account in charge. Worse in the sense that we would be ripped off big time.

King Hazza: "I think we've already gone beyond the whole "market forces be damned" thing when the government altered the pricing in accordance to the carbon trading industry, rstuart."

That's rubbish. The government creates permits to emit and gives/sells them off, giving the receipts back to the users - you and I. The "concessions" you talk about is the government handing out too many permits to the emitters, ie creating more permits than are needed. Yes, this is a political bribe to get the legislation through. Yes, it renders the entire bloody scheme next to useless in the initial stages. But it costs no one anything, and as time moves on number of permits available reduces over the years until the targets are hit.

King Hazza: "And I'm against the ETS for the simple reason that it just makes life harder and more expensive."

For Pete's sake, every solution to AGW is going to make life harder and more expensive. The most efficient way to generate electricity now is using coal. If we invest billions in changing that the price of electricity is going to go up.

The ETS versus say Abbott's direct intervention is an argument about the most efficient to make the change happen. With the ETS, we take money from the emitters and give it to the consumers. It is supposed to be a zero sum game, but obviously it tilts the playing field towards cleaner electricity. In Abbott's scheme the government pays farmers to plough carbon into fields, plant trees, pays for research into carbon sequestration and so on.

The thing that gets me about this is where does Abbott get the money to do all this? Us, King. Via taxes. So here we have Rudd proposing no new taxes or spending government money, and Abbott proposing to tax us to pay for the change. Yet Abbott characterises the ETS as a big fat tax. It is the best example of Orwellian "new speak" I have seen in a while.

Gump and Stuart- interesting points:

But I'm not convinced the ETS is being paid back into the public- or otherwise the government would have subsidized it directly. As it is for us, our last yearly electricity bill came back telling us we used substantially less electricity than last year (that's just how we behave in my household)- but our bill is now much higher anyway (prompting our ongoing research into getting some PV panels (temporarily postponed for a while due to other priorities though- but having said that the expensive options have still been calculated cheaper than a mere couple years of relying on the grid).

But I doubt many other Australians will make the change as the alternatives aren't much cheaper at the moment, nor will they likely lower their usage (as I imagine most households use exactly the amount of power they'd feel they needed).
And the kicker is even if they were energy efficient- they'd still get slugged for what little they did use.

And as there aren't many suggestions in the government for alternate energy proposals (as you said, including the absence of Nuclear), or an APEC-esque summit to hook Australia up to some overseas green-energy generator or vehicle manufacturers, or even to subsidize, or help advertise or promote alternate energy products (except insulation- to their credit), there isn't going to be much of a public conversion to what little (and not quite cheap) options currently available.

And from the long crooked history of both the Labor and Liberal Party when it came to introducing new tax or compulsory service payment policies, I'm not convinced that either would actually want the consumers to change practices but simply give in and pay the extra, nor do I think they intend to either directly reimburse homeowners, put the extra taxes to direct public benefit or anything other than keep it or use it to prop up a superficial budget surplus next election (an old Liberal tactic).

Kind of like the GST introduced to replace the other taxes- except those taxes still remained anyway.

King Hazza: "our electricity bill ... is now much higher"

I don't know where you are, but in an Brisbane and yes it is the same here. I think is it the same everywhere. I don't know for sure what is driving it. I should take the time to find out what it is as it has been going up faster than inflation for a few years now. I confess to being a cynical bastard, and thinking when Beattie unregulated electricity prices while saying they should drop, my guess was he in fact he thought they would rise, and rise quickly and he didn't want his government to cop the blame.

OK, found this:

http://www.aer.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/732175

It appears the major costs are for capital works. Sigh. Yes, that would be it. Population growth strikes again.

This makes for interesting reading:

http://electricityweekqld.wordpress.com/

Apparently electricity retailers live in a world where they can be paying $30/MWh in one hour, then $3000/MWh the next. It must make life interesting for those doing the buying.

Finally Hazza, a word of advice on PV. Here in Queensland they will pay you $0.40/KWh for up to 30KW. If you can find a spot with enough land and have a sophisticated set-up, you can get about a 25% return on capital at that rate. Sounds brilliant. Only problem is, if you don't generate enough to cover your consumption, you are effectively paid the normal retail rate of $0.17/KWh, which is a loss. So to be worth it you have to go big. Very big.

Cheers, Rstuart, I will keep that in mind.

As for cynicism- make it double for me down in Sydney.