Thread: Carbon Tax on it's way through the House.

Originally Posted by bob10

Think I know what happened after the snowy, the Franklin river. After that, most of the " alternative " power solutions were deemed too much of a political hot potatoe. I have been around the Australian coast about 4 or 5 times, including around Tasmania. The problem with the tidal dream is no-one has been able to make it financialy viable. It's all right to have feel good dreams, making them reality is the problem. You haven't given a solution, just pie in the sky dreams, sorry, Bob

When they're taxing us $70 billion over the next 6 years, who needs it to be financially viable.

Spain generates aprox 850MW through Solar Thermal stations (48.4 Mw through Solar Tower and 800MW by solar trough). The USA produces just over 500MW by solar-thermal therefore producing the same wattage as any one of the 4 coal fired turbines at Liddell in NSW.

The USA has another 770MW under construction and Spain 1,330MW under construction.

Australia has a massive 2 MW of Solar Thermal production topping up the coal fired Liddell and none under construction. Yet we have millions of square KM that could be used to produce similar or greater amounts of power.

Haven't we had this discussion already?

Originally Posted by isuzurover

Haven't we had this discussion already?

Probably! The simple fact is that coal fired power generation is by far the cheapest form of electricity possible in Australia (even with quite a high carbon tax) because of the vast quantities of easily mined coal close to most major population centres, it is familiar, risk free technology, uses existing distribution networks and employs significant numbers of voters. And power costs and retention of the existing union power base are far more important to voters and hence governments than actually doing anything about climate change, which, as pointed out, this bill will not influence to any measurable extent.

To spend money on developing untried (at least by local industry) techniques such as thermal solar power when it is risky and much expertise would need to come from overseas and would only produce more expensive power is hardly a course that recommends itself to power companies or voters (and hence governments). And since it would remove jobs or potential jobs from an existing workforce, replacing them with ones with different skills and almost certainly not unionised, employed by new companies, probably from overseas, it does not appeal to either side of politics.

John

People whinge about the cost of petrol, but I still see plenty of new v8s on the road. What gets me is, the world has been warming long before man started lighting fires. But surely we should be doing something about clean air for our Kids.
Yesterday the meadia was saying this bill would not make it through the Upper house. Tonight, the Greens seem to be backing it without there changes. So what gives ?

Originally Posted by Zute

People whinge about the cost of petrol, but I still see plenty of new v8s on the road. What gets me is, the world has been warming long before man started lighting fires. But surely we should be doing something about clean air for our Kids.
Yesterday the meadia was saying this bill would not make it through the Upper house. Tonight, the Greens seem to be backing it without there changes. So what gives ?

The cost of petrol as a proportion of average income is probably not significantly higher than it ever has been, and the buyers of these V8s are probably mostly not on average incomes anyway - the top 10-25% of people have never worried about the cost of petrol, and in any case the cost of fuel is a relatively minor part of the cost for most new car buyers - depreciation, cost of capital and fixed costs are far more important unless you do a very high mileage or keep the car for a long time.

Even if "surely we should be doing something about clean air for our Kids" it is not clear in what way this bill will do anything about this - most emissions that Australia is ultimately responsible for are unaffected (primarily exported coal) and most savings are simply by transferring activities offshore where the tax is not charged. Also, the tax, while high enough to cause pain, is probably not high enough to cause any significant change in behaviour, particularly given the compensation paid to almost anyone really affected. And in any case, with Australia accounting for less than 2% of global emissions, the effect of any savings is likely to be so small as to be unmeasurable. Without an effective policy to stop population growth the whole exercise is pointless anyway - it may reduce per capita emissions, but if the population increases by proportionately more, what is the point?

And in answer to your last point, it appears that the Greens, who were planning to oppose it because of the planned compensation for the steel industry, have decided that it is enough to eventually kill the steel industry anyway, and given the alternative of no carbon tax, will support it as is, without insisting on dropping the compensation.

John

Originally Posted by JDNSW

To spend money on developing untried (at least by local industry) techniques such as thermal solar power when it is risky and much expertise would need to come from overseas and would only produce more expensive power is hardly a course that recommends itself to power companies or voters (and hence governments). And since it would remove jobs or potential jobs from an existing workforce, replacing them with ones with different skills and almost certainly not unionised, employed by new companies, probably from overseas, it does not appeal to either side of politics.

John,
The expertise is here in Australia, waiting.
The expertise was an Australian owned company.
The expertise is now internationally owned.
We're still sitting here, waiting.
Do you want to fund a project?

And while Gillard takes the enormous amount of extra tax this stupidity will generate, China heads towards parity with the US as the worlds biggest polluter.
Don't tell me about comparisons showing us as the biggest, we are just a tiny portion of the worlds population and our total pollution doesn't make one tiny bit of difference to it overall.
Bloody idiot politicians trying to show the world they are leaders in lunacy that's all this tax is about.
AlanH.

Yes it's passed!

And to top it off Juliar and 747 exchanged a loving embrace on the floor of the House!



What did Tony Abbott do - he promised it would be repealed when he attains office. One can bet with the income this tax will generate for General Revenue, the repeal will turn into a "Non-core promise".

They are all liars and I don't care that the comment is seditious.