Resisting Climate Hysteria

[noco]

Obviously they didn't hear about China's cap and trade pilot

http://www.triplepundit.com/2014/03...ngs-chinas-pilot-emissions-cap-trade-systems/

I did not read anything about China's cap and trade pilot in that link.

A pilot scheme maybe and that is infinitesimal really...just a trial and nothing more.

 

[sydboy007]

I did not read anything about China's cap and trade pilot in that link.

A pilot scheme maybe and that is infinitesimal really...just a trial and nothing more.

So you missed the nation wide rollout in 2016

http://www.planetexperts.com/china-plans-nationwide-cap-trade-program-2016/

Sun Cuihua, a climate change official with China’s National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s main economic planning body, has confirmed that Beijing plans to enforce cap-and-trade in 2016.

http://www.theclimategroup.org/what...-launch-worlds-biggest-carbon-market-in-2016/

China is already experimenting with seven regional carbon market pilots, which were announced in 2011 and operative over the last two years. Each pilot covers a large city - Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Shenzhen - or a province - Chongqing, Guangdong, and Hubei.

Together the projects have accounted for almost 4 million tons of carbon emission quotas so far, according to the National Development and Reform Commission, making China the world's second largest carbon trading market following the European Union's EU-ETS.

 

[orr]

So you missed the nation wide rollout in 2016

http://www.planetexperts.com/china-plans-nationwide-cap-trade-program-2016/



http://www.theclimategroup.org/what...-launch-worlds-biggest-carbon-market-in-2016/

Damn good information in those links syd............But I must ask can a commo socialist fabian marxist collective that only gets up from eating there own young to join in the chorus of the 'international' really teach us anything.

 

[drsmith]

Lets not forget that aside from CO2, China has significant internal pollution problems.

With CO2 itself, the image in the following article puts China's contribution into perspective and it's expected to continue to go up for another 16 years and then there's India.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/world/asia/climate-change-china-xi-jinping-obama-apec.html?_r=0

The demand for fossil fuel I'd suggest is quiet secure for some time.

 

[explod]

Damn good information in those links syd............But I must ask can a commo socialist fabian marxist collective that only gets up from eating there own young to join in the chorus of the 'international' really teach us anything.

What a nasty little rationalisation.

If we take away Government subsidies in tax (offshore take too) and excise considerations, alternative wind and solar is cheaper.

But the money lobby power has the upper hand here with twisted rationalisation and a gullible press spoon fed public.

 

[Calliope]

But I must ask can a commo socialist fabian marxist collective that only gets up from eating there own young to join in the chorus of the 'international' really teach us anything.

The Chinese can teach us a lot.

"Confucious Say one who misleads the ignorant is no more than a pile of dog doo, or a socialist democrat."

He was obviously referring to Obama and other GW hysterics.


drsmith said;

The demand for fossil fuel I'd suggest is quiet secure for some time.

You are right. The only power source that can displace it is nuclear and that not going to happen.
The world will be reliant on coal until nuclear fusion kicks in, and that's still a way down the track.

 

[explod]

If the money spent on nuclear went to large scale deep thermal we could in my view get the power grunt needed.

But with expasionism hitting a brick wall soon, will we really need it?

The poor will be only able to use discarded blankets anyway.

 

[sydboy007]

It's reported in the Australian, so it must be true...

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...climate-and-coal/story-fnpebfcn-1227127600810

THE Queensland government, as host of last weekend’s G20 *summit, is incensed over what it sees as an ill-informed, insulting speech from Barack Obama about climate change, the Great Barrier Reef and coal.

Federal Coalition members are also angry at the US President’s public intervention in the Australian climate change debate at the G20 last Saturday…

Senior Queensland government MPs are so angry at Mr Obama’s remarks about the Great Barrier Reef and his attack on coal production in a resources state that they are considering a formal complaint.

…What most angered Newman government MPs was that the state had “bent over backwards” to find a venue and audience in keeping with Mr Obama’s late request to speak to a large number of young people.

 

[macca]

After Fukushima the Chinese Govt slowed down construction of their reactors to ensure they were being built safely. While it's not improbably corners have been cut, the same could be said for a lot of the reactors in rich countries. Lets just hope they decide to deal with their nuclear waste a bit better than the current solution of leaving in in ponds of water for decades. Dealing with nuclear waste never seems to be factored into the cost of nuclear power.

In a country like Australia with near limitless potential for solar and wind power, do we really want to be spending $10B+ per nuclear reactor? That's a while lot of renewable energy production, along with the benefits of distributed power generation. The fact we don't have the skill sets to build or run the power plants would also be an added factor in the risks of nuclear here.

I'm not sure if there's many rivers suitable to be dammed left in Australia. Certainly none particularly close to where lots of energy is consumed. You might be able to provide some info on that?

Hi SB,

I did find this on Brisbane power supply, says that mostly coal fired power stations with some gas as well.
http://www.energyskillsqld.com.au/industry-sectors/electricity-generation-industry/

I agree with Smurf that burning gas to make electricity is a complete waste of a transportable fuel and future generations will not thanks us for it.

Every night on the weather it seems to be raining around the border of NSW and QLD then we have the very wet area of Proserpine and Tully etc where it buckets down, surely they can find somewhere suitable for dams and hydro plants. As Smurf has shown the incredibly long life of these units with minimal maintenance and no nuclear waste is surely a win win for us all.

 

[Julia]

The South Island of NZ has lakes all over the place, tourists rave over them, every large lake is part of a Hydro scheme and it is all so sensible, practical and efficient.

I agree, macca. But NZ does have such a huge natural geographical advantage in this respect, with snow melt coming off the mountains into those huge high country lakes, so beautiful in themselves.

 

[sydboy007]

Hi SB,

I did find this on Brisbane power supply, says that mostly coal fired power stations with some gas as well.
http://www.energyskillsqld.com.au/industry-sectors/electricity-generation-industry/

I agree with Smurf that burning gas to make electricity is a complete waste of a transportable fuel and future generations will not thanks us for it.

Every night on the weather it seems to be raining around the border of NSW and QLD then we have the very wet area of Proserpine and Tully etc where it buckets down, surely they can find somewhere suitable for dams and hydro plants. As Smurf has shown the incredibly long life of these units with minimal maintenance and no nuclear waste is surely a win win for us all.

I agree, macca. But NZ does have such a huge natural geographical advantage in this respect, with snow melt coming off the mountains into those huge high country lakes, so beautiful in themselves.

very much worth a read on the limited prospects for new dams in Australia. We've pretty much used up the best resources already.

http://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2014/10/dam-hard-water-storage-historic-headache-australia

The Ord River Scheme in Western Australia provides a good (if somewhat extreme) example. According to an official analysis, between 1958 and 1991 the government invested A$613 million in the scheme, but the benefits were just A$102 million. Yet the expansion of the project has continued (and is mentioned in the new green paper), with mounting net losses.

In terms of economics, it is unlikely that future schemes will do any better than the poor return on investment garnered from Australia’s existing dams. A century of development has exhausted most of the best dam sites, and new projects will face constraints that were less acute (or disregarded) during the expansionary period of the 20th century.

Moreover, while the real price of agricultural commodities has fluctuated about a stable or declining trend, the cost of large-scale construction of all kinds has increased – one of the few certainties in this entire issue.

 

[sptrawler]

If the money spent on nuclear went to large scale deep thermal we could in my view get the power grunt needed.
.

From what I've read, large scale deep thermal, other than geothermal, is pie in the sky stuff.

If we are going to to use mass geothermal, no ones knows the ramifications.

 

[Smurf1976]

I agree with Smurf that burning gas to make electricity is a complete waste of a transportable fuel and future generations will not thanks us for it.

Every night on the weather it seems to be raining around the border of NSW and QLD then we have the very wet area of Proserpine and Tully etc where it buckets down, surely they can find somewhere suitable for dams and hydro plants. As Smurf has shown the incredibly long life of these units with minimal maintenance and no nuclear waste is surely a win win for us all.

Lifespan of hydro - well the oldest operating station in Australia (Lake Margaret Upper Power Station, Tas) is now 100 years old and it's still in full use. Much the same at Tarraleah. It's been running since 1938 and it's still a baseload station today and will be for quite some time to come. Neither are designed the way it would be done today, but they're still fully functional and still do what they were built to do.

If you take one where major equipment (the turbine itself) is being replaced right now, that being Meadowbank, it's not being done due to problems as such. The old kaplan turbine has an oil-filled hub and, bearing in mind that this is directly upstream of Hobart's main water supply intake, that poses a risk in the event that it did fail and let all that oil out. So there's a new turbine going in that isn't filled with oil now that improved technology makes this possible. So it's not worn out, just being improved. Meadowbank was originally commissioned in 1967.

So far as undeveloped hydro potential in Australia is concerned, there's no chance we could run the whole country on it but there's more than most seem to think. We could certainly build "another Snowy" if we wanted to, the obstacles being political (dams.....) and economic (current economics having a relatively short term "this years' results" focus which doesn't sit well with something that takes 5 - 10 years to build, producing zero income in the meantime, and runs for a century or more).

 

[sptrawler]

In a country like Australia with near limitless potential for solar and wind power, do we really want to be spending $10B+ per nuclear reactor? That's a while lot of renewable energy production, along with the benefits of distributed power generation. The fact we don't have the skill sets to build or run the power plants would also be an added factor in the risks of nuclear here.
?

At this stage of our energy evolution, renewables are limited by both the cost and our storage limitations, I'm sure you're aware of that.

Base load for the foreseeable future, will be supplied by our dirty fuels, nuclear being the only viable alternative.

 

[noco]

From what I've read, large scale deep thermal, other than geothermal, is pie in the sky stuff.

If we are going to to use mass geothermal, no ones knows the ramifications.

The Labor Party gave Tim Flannery's company $60,000,000 for the development of a geothermal project in South Australia and it went belly up.

 

[Smurf1976]

very much worth a read on the limited prospects for new dams in Australia. We've pretty much used up the best resources already.

The "economics of dams" argument isn't a new one, indeed it was one of the two key pillars (the other being environmental) of the "No Dams" campaign of the 1970's and especially into the early 1980's.

There's only one problem I see with that. If you strictly apply the economic criteria then we end up with coal....

Looking ahead, nobody is really pushing large scale hydro development these days. AGL built a significant new hydro station in Victoria not too long ago and in Tas we've done a lot of tinkering to try and squeeze more production out of the existing system without building any new major dams or power stations as such. That's about it apart from some very small scale schemes in various places.

But if we did want to build more, well then there's some potentially worthwhile projects in Qld, NSW and Tas. That plus the large scale option of developing hydro (baseload) in PNG and transmitting the electricity into the grid in Qld.

There are some undeveloped resources elsewhere, including the NT and WA, but they're pretty unlikely to be developed in practice due to location and scale factors (which would make the economics pretty terrible).

 

[Smurf1976]

I did find this on Brisbane power supply, says that mostly coal fired power stations with some gas as well.

Historically for Qld it was 98% coal and a bit from two small hydro stations. Plus some oil-fired gas turbines for peaking that weren't really used often in practice.

Today it's largely still coal but with significant use of gas, still a little bit of hydro and a little bit from oil and various renewables.

Looking ahead, the basic trend in Qld seems to be toward less use of current gas-fired generation and bringing some coal units back into service.

 

[sydboy007]

The "economics of dams" argument isn't a new one, indeed it was one of the two key pillars (the other being environmental) of the "No Dams" campaign of the 1970's and especially into the early 1980's.

There's only one problem I see with that. If you strictly apply the economic criteria then we end up with coal....

Looking ahead, nobody is really pushing large scale hydro development these days. AGL built a significant new hydro station in Victoria not too long ago and in Tas we've done a lot of tinkering to try and squeeze more production out of the existing system without building any new major dams or power stations as such. That's about it apart from some very small scale schemes in various places.

But if we did want to build more, well then there's some potentially worthwhile projects in Qld, NSW and Tas. That plus the large scale option of developing hydro (baseload) in PNG and transmitting the electricity into the grid in Qld.

There are some undeveloped resources elsewhere, including the NT and WA, but they're pretty unlikely to be developed in practice due to location and scale factors (which would make the economics pretty terrible).

That's the envornment we seemed to have created where debt is bad. Historically the Government would build the infrastructure using debt, and then tax payers would pay it off over many years, but still much faster than it's economi life psan. Now it's all about user pays which seems to end up costing the economy far more for the infrastructure.

I've tried doing some research to see what potential there is for new hydro schemes in Australia and can't really find anything of significance. Not sure if you are aware of any potential sites. It would be interesting to compare the costs of hydro to say wind farms and solar. The cost to build dams only seems to go up each year, while the cost deflation for wind turbines and solar seems to make it a far better bet.

Hydro might win out if you factor in using it as peaking energy and using excess renewable energy to pump water back into the reservoir - the Danes make a lot of money doing this as part of the Euro energy system.

From what I've read we've pretty much used up all the A and B grade dam sites. What's left is relativity small sites. Not sure how economic they would be. Happy to be proved wrong though.

 

[overhang]

Victorian State Election: Greens to shut down dirty coal plants if it wins balance of power

Coal-fired power stations at Hazelwood and Anglesea would be phased out from as soon as next year under a Greens plan the party is vowing to pursue if it wins the balance of power in Victoria.

Under the scheme, decommissioned power plants and mines would be replaced by solar farms and other renewable energy projects, which would create hundreds of jobs.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/v...e-of-power-20141119-11px1r.html#ixzz3JZX0Ac1C

I'd hate to imagine the cost of doing this.

 

[macca]

I'd hate to imagine the cost of doing this.

Wow, that is a big call ! Imagine creating hundreds of jobs doing that, maybe they could employ some of the thousands who will be put out of work as power prices go through the roof.