When you cut your power usage, the price of electricity MUST go up. IE: the LESS you use, the more it costs. Which means the more you use the less it should cost, yes ?. Absolutly CORRECT! Amazingly, most people are totally ignorant about power generation and delivery which is why when someone who want's to set you straight, is ridiculed by the powers that be. Save the planet, cut power, save money- I am amazed that a power engineer doesn't take the Gov to court over blatent lies. You want to know [As a famous Prof puts it ] why is it so.

you can't get more energy out of a system, than you put in. That's a law of physics. Because coal has more total energy locked inside it than anything else [ except oil ], we get back more in electrical power more than it costs to dig it up and burn it.

You can't store base load electricity because we haven't yet made the perfect battery that’s dirt cheap and gives us nearly the same energy [ or power ] as we pump into it. We aren’t even close by a country mile. So electricity is something that is used 'on demand'; that is, it must be available 24/7/365 for us to use as we need it.

In short, the LESS power that is being drawn from the generator, the LESS efficient the whole system is. You can't shut down a generator like turning off the engine of a car at traffic lights to save fuel. When an electrical load changes, it changes at the speed of light although it may increase gradually - but the actual change is instantaneous.

A generator for power is MOST efficient when it's supplying that power at 95-100% load capacity. In other words, it's doing the most useful work. You get the best results from a system when it's doing the work it was built for

Ans: You don't know how to use the internet.

As for Dick Smith, perhaps you might change your mind ... read:

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Dick-Smith-declined-carbon-ad-role-report-pd20110530-HC953?opendocument&src=rss

Hey pepper, can you tell us how much CO2 is produced from burning only 1 tonne of coal?

An approximation will do, thanks.

Bonmot,
I'd hazard a guess that it's less than one hour at Bathurst or an hour in the PM's jet.

individual

I asked pepper if he knew how many tonnes of CO2 you get from burning 1 tonne of coal.

It seems you don't know either and can only guess in terms of car races and planes.

Thanks anyway

Cheers Bonmot,
by the way, would you know how much emission is caused by one hour at a Bathurst race day ?