2020hindsight said:
PS One thing I will accept (after watching that show) is the third world's right to use dirty coal for as long as it takes for them to crawl out of their survival mode. Might encourage the developed world to help them a bit more. And the likes of AUS and USA - (neither of whom were prepared to sign Kyoto P) MUST try to crank back.
Agreed there with the condition that the developed countries don't cut back by means of simply transferring emissions to the developing countries.
If you look at, say, aluminium smelting then that is basically exporting electricity. It's the only reason Australia's first aluminium smelter was built in Tasmania - cheap hydro power. Likewise it's the only reason smelters were built in Victoria (brown coal) and New Zealand (hydro).
In the absense of a physical means of exporting directly, aluminium smelting was the way to do it. Likewise the TEMCO ferro alloy plant in Tas was built for exactly the same reason. And it's why Zinifex expanded to the point of sourcing 70% of it's ore from outside the state.
Even NSW and Queensland are in the same game now. Export coal directly and export more in the form of processed materials. Hence the smelters in NSW and Queensland and also various other energy intensive manufacturing.
And if you make the power more expensive when someone else can do it cheaper? Well, South Australia is the home of expensive (gas-fired) electricity and it's notable as NOT having an aluminium smelter. Likewise WA which mines bauxite (aluminium ore) but doesn't have a smelter - power is relatively expensive in WA. For the same reason Japan closed its smelters after the 1970's oil crisis.
So my real concern is that we end up doing nothing more than shifting energy intensive industry from one place to another. We stop doing it in Australia but let the Chinese do it instead. Quite likely that would end up using the exact same coal. We export the raw materials, someone else processes them. With all the extra shipping required that would actually increase emissions rather than reduce them.
So if the developed countries are going to cut back then for it to work there needs to be some means of assigning emissions from exported or imported product. That way, the consumer of the aluminium or whatever is assigned responsibility for the emissions from producing it rather than the country that actually has the smelters. That removes the incentive to simply shift to another country.
But would they really move? I'll put it this way. If Queensland, NSW, Victorian or Tasmanian electricity prices increased to the price that wind power costs then the smelters would become cash flow negative or damn close to it even without including wages or other non-energy operating costs (apart from the ore etc). They would be gone in a flash and with it an outright fortune in exports. All for no net greenhouse benefit if they simply relocate to China etc and use coal-fired power.
As for emissions in total, I'll put it this way...
The suggested 25 nuclear reactors would have run the entire country around the year 2000. But they would be enough for just one third of forecast consumption by the time they are actually built. Cosntant growth and we'll be using more coal then than we do today even with the nuclear plants.
Meanwhile, it seems likely that we'll get the herritage listed Lake Margaret scheme in Tas up and running as a fully working museum again in 3 years or so. Herritage listed because it was the largest hydro plant in the Southern Hemisphere when built, it doesn't come anywhere near large enough to officially qualify as a legitimate power station these days (though the power produced will end up in the grid). A point that really says it all when it comes to constant growth.