Shadow Minister said:

"Gas turbines built for stand alone power generation are not suitable for heat recovery boilers."

Wow. Are you lying or just completely misinformed? I have my suspicions. Either way, you represent the Abbott party line very well.

Your statement is completely contrary to fact. You will find most gas turbine plants around the country are either already combined cycle plants or have the infrastructure and planning in place for such investment in the near future. Some examples:

http://www.originenergy.com.au/2081/Darling-Downs-Power-Station
http://www.originenergy.com.au/1376/Mortlake-Power-Station-Project
http://www.dpcd.vic.gov.au/planning/environment-assessment/projects/yallourn-gas-power-station
http://www.citicpacificmining.com/articles/latest-news/sino-iron-projects-first-gas-turbine-fires-up
http://www.truenergy.com.au/about/news/news.xhtml?newsitem=216

When you can generate the same amount of electricity with 40% less fuel and emissions, when is that unsuitable?

You also said:
"Below a $40 per ton carbon price, there is no incentive for large scale gas turbine power generation."

Carbon pricing is not designed to encourage more gas turbines which still spew out CO2 and N2O. It's to encourage innovation in alternatives and also in cleaning up traditional power generation technologies.

And I don't think there is need for further incentive for gas turbine investment. They are going up all over the place. I have one client with 160 turbines being constructed over the next 18 months.

I'm not spruking any party line. I'm just pro ETS and pro truth (which essentially by pure logic makes me anti Abbott).

SM, you write :"For the mining industry with the present huge demand, growth is slowed but not stopped, and only a handful of marginal mines will close.".....A weaselly, thi-end-of-the-wedge assertion, SM, but keep them coming. If there is a problem it may be for EITE industries in a few years when carbon credits convert to an ETS and subsidies and market prices readjust as well as an international emissions regime being further developed. People with neutral economic nouse reject any significant impact on mining by the CT. So do investors too judging by the big money going into mining.

You write, "Local retailers are competing with imports online and otherwise, and you only have to look at any shopping centre to see the unusually high number of empty shops." .....Ah yes, the carbon tax will effect more closures, of course. Could it be that consumers are a little anxious about global matters? Not a chance, it's something else Labor is doing wrong, even after having stimulated the economy during the GFC and the lowering of interest rates and generally high employment. Must be fear of a CT that's shutting shops! Retail is restructuring worldwide due to the internet, would the Mad Monk stop that or will all problems disappear with repeal of the CT?

You're incapable of conceding the simple point that domestically competing businesses raise prices to compensate themselves for rises in cost inputs, or is that just in relation to the CT? Throwing up furfies about overseas online sales and mysterious "otherwises" in your statement is just weaselly deflection. The same applies to your earlier assertion that income tax cut compensation for the CT being insufficient at higher incomes as having some huge effect on businesses. That's about distribution of compensation being higher than required at lower incomes and will do nothing to reduce overall consumption. Lexus sales shouldn't suffer.

You exaggerate minor matters, introduce half-truth and play pea-and-thimble to avoid having to concede a fact That's your mob's MO until the election, which I hope the Mad Monk is around to concede, oh yeah.

Luciferace & David Corbett.
You write as though business as usual will be the order of the day
except for some adjustment and rearrangement of costs.

How do you think emissions trading and the move away from fossil fuels
being legislated will survive in a permanent zero growth economy or
indeed a contracting world economy ?

In a levelling or contracting economy, without a carbon tax, emissions will naturally level out or contract. I expect you know this, Bazz, so where are you taking us?

David,

What a lot hubris!

I guess my engineering degree and years in designing and maintaining power systems must bow to your ability to use Google! I should have called you for the last combined cycle plant I designed.

The hotter the exhaust gas from gas turbine, the more energy a heat recovery boiler can extract and use. Stand alone generators (peak clipping or occasional use generators) use a higher air to gas ratio (similar to aircraft engines) to get the most power per unit of fuel. A combined cycle plant is designed to run continuously with a richer mixture, that while generating slightly less power per unit of fuel enables far more energy to be recovered by the boilers. The engines are not the same. You can stick a heat recovery boiler at the end of a stand alone generator, but you won't get much heat recovery.

LF,

When a business raises prices, unless everyone else raises the prices the same, you will lose business. With imports unaffected this is certainly the case.

I also see Alcoa who previously sucking up to Labor, needs a bail out to protect it from the carbon tax.

"When a business raises prices, unless everyone else raises the prices the same, you will lose business", yep, it's called competition, thank you. Stick to boilers.