Fairyland economics — Labor invents perpetual money machine

It’s fairy-land economics out there. In a big economic advance, the Labor Party realized  that they can solve world poverty: the secret is to take money from the big producers, and hand it to anyone and everyone — it will not only keep our national economy productive and efficient, but millions of people will be richer!  Why we didn’t do it 50 years ago!*

Millions to be ‘better off’ under carbon tax

Think of the possibilities! If it works on a national scale, why not go international — how much richer would we all be if we buried our  five cheapest sources of energy in a pit under Maralinga, forced everyone to use the sixth, seventh, and eight best sources of energy, AND we took the profits from the most efficient successful operations around the globe (known henceforth as “polluters” (sic))  and gave them to all the world’s poor and needy?

Where do Gillard and Combet think the “Big-Polluters” get their money from? Would it be from:

(a) giant Swiss-bank-accounts held by Nazi war criminals,
(b) ancient Saxon wishing wells, or
(c) pots at the end of the rainbow?

Do they think the big-polluters pull money out of thin air? (Excuse me sir, you need a banking license to do that.)

Money has to come from people

The mature age audience (people over fifteen) know that corporations get money from either people who choose to buy the goods or services they make, or from shareholders who give money (voluntarily) in order to help the company profit and to keep themselves off the street.

“Big polluters” are really law-abiding hard-working citizens

If you hung out in Labor-land too long, you’d think industry was full of Ogres, but the people that the carbon tax is attacking are already THE big contributors. “Big-Polluters” provide things to the community: like keeping houses warm (or cool), and helping move food to the table, and that’s just for starters; they provide money, yes buckets of cash, and lots of it, to the families of the people who help them make it all happen (known as employees); and as if that’s not enough, they pay more than a third of all they get after that to the people of the nation (its called tax).

So let’s figure out what happens when the government gets even more involved in this chain of transactions.

When companies pay the carbon tax, the money has to come from somewhere: i.e. the consumers, shareholders, and employees will all ultimately pay more or receive less. And of course so will the punters who have their superannuation tied up in company shares (though they may not realize it).

Meanwhile foreign investors flee to places where there is not so much sovereign risk, like Chad, Guam, and Venezuela,

Then through the magic roundabout of “government” (with a bit of leakage), some of the money that was directing resources to where they could be most effectively used, is shifted instead to employ green police who fine you if you put PET bottles into the glass recycling bin. Soon, shareholders realize that they need to move to nations with lower tax rates (almost anywhere outside the EU), and the last few consumers of Australian goods switch to buying Chinese things from factories powered by cheap coal. Meanwhile foreign investors flee to places where there is not so much sovereign risk, like Chad, Guam, and Venezuela, and the Australian sharemarket slowly deflates. Formerly successful companies employ fewer people, those sacked — poor sods —  spend less, and even their friends with jobs spend less, because they know they could be next for the chop. Next, all the items those now-unemployed-consumers could have bought, stay on the shelves, to be discounted for a sale-with-no-end, and then to top it off, some more companies go bankrupt.

The cycle thus begun has been tested before many times across the world. By ham-stringing the most productive, promoting inefficiency (think-solar), and scaring the pants of everyone who thought they might invest in Australia, we too can increase unemployment, drive smart people from the country, and become the plaything of redistributing apparatchiks who never managed so much as a school canteen for profit. Argentina here we come.

Congratulations to the Labor Party. It’s the largest pork-barreling wealth-redistribution in the history of Australia, and the promises to “over-compensate” low and middle income earners might buy enough votes to allow them to take an axe to the national economy.

And all that just to make a meaningless difference to world temperature (even if the IPCC weren’t exaggerating). But plenty of jobs for bureaucrats and green police, eh?

Let’s put the “polluters” in jail, right?

It’s not just Bob Brown, now it’s also the Labor Party who refer to large law abiding corporations as “polluters”. If they are polluting why aren’t they in jail?  It’s another not-so-subtle form of namecalling.

Why do the big businesses put up with the insults?

Science is still the camouflage

Greg Combet, the Australian Minister for Climate and so on, at the National Press Club said yesterday: “The foundation of any such policy is the climate science.”

“OK”, the taxpayers of Australia respond: so show us the one peer reviewed paper with empirical evidence that CO2 doubling causes more than 1.2 degrees of warming? Where’s that mystery paper hiding? And “No”, a paper from a computer simulation will not do.

“Argentina here we come.”

Combet again: “No Government acting in the national interest can ignore such advice.”

Of course not Mr Combet, but did you audit it, or get a second opinion? Or did you commit our nation to deliberate hardship simply because a bunch of self interested guys in lab coats and nice suits said you had to? If you took unaudited and unchecked advice like this in any financial arena you would quite properly be run out of Canberra as a fool — anyone remember Tirath Khemlani and the bypassing of the Loans Council?

It’s not as if there are any clouds of impropriety hanging over the advice you are getting … cough cough …  C-l-i-m-a-t-e-G-a-t-e …. ahem … thermometers next to hot concrete, graphs made from bus timetables… charts that depend on a single tree in far north Russia… and global data sets that are missing…

God help us all, can someone teach the Labor Party about where money comes from, and how corporations are not actually monsters, but organized collections of … wait for it… people?

Will the public fall for the it’s-too-good-to-be-true-policy of money for nothing?

The bottom line is that the government can’t give them anything other than what it has already taken.

——-

*  They did try it, and it was called the Soviet Union.

5.5 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

134 comments to Fairyland economics — Labor invents perpetual money machine

  • #

    When the rights of any individual are violated for ANY reason, the rights of all are violated and, ultimately, all will suffer for the transgression.

    How are rights violated? Rights can only be violated by the initiation of coercive force upon the individual to restrict his freedom of thought and action in pursuance of maintaining his own life and values. The presumption that any individual or group of individuals have the “right” to violate the rights of others represents the evasion and negation of the concept of rights. The final practical result of such a presumption will be the negation of life of man as man.

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  • #
    DougS

    It’s the same story in the UK.

    I wrote to my MP asking him if he thought that it was a sensible idea to spend £18.3bn of taxpayers’ money, every year for four decades in order to try and control the climate – as required by Ed Miliband’s 2008 Climate Change Act. The Act requires an 80% reduction in the UK’s CO2 emissions by 2050 – against a 1990 baseline.

    I got a ‘waffle’ reply from ‘The Department for Energy and Climate Change’ which included the outrageously funny statement that we would make a net benefit of £600bn on the deal.

    So, spend £762bn over 40 years penalising industry and commerce and lining the pockets of installers on useless WTG’s and solar panels and – ‘Hey Presto’ you get a gross benefit of £1.332 trillion.

    Simples!

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  • #

    You Australians need to take the gloves off and sort out these carbon dioxide taxing crooks.

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  • #

    The ploy is to name them as ‘big polluters’, but they’re not really that at all.
    They are providers of one of the staples of life as we know it, at every level, home and work, everything.
    Think just of the one power plant, say, Bayswater.
    To produce the immense amount of electricity it does, it burns 8 million tons of crushed coal a year, and that’s around one ton of coal every 4 seconds.
    Each one ton of coal burned produces on average 2.86 tons of CO2, hence that’s around 23 Million tons of CO2 each year.
    At Garnaut’s starting base price of $26 per ton, that means an extra on their bottom line of $600 Million, just from the one plant.
    That will be captive to this new tax, because they just have to keep producing that amount of electricity, no matter what.

    This is just one of those plants.

    I have a list of the top 20 emitters in Australia, and 14 of them are providers of electrical power we all use.

    See the list and read the Post at this link:

    The ‘Big Polluters’

    I think it then becomes patently obvious that this Government is perpetrating the biggest snow job in our history.

    This is not a mechanism to lower CO2 emissions because those plants have to keep producing that amount of electricity, no matter what.

    This is just a mechanism to raise money, that’s all!

    Tony.

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  • #

    If there’s one thing economists agree on, it’s that a high tax regime in a country deters inward investment and indeed promotes relocation of global businesses to more friendly countries. We live in an age of globalisation and if relocating the country of incorporation of a business will make a significant change to the tax bill, then it’ll be moved. This is already happening in the UK. If a carbon tax is forced upon Australia then the same will happen there.

    Pointman

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  • #
    Siliggy

    Will the public fall for the it’s-too-good-to-be-true-policy of money for nothing or will they spot the scam?

    The fish may try to take the bait off the hook.

    Have a look at how the wealth redistribution has gone so far. People who cannot afford a home are paying for those who can to have roof insulation. Those who can barely afford the electricity bill are paying for money earning solar panels on the roofs of those who can. The uncertanty buisiness has needed to hedge its bets around has driven prices up. The unpreparedness for floods (predictions of permanent drought) has kept the taxes and insurance costs up. The free $900 handouts has kept the standard of over spending up.
    So face it that bait looks so tempting. Free money from big companies who we are told are bad. It is like a shoplifters dream without it being morally wrong. The fraudulent science even makes it look morally right. All those scientists who are afraid to tell the truth would not lie would they? Then after the bait is taken labor is out and Tony Abbott will get rid of the carbon tax right. So then we have the bait and are off the hook.
    What if he does not kill the carbon tax? The fish is caught. Then the UN will fight to get the 10 percent agreed to at Cancun even if no Australian politician intends to pay it to them.
    The whole country is caught!

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  • #
    Ben M

    Jo – in your article you forgot one thing.

    In the list of where corporations get money from, you forgot:

    3. From governments who provide subsidies for things that don’t work.

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  • #
    J.Hansford

    If Government spends more than the productive side of the economy….. Then it’s curtains for our country’s standard of living and Capitalist ideals… It’s that simple and that serious.

    I did a quick back of the envelope costing on what it would cost nowadays to run a prawn trawler on my old Qld E/C northern prawn fishery licence with 150 nights allocated. Just the fuel alone…. The pump price for diesel at the moment is $1.55 per liter. So the fuel cost component is…. 750 liters per night for 150 nights = 112,500 liters of diesel at $1.55 per liter, less 0.36 cents per liter fuel rebate for primary industries on diesel fuel = $1.19 ….. So $1.19 x 112 500L = $133,875.00 of diesel for the season… More if you go steaming to far off fishing grounds or buying diesel off Motherships.

    134 Grand in fuel….. imagine doubling the cost of that!!!…. When I left the industry the average price for the total prawn catch, tiger prawns, endeavour prawns and king prawns, was $18.50 per kg and fuel was 0.72 cents a liter off the Mothership and 0.56 cents at the fuel wharf….. Last I heard they were getting 12 dollars a kg average, but the catch rates were pretty good….. They’d bluddy wanna be!

    If you drive up costs….A Carbon Tax would drive up ALL costs…. Then primary industries like farming, fishing, mining, timber, etc, collapse…. Because they can’t pass the cost on…. The demand drives the price.

    The fisherman has limited ability to affect the price. If overseas prawns are cheaper to import…. our industry dies under the burden of our business costs.

    The guy that freights the catch to the cold store can charge an extra ten cents per kg to cover his fuel costs….. The fish buyer can add two dollars to cover her costs…. The fish shop can add five dollars per kilo to cover their costs….. The consumer buys their portion of seafood, eats it and drives home cursing the price of fish, thinking fisherfolk are rolling in money.

    ….. So when Australian fisheries go broke…. It won’t be because of lack of fish….Far from it.

    ….. It will be because seafood buyers will buy ten dollar per kg imported fish instead of twenty dollar per kg Australian fish. Aussie seafood becomes too expensive and the supply is no longer reliable because most of the fleet is no longer operating… Australian consumers would rather buy Vietnamese prawns, fed on crap, then buy our clean, wild caught, Government over regulated, Green eco friendly, business hostile, seafood that fishers are force to comply to…. I know that for a fact. They’ll spend a couple of bucks more…. But not double.

    When the fishing fleet goes belly up…. so will the mechanics, engineers, painters, chandleries, netmakers, slipways, fridge mechanics, electricians, freight drivers, crane truck operators, deckhands, skippers, and many more…. who relied on that industry….. actually, mostly this has already happened to the Qld E/C Northern prawn fishery. It’s very sad.

    Now the fishing industry is a primary industry, just the same as the mining industry…. So all of the above pretty much applies, but scaled way, way up…

    A Carbon Tax or ETS will do this…. There is no way our primary industries could sell their iron ore, coal, copper, wood pulp, prawns, wool, meat, aluminium, etc, against cheaper foreign resources and products…. We will lose our markets…. and to become indebted to Communist China would be madness. To take the blood money from their enslaved socialist economy would be to view our own future fate.

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  • #
    pattoh

    When our politicians make grand statements announcing (& re-announcing/launching before elections) spending programs as “investments in the future & job creation programs” they always invoke the “economic multiplier effect” which will create X jobs directly & 1.5 to 2.5X jobs indirectly!

    They get their sound/vision bites & an outing with the minders & image consultants & generally get off patting themselves on the back (or front). Unless it is the ~1 in 5 that progresses to the silver shovel day, that is the last you see or hear until the next election campaign.

    Funny how they are careful not to announce other things in the lead up to elections (MDB Report etc.)

    The NSW ALP government pretty well buried itself under its own silver shovels. Yay Team!!

    This whole concept of a Carbon Tax can only have a multiplier effect with a NEGATIVE sign.

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  • #
    Cookster

    J.Hansford@#8

    You are absolutely correct in your comments concerning the productive side of the economy. Growth in government is only sustainable if enough wealth is generated in the productive economy or foreign trade to generate the necessary revenue to pay for the growth in government. This is the harsh lesson being learnt by the EU in general (and Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and now Ireland in particular).

    Of course a Carbon tax will require a massive bureaucracy to regulate (and the Europeans have already discovered just how hard it is to regulate C02). This carbon tax will generate little if any economic benefit. I believe the whole purpose of this tax is to control human behaviour and increase power of the government over individuals, not generate economic wealth.

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  • #
    Carl Chapman

    There are no “big polluters”, only lots of little polluters who add up to a big polluter, ignoring the fact that CO2 isn’t pollution anyway. Bob Brown might call a power station a “big polluter”, but every time he turns on the lights he’s using electricity from the power station.

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  • #
    Ira

    oh, and don’t forget, when the economy collapses, the same know-it-alls who pushed these policies into place will begin talking about “the crisis of capitalism”.

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  • #
    Bernk

    I don’t think any rational appeal will change Greg Combet’s mind I suspect he is using a version of “plausible deniabilty”. If he happens to be shown to be wrong, he will claim he was following the advice of the “scientists” and therefore not at fault.
    This is politically rational

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  • #
    Another Ian

    Around the same area is an interesting read at

    http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/where-is-the-budget-problem/

    “Where Is The Budget Problem?
    13 April 2011 by E.M.Smith

    OK, we’ve got a US Government that is trying to figure out why spending $1 Trillion you don’t have isn’t making them more wealthy, and they are arguing over whether cutting that by nearly nothing, or almost nothing, is the better “fix”.”

    And more

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  • #
    Siliggy

    “A definition of political insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.
    Based on that, politicians supporting the so-called “solutions” to man-made global warming — Kyoto accord, cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, renewable energy — are insane.”
    http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2011/04/11/17956576.html
    Via Icecap

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  • #
    Bulldust

    OK seeing as we are on themes political/economic again, here goes…

    First let’s start with a shocking graphic – here is the US debt clock (on the global link note that Australia’s is actually decreasing, for now):

    http://www.usdebtclock.org/

    For those of you who have problems visualising a trillion dollars here is an interesting graphical representation:

    http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html

    So you have to imagine the last graphic stacked over 14 times deep. Hmmm, that’s is imaginary money!

    Now on to more serious commentary for the more economically minded. When you have a problem of massive debt (look at Ireland on the global version of the debt clock, for example) you basically have three options:

    1) You spot it early and start cutting government expenditure (never a politically popular option);
    2) When things hit the wall you default on the debt as a country and hope for a bailout (think Greece, Iceland, Latin American and African countries from time to time);
    3) You print money to pay your debt (think Germany in the 1030s before a certain gentleman really took the reins of power and became Time magazine’s man of the year).

    Option three is probably the politically most palatable option as it is generally the least obvious to the voters in the short run and allows a government to keep on spending, which is vital if you want people to vote for you again.

    Option three is what the US is doing now for the second time and they have dubbed it “quantitative easing.” Sounds like a nice warm monetary laxative … like the medical variety the end result is the same… The US is now nearing the end of Quantitative Easing II (aka QEII), and signs are that the US Government is not keen to go a third round immediately.

    The way that the US debt has been supported is that the US Federal Reserve has been effectively printing money and buying up the US bonds being floated by the Goverment. In effect what is about to happen in one or two months is that the Fed Reserve is going to get out of the market for those bonds.

    That leaves the big question of: What then? Who is going to run in and buy the excess bonds after the Fed, which has been so very active in this market for a long time now, pulls out? These issues were raised in an LA Times article about investment company PIMCO (large investor in US Government bonds) decided it was time to be wary of them, and the story shot around the media quickly:

    http://news.google.com.au/news/more?pz=1&cf=all&ned=au&cf=all&ncl=dj9W3HbE22FdRKMm1TZiokTa0CgDM

    John Mauldin highlights this issue in a recent blog in which he copies an interview of David Galland of “The Casey Report” discussing the end of QEII:

    http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/john_mauldins_outside_the_box/archive/2011/04/11/the-end-of-qe2-major-policy-shift-ahead.aspx

    There are huge question marks hanging over the US economy right now, and a lot of the statistics we are hearing about a slight improvement are suspect, to say the least. Given that my wife has family over there we know first hand that people are still doing it very tough and the inflation is biting hard despite official stats to the contrary.

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  • #
    Bulldust

    PS> As if on cue, here are some excerpts of the political discussion on budget cuts in the US:
    http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/9192287/obama-proposes-4-trillion-in-deficit-cuts/

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  • #
    Jaymez

    Combet says the compensation package will be permanent. But that defies logic. If the ‘Carbon Tax’ works as he suggests, then it will cause industry to reduce emissions or switch to renewable energy, all at a greater cost to industry. This higher cost will be passed on to consumers. Industry will then pay much less carbon tax having reduced CO2 emissions. So where will the Government get the money to maintain the compensation for the increased cost of living to the people?

    The fact is, this Carbon Tax is phoney ideologically driven, wealth distribution which will increase the size of government to administer this new bureaucracy, increase dependency on government handouts through reliance on the ‘permanent’ compensation package, and harm our economy as industry, jobs and profits move off shore to the many countries which do not impose such a silly tax.

    Most of all there will be no impact on climate, but our ability to fund action to mitigate against natural climate change will be severely restricted due to our poorer society.

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  • #
    Speedy

    The government (using the term loosely) is a joke. They’re enshrining junk science in voodoo economics to justify a punitive tax that is simply returned (allegedly) to the bulk of the voting public.

    Next time you’re at a voting booth, just repeat this mantra:

    Julia never lies. Julia never lies. Julia never lies…

    Cheers,

    Speedy

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  • #
    Louis Hissink

    Jaymez @ # 18

    “The fact is, this Carbon Tax is phoney ideologically driven, wealth distribution which will increase the size of government to administer this new bureaucracy, increase dependency on government handouts through reliance on the ‘permanent’ compensation package, and harm our economy as industry, jobs and profits move off shore to the many countries which do not impose such a silly tax.”

    Unfortunately our version of creeping socialism is more developed than the US, despite the mining boom (The US has basically stopped mining on its own ladnmass due to Green restrictions), but given the brainwashing of a generation since 1972, we will quickly find out what life in the USSR was like. Except for the memory shortages in the political left, most will complain that no one told them about it.

    Well some of us have – from the start of this CO2 fetish too, I might add. Good to see people catching up in the realisation stakes – this battle isn’t about the science, it’s about the use of science to embed the Fabian agenda, and they have succeeded – we argue about the science while in the meantime Gillard and her Fabians are beavering away at implementing the carbon tax and the emissions trading scheme.

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  • #
    cohenite

    A timely post; the lie that compensation will insulate average citizens is underpining this government’s selling of the carbon tax [CT]; it goes further than the stark inability for such compensation to work though, because the ability of the economy to even continuing paying the tax is being ignored; this effect, the shrinkage of the economy a la Spain, Greece, Italy due to a CT equivalent, is well documented and has even been calculated in Australia:

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/ets-to-shrink-regional-growth/story-e6frg6nf-1225691476399

    This study by one of Australia’s premier modelling agencies and commissioned by the now defunct NSW ALP government concludes economic shrinkage due to a CT equivalent ETS of $2 trillion, or $50 billion PA by 2050; so there you are folks, the calculation has been done and surely is known by this rotten government which has to ignore it to placate their green puppet masters.

    That aside for me the real issue is this:

    “Why do the big businesses put up with the insults?”

    I have communicated with various big business in respect of sponsoring speaking tours by prominent scientists and economists who would argue against AGW and such ratbaggery as a CT; not one will put their hands in their considerable pockets or even be publicly associated with such a program; they prefer to continue to have meaningful dialoque with the government on this issue.

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  • #
    Bruce of Newcastle

    The tragedy is its all so unnecessary! If you look at David Stockwell’s post today you can immediately see the sine wave style ramp up of the PDO in his Figure 1. It is clear as the proverbials on a brass monkey! Take out the PDO and solar and there’s nothing left. Why isn’t it clear to the Combet’s of the world? Escapes me.

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  • #
    brc

    It escapes most peoples attention, but big companies become big because lots of individuals buy their products.

    Electricity Generators are big because lots of people buy electricity from them.

    Virgin Blue grew to be the 2nd largest airline in Australia because lots of people flew on their planes.

    Mining companies grew big because lots of people buy things that need to be made out of raw materials.

    To pretend that these companies are big from any other reason than having lots of customers is ridiculous. To pretend they are big by ignoring the wants and needs of ordinary people is a gross and complete misunderstanding of the way the world works. We all buy from BHP indirectly. We all, indirectly, chip coal from the ground and set fire to it. If this was a pre-electrical civilisation, we’d see our own emissions with the ker-thunk of the daily firewood or coal delivery. But because we’ve outsourced this messy business for the convenience of a copper wire into our house, we somehow are supposed to think that burning the coal is someone else’s fault?

    We should be celebrating our big companies, not demonising them. And we should be doing everything in our power to make our small companies grow into medium ones, and our medium companies to grow into big ones.

    The only way to punish a ‘big polluter’ (sic) is to stop buying their products. But then we’re just punishing ourselves, aren’t we?

    It’s about time someone at the National level stood up and started defending large companies for providing us with the things we want to buy. We have seen the ‘polluters’, and they are us.

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  • #
    Ross

    Jaymez @ 18. You make a good point by highlighting the fact that they say this will be permanent compensation. In effect they are saying the carbon tax will not work in cutting emmissions , otherwise it would be progressively reduced.
    When will a journalist ask the Govt. the obvious question — if they are going to compensate some with now 50% of the tax
    why don’t they just reduce the tax by 50% and then avoid all the cost of compensation ? Oh , sorry, I forgot this is all about wealth distribution !!
    Clearly with the reduction of compensation to 50% someone reminded Gillard and co. of their Kyoto committments and the cost of collecting the tax and redistributing it.
    ( and probably a few researchers and consultants on the gravy train have squealed a bit )

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  • #
    Mark

    This is what happens when you mix brand “Green” with real world consumers.

    http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/wal-mart-goes-back-to-basics-a-cautionary-tale-for-the-left/?singlepage=true

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  • #
    crakar24

    Its worse than that Jaymez (18),

    If the cost of a carbon ton is say $30 which raises the cost of living by say $800 of which we get compensated for. What happens when the TAX becomes an ETS?

    Lets look at the price of Gold as an example, the current price is over $1400 an oz and there are a lot of people in world with bits of paper that say they own gold, they dont really own gold the gold does not exist. The price of gold represents the profit people have made and bears no relevance to the amount of gold holdings around the world.

    The same goes for a carbon ton, the banksters and speculators will move in the price of a ton will rise to reflect the amount of profit that is being made and will bear no relevance to the actual tonnage produced.

    As the price of a ton increases so will the costs of producing it, for example as the demand for electrikery increases a company will need to purchase more credits (permission slips to produce more CO2) which will drive up the cost of their product and of course the usual flow on effect down to the consumer.

    Do you think Labor will increase the compensation to households? Of course not that is why the low income households will be overcompensated to cover the initial price rise but it wont last long pretty soon they will be out of pocket like the rest.

    Just remember the stock market is one giant casino and so will be the ETS and never forget like all casino’s the house always wins.

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  • #
    manalive

    In 1947 the Chifley ALP government tried to nationalise the banks but the legislation was ruled unconstitutional by the High Court.

    Robin Gollan a left-wing Labor historian in his 1975 book Revolutionaries and Reformists:

    The attempt [by the Chifley federal ALP government] to nationalise the trading banks was the strongest attempt ever made by an Australian government to control directly an important area of the capitalist economy. The issue, connected though it was with many others, dominated politics for more than two years, from August 1947 to the general elections late in 1949. In the course of the battle the conservative forces were more effectively organised for political action than they had ever been before or have ever been, or needed to be, since.

    In the 1949 election, Chifley was swept from office and Robert Menzies came to power with a massive 48-seat swing which is the largest defeat of a sitting government at the federal level in Australian history.

    Here’s hoping history is repeated.

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  • #
    crakar24

    This is a link to a site which describes the US Cap ‘n’ trade deal but still relevant.

    http://www.activistpost.com/2011/04/global-warming-anti-scientific.html

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  • #
    brc

    crakar24 : at least you can take physical delivery of gold.

    Try getting physical delivery of promises to mitigate carbon above what you would normally have done.

    That’s like trying to get a drunk to drink less by purchasing promises by him to drink 5 less beers next week than he would ordinarily have done. It might work, or it might just end up with the drunk using the money to buy more beer and lying to you about it.

    How, exactly, is one supposed to verify that an indonesian forest was cut down less than they were planning to, thus creating ‘carbon credits’.

    If anyone really thinks an international market in carbon credits would not collapse under it’s own weight of fraud, then, well, I suggest that person studies history a little better. The original and best swindle, the one that gave rise to the nothing-backed paper currency that we all use today was the Mississippi fraud. In which the country of France was nearly bankrupt by a swindler selling shares in the Mississippi Company and using paper money to pay for them. This was done by exaggerating the wealth of Louisiana and making promises that could not be possibly checked by Parisians of the 1700s. This so bankrupt France that it refused to touch paper currency again (a promise they couldn’t keep) and in the end had to sell the entire territory to the USA in the Louisiana purchase. The USA was able to do this because at that stage they still had gold-backed currency and real assets to borrow against, and had nothing to do with the financial idiocy going on in Paris at the time. Everyone roundly panned the architect of the financial disaster, for introducing paper currency and selling unverifiable promises, but the die was cast and governments around the world studied the swindle, not to outlaw it, but how to try and knock the rough edges off and learn how to create money out of thin air themselves.

    No instrument backed by a promise rather than a real thing ever lasts the test of time, because human frailty with promises eventually gives way to greed. No shares in fake companies, no unbacked paper currencies – nothing.

    Already in Europe the carbon credits market has been racked with fraud as organised crime moves into the selling of promises of air – completely unable to be audited effectively, completely unable to physically ascertain if delivery has been made or not.

    It is my firm belief that the entire carbon-credits trading scheme is another Mississippi Bubble in the making, on a far grander scale. And I think it’s wise to heed caution and learn from history and pass on the entire enterprise. You never know, if Australia stays out and keeps making and selling real things, perhaps there is a Louisiana purchase in our future. Perhaps the pair of islands off the east coast that are currently trading air promises?

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    MattB

    I put it to you that if you had $2 to choose between two products that cost $2 you will make a choice. If you had $3 to choose between two products, one that now cost $3 and the other still $2… you’d buy the $2 product and keep $1. The producer of the $3 product will change how things operate so he can compete with the $2 product.

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    incoherent rambler

    Louis Hissink @ 20

    … we argue about the science while in the meantime Gillard and her Fabians are beavering away at implementing the carbon tax and the emissions trading scheme

    Got it! So hear it people, the science is irrelevant but the politics is not. Our politicians/bureaucrats either ignore the science or are scientifically illiterate (or both). This will not change anytime soon.
    Despite the debates you might find on the net, metrics and rational science expose AGW Climate Change Climate Disruption as a scam.

    So, ask yourself the question of how does one influence the media/political regime?

    The answer is twofold – 1) Look at the tactical success of the AGW proponents. These tactics have obviously worked. 2) In AU, total decimation at the polls is demonstrably an attitude changer. e.g. Whitlam, Kirner, Keneally etc. A loss in an election does not change things. Decimation does.

    Hence folks, it is time to stop being rational(forget the science) and start being political.

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    John Watt

    Jaymez @18

    Spot on!

    Gives the impression our govt pollies are clueless io this issue.

    Makes you wonder how stupid they think we are to fall for such il-logic.

    Also makes you wonder if anyone in either of the coalitions could explain how CO2 drives climate and suggests that none of them have bothered to question the sources they rely upon when developing climate policy.

    In a decade or two this saga will make a good Monty Python script.

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    crakar24

    BRC in 29,

    I challenge anyone who has a piece of paper gold to go and get it exchanged for the real stuff.

    Mattb in 30,

    If i had a choice between buying an Australian prawn (thanks J Hansford) for $2 or a Chinese prawn for $2 i will buy the Australian prawn. However due to government taxation policy the Australian prawn will go up to $3 whilst the Chinese prawn will remain at $2, therefore i will buy the Chinese prawn as i cannot afford to buy the more expensive Australian prawn.

    The net effect of this can be seen in post 8……..you did not really think this through did you Mattb.

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  • #
    brc

    MattB = thanks for the primary-school level pricing lesson.

    Now, explain to me how a producer of carbon steel is going to make steel without carbon? How is Bluescope steel going to sell $3 steel when the chinese version costs $2, as the tax isn’t there, and was produced in plants with no regards to real pollution, working standards and artificially low wages? You can rabbit on about China ‘taking action’ but the one thing they certifiably are not going to do is start taxing their steelmakers.

    How, exactly, is a wind farm going to sell $6 electricity when the buyer has $3? Because the proposed carbon tax isn’t high enough to make wind competitive. In fact it’s likely that many windfarms don’t even return on an energy invested/energy produced basis once all energy inputs are measured (including transmission lines and backup power stations).

    All a carbon tax does is raise prices. If a company could already switch to a cheaper source of energy then they would. The proposed carbon taxes are not high enough to force people to shift energy sources, because the alternatives are an order of magnitude more expensive (and unsuitable, in the case of wind and solar). You can’t possibly raise carbon dioxide pricing high enough to make a difference, so there is no point in a small amount, low enough to not scare the horses but also too low to make any difference.

    Your problem is that you really believe energy efficiencies and lower costs are there for the taking, but companies ignore them because the owners are too busy polluting the world and laughing about it. If a power company could produce cheaper power then they would. If a steel maker could make cheaper steel then they would. If an insurance company saw real savings from switching off the lights and turning down the air conditioner then they would. You don’t need a government to force you to make savings that are readily available. You didn’t need to tax CRT monitors to have them all replaced with LCD panels. People saw they used less power and took up less space, and they switched them over voluntarily. You didn’t need to tax horseshit to get people into cars. When the technology is available, people move of their own accord. Putting taxes on things just preserves the status quo but reduces competitiveness.

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    brc

    I challenge anyone who has a piece of paper gold to go and get it exchanged for the real stuff.

    Oh, I agree with you there if you’re talking about a gold-backed currency or a gold ETF. But if you are buying gold on a futures market, you can make merry hell if delivery doesn’t come. Most futures is speculation but you can still demand delivery under the rules of the exchange. This is true for gold, copper, wheat, oil – whatever. They are derivative markets for sure, but they derive the value from a thing you can hold in your hand. A derivative market on a promise is an open invitation for fraud of a colossal scale.

    The point being : always take physical delivery of your gold. You can own it and put it in a safe and be sure it will still be worth something in 3 generations hence. You cannot, however, store a promise and know it will be worth something in the future.

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    Matt b

    Those chinese prawns are already dirt cheap though? REgardless I was giving the basics, and for sure they need to get the international trade weighting right. YOu do run in to trouble re: protectionism unfortunately.

    Anway, I have to say if I believed in Fabianistic world conquest, and a deep green movement to depopulate the planet and send us back to the stone age, well I’d probably ignore the science too!

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    Matt b

    BRC in #34 sorry not only is the bulk of science against you but also the bulk of economics now. To me I see a no pain subtle market correction to point us in the right direction. I don’t see the end of the economic world. Who are the doomsday cultists now?

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    pat

    14 April: Ninemsn: Opposition targets carbon compo plan
    by Paul Osborne, AAP Senior Political Writer
    She(Julia Gillard)also welcomed support from a group of 21 companies including GE, AGL, Linfox and Fujitsu who backed the carbon price, saying it is needed to provide business certainty and boost jobs and investment…
    http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8236534

    14 April: Canberra Times: Ross Peake: Carbon tax will ‘damage’ competition
    Chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Peter Anderson said yesterday that the Climate Change Minister’s guarantee to compensate households also ignored the impact of higher electricity prices on small and medium-size businesses.
    He said the business community remained concerned at Australia moving before the rest of the world to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, blamed for global warming…
    Mr Combet said after compensation, a $20 per tonne carbon price would add $2.60 to the cost of a tonne of steel which sells for about $800, and $18.70 to a tonne of aluminium which sells for about $2500.
    But Australian Aluminium Council spokesman Miles Prosser said Mr Combet’s calculations missed many of the costs of the carbon pricing regime that would make production less competitive.
    ”We will potentially see investment, jobs and emissions shifted overseas,” he said…
    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/national/national/general/carbon-tax-will-damage-competition/2133764.aspx

    13 April: ABC Lateline: Combet: Australia is not acting alone
    TONY JONES: If natural gas is really a viable alternative to coal, why is it that in Western Australia, where they’ve got the natural gas reserves just offshore, they’re planning to build three new coal-fired power stations for economic reasons?
    GREG COMBET: Yeah, well there are economic reasons for that and the pricing of domestic gas in Western Australia is a factor in that as well. But there are projects, as I indicated, on the east coast that are ready to be committed where various permits have already been sought and where the investments can be made.
    TONY JONES: In their submission to you, the Domestic Gas Alliance says that even a $30-a-tonne carbon price will have no impact, no impact in shifting energy use from coal to gas other than to increase energy prices…
    TONY JONES: But these are the people who want you to shift to natural gas fire. They say that even at $7 wholesale gas prices, natural gas would only be competitive with coal for new baseload power if the carbon price was $90 per tonne. That’ll never happen.
    GREG COMBET: Well, look, all I can say to you is that in the consultations that I have with the industry, we’re discussing a range of carbon price scenarios and the effect that that would have in the industry…
    TONY JONES: We’re nearly out of time, so I’ve got to at least jump in to ask you this, because one the reasons there’s discussion about it is because it turns out the LNG industry, because of the immense amount of power it takes to transfer natural gas to liquid natural gas, has become one of the single biggest new CO2 polluters in Australia. So you’ve got this massive increase in emissions coming from this industry that you’re planning to protect.
    GREG COMBET: Well it’s also emissions from what are described as fugitive emissions during the extraction of natural gas as well that contribute. And in fact, fugitive emissions from the coal industry and the LNG are our fastest-growing area of carbon pollution, so it is important that they play a part in the application of a carbon price and we’re discussing with the industry exactly the effects of application of the carbon price and the level of assistance that would be available…
    TONY JONES: But did you realise during the initial phase of discussions the degree to which the LNG industry may actually outdo other carbon polluters in the future? For example, the industry is projecting that it could grow – the exports could grow to 100 million tonnes a year by 2020, double the Government’s estimates. That means the actual carbon pollution from that industry could be immense by 2020.
    GREG COMBET: Well, we’re very mindful of it and it’s the reason that it needs to be included in a carbon pricing mechanism…
    http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2011/s3190873.htm

    so much misinfo and nonsense in the Combet interview, but i’ve just pasted the above to show the degree the Govt is interfering with business.

    how to force an election and get across to the Coalition as well that any commodifying of CARBON DIOXIDE IS NOT ON. SIMPLE.

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    crakar24

    Mattb in 36,

    Congradulations your stupidity and back peddling forced me to give my first thumbs down, well done you (snipped) CTS

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    crakar24

    A link to the Australian (not Bolt)

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/terry-mccranns-column/combet-gillard-and-brown-are-trying-to-sell-us-a-used-tax/story-e6frfig6-1226038757457

    My favourite line

    “Combet seems well suited to this. I don’t think I’ve seen any previous minister who has managed to so seamlessly combine the most basic stupidity and the most shameless dishonesty. While at the same time demonstrating he actually doesn’t have a clue that’s what he is doing!”

    Maybe he can explain how AGW has caused this

    http://www.iceagenow.com/Record_Lows_2011.htm

    A list dating back to Jan 1 of cold weather records broken.

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    Paul S

    Matt B @ 30;

    Yes, there is an incentive to attempt to match a competitor’s price, but only if the competitive advantage is based on something real and worthwhile. We do not attempt to match chinese labour costs because we do not wish to lower our standard of living that far. We will be handing a price advantage to our competitors by imposing any C02 price at all. China, India, the U.S, France – none of them are going to impose an artificial cost on their economies. And as brc @24 points out, there is no way of measuring or verifying that any meaningful transaction has taken place once this all moves to the orwellian “ETS”. Which “environment” are we trading? When that collapses – as it must – any comparative advantage that may have seemed to exist will evaporate and the value of companies and economies tied up with it will suffer accordingly.

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  • #

    Excellent post on Fairyland Economics or as I call it Julia’s Magic Pudding and Combet’s Con.

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    Matt b

    Anyway, my stated preference is for a fairly rapidly implemented change from coal fired power to nuclear power, bscked by an ETS (preferred) or Tax. I really don;t want to come across as some sort of defender of ALP policy here, or greens for that matter. I love this Bravenewclimate summary:

    “So, to the ‘options’:

    1. Coal with CCS — doomed to failure. Why? Because the only thing that is going to be embraced with sufficient vigour, on a global scale, is an energy technology that has the favourable characteristics of coal, but is cheaper than coal. CCS, by virtue of the fact that it is coal + extra costs (capture, compressions, sequestration) axiomatically fails this litmus test. It is therefore of no interest and those who promote it can only do so on the basis of simultaneously promoting such a large carbon price that (a) the developing world is highly unlikely to ever impose it, and (b) if they do, CCS won’t be competitive with nuclear. CCS is a non-solution to the climate and energy crises.

    2. Natural gas has no role in baseload generation. It is a high-carbon fossil fuel that releases 500 to 700 kg of CO2 per MWh. If it is used in peaking power only (say at 10% capacity factor), then it is only a tiny piece in the puzzle, because we must displace the coal. It it is used to displace the coal baseload, then it is a counterproductive ’solution’ because it is still high carbon (despite what the Romms of this world will have you believe) and is in shorter supply than coal anyway. Gas is a non-solution to the climate and energy crises.

    3. The developing world lives in Ted Trainer’s power-down society already, and they are going to do everything possible to get the hell out of it. The developed world will fight tooth an nail, and will burn the planet to a soot-laden crisp, rather than embrace Trainer’s simpler way. Power down is a non-solution to the climate and energy crises.

    4. It is nice to imagine that renewables will have a niche role in the future. But actually, will they? They don’t have any meaningful role now, when pitted in competition with fossil fuels, so why will that be different when pitted fairly against a nuclear-powered world? I don’t know the answer, and I don’t frankly care, because even if renewable energy can manage to maintain various niche energy supply roles in the future, it won’t meet most of the current or future power demand. So niche applications or not, renewables are peripheral to the big picture because they are a non-solution to the climate and energy crises.

    5. Smart grids will provide better energy supply and demand management. Fine, great, that will help irrespective of what source the energy comes from (nuclear, gas, coal, renewables, whatever). Smarter grids are inevitable and welcome. But they are not some white knight that will miraculously allow renewable energy to achieve any significant penetration into meeting world energy demand in the future. Smart grids are sensible, but they are not a solution to the climate and energy crises.

    So, it’s down to nuclear, as detailed here. To some, the above may sound rather dogmatic. To me, it’s the emergent property of trying my damnedest to be ruthlessly pragmatic about the energy problem. I have no barrow to push, I don’t get anything out of it — other than I want this problem fixed. I don’t earn a red cent if nuclear turns out be the primary solution. I don’t win by renewables failing. The bottom line is this — if this website is looking more and more like a nuclear advocacy site, then you ought to consider why. It might just be because I’ve come to the conclusion that nuclear power is the only realistic solution to this problem, and that’s why I’m ever more stridently advocating it. This is a ‘game’ we cannot afford to lose, and the longer we dither about with ultimately worthless solutions, the closer we come to endgame, with no pawn left to move to the back row and Queen”

    http://bravenewclimate.com/renewable-limits/

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    cementafriend

    Well done Jo, but I wish no one would refer to the carbon tax. It is a tax on carbon dioxide. If it was a tax on carbon it would apply to the input of processes such as electricity generation. A thermal black coal has about 80% carbon (dry as free). With 20% dry ash (typical for local power stations) and 10% moisture that is just under 0.6 t/t of coal used but the CO2 is about 2.1 t/t coal (at the exhaust) the difference is oxygen. CO2 is not a pollutant. It is necessary for plants to grow. This recycles both the carbon and oxygen. The oxidation of carbon occurs also in the bodies of every animal including humans. We breathe out air with about 4.5% carbon dioxide and reduced oxygen. If someone is held in a sealed space they will eventually die through carbon dioxide replacing oxygen (asphhyxiation)not through carbon dioxide poisoning. In the atmosphere the present level of CO2 (390ppm) is only a little above the bottom limit (about 180ppm) at which plants can live(Plants thrive at 1000ppm)and the CO2 is continually absorb on land and in the oceans to feed plant growth and formation of calcium carbonate (for bones, shells etc)
    How about everyone retorting to the AGW alarmists and labour/greens politicians that if carbon dioxide is a pollutant then they are polluting the air by opening their mouth.

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    John Smith

    The perpetual money machine is just as real as the perpetual motion machines…. except that they are both impossible, the latter impossible due to the laws of thermodynamics.

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    Ian Mott

    It is even dumber still. The tax is supposed to send a price signal, remember? But if the poorest 50% of the population are fully compensated then they will get no price signal. And the richest 35% of the population don’t respond to price signals because they buy on quality and status. A quality wine has the same carbon footprint as a bottle of two buck chuck and the scale of the price signal in wines is whole orders of magnitude greater than any proposed carbon price signal.

    So that leaves only 15% of the population who are likely to actually respond to a carbon price signal but in most cases the alternative products will have a similar signal. And for a 15% minority to produce a national target reduction of 5% they would have to reduce their own footprint by 33%. Fat chance.

    Gillard and Swan are economic village idiots who are still trying to figure out why the little piggy who stayed home got less than the little piggy that went to market. It really is that pathetic.

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    Matt b

    Cementafriend… even Jo uses the term “carbon” in the skeptics handbook.

    “evidence carbon did it”
    “Note: “Carbon”, “Carbon Dioxide”, and “CO2″ are all used interchangably here for the sake of simplicity…”

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    rukidding

    Will the compensation cover the extra GST we have to pay on everything.

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    Matt b

    “It is even dumber still. The tax is supposed to send a price signal, remember? But if the poorest 50% of the population are fully compensated then they will get no price signal.”

    Ian – this is a key point carbon tax opponents are getting wrong. People will be “compensated” but then when making purchasing choices they still have the price incentive to save more of that cash by choosing a low carbon product.

    At worst, they will be compensated for continuing to make the same choice (sometimes the price change will not be enough to make the alternative cheaper), at best they will change their choice and keep the “compensation” to spend on something else thus benefitting from the new circumstances.

    Now rather than income redistribution as accused, those of us with more money are more able to make longer term investments to reduce their costs (like a new fridge), so we are less likely to need “compensation” as it will not be costing us much as the new efficient fridge tends to pay for itself over 10 years lifetime compared to the old fridge. Similar maybe the fuel efficient car, or purchase of a bicycle.

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    Matt b

    I thought the little piggy who went to market got turned in to bacon?

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    brc

    MattB I’m going to ignore your childish response about economics when you are the one who said people will purchase the cheaper option.

    The reason I’m posting is to say I agree with you about nuclear power, but you don’t need any type of carbon dioxide pricing for that. All you need is regulatory approval and framework for implementing Nuclear power in this country.

    If I were PM I’d announce that Australia is open for business when it comes to Nuclear power. I would find a suitable waste location and build it, then announce a price/tonne for storage/year. I would announce accepted reactor designs and fuel types, then announce that any locality in Australia can either accept or reject a nuclear plant based on a vote at the council level. Then privately owned nuclear power stations can either sink or swim based on the build costs and current power and finance rates.

    I would do this as part of a broad plan with the aim of Australia having the cheapest electricity in the world for both individuals and . This would include an end to all subsidies on any type of power and a level playing field for generators, based only on local environmental impacts and companies convincing locals within the legal framework to build something ‘in their backyard’. There would be no price controls, subsidies or tax breaks. I’m sure many forward-thinking local councils would welcome a nuclear power plant within their jurisdiction, given the jobs, investment and taxation revenues available from such a development. Perhaps indigenous land owners might decide to have a nuclear plant with conditions about building schools and medical clinics by the power company. Or a rural community might decide to welcome a plant if all the roads were upgraded. That would be their perogative as long as they could make the sums work. Other localities will scream blue murder and vow never to do it. Either way, local people would have a say. If a prospective location could not be found, well, that’s up to the Nuclear industry to work out.

    I would announce that an ETS would be implemented only in Australia after the top 40 co2 emitting countries (gross, not per capita) have signed on and traded with the scheme for 5 years / or meaningful trade sanctions have been made against a country without an ETS that appears as though it could affect an economy (eg South Africa with aparthied sanctions, not Israel with the BDS silliness).

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    brc

    Mattb : no sooner do I do another post but you’re still contradicting yourself. Perhaps you write Greg Combet’s press releases?

    an – this is a key point carbon tax opponents are getting wrong. People will be “compensated” but then when making purchasing choices they still have the price incentive to save more of that cash by choosing a low carbon product.

    At worst, they will be compensated for continuing to make the same choice (sometimes the price change will not be enough to make the alternative cheaper), at best they will change their choice and keep the “compensation” to spend on something else thus benefitting from the new circumstances.

    Ok, so it’s not about price signals, it’s about changing the generation of power and the construction of steel, aluminium and concrete, and switching from diesel and petrol for the transportation sector. Got it. The problem you have there is that no alternatives exist for these ‘high carbon’ activities. There are no electric courier vans. There is no cement-less concrete. There is no decarbonated high strength steel.

    Now rather than income redistribution as accused, those of us with more money are more able to make longer term investments to reduce their costs (like a new fridge), so we are less likely to need “compensation” as it will not be costing us much as the new efficient fridge tends to pay for itself over 10 years lifetime compared to the old fridge. Similar maybe the fuel efficient car, or purchase of a bicycle.

    So it is about price signalling now? We have a price signal to purchase a cheaper fridge? I’m confused.

    Funny, isn’t it. We already have fuel efficient cars and lots of incentives to buy them (lower registration, lower fuel costs, rebates in some cases). Yet people don’t purchase so-called fuel-efficient cars in large numbers? Why? Because it is not economic, that’s why. You assume a hypothetical fridge or car that is a slam-dunk buy when the power price goes up. But the power and fuel prices have already increased 40% in the last couple of years and buying patterns haven’t changed. That is because all the easy efficiency gains have already been made. Only further technological breakthroughs will improve efficiency. When they come, they will either sink or swim based on their own merits. No amount of government spending can force these things into being – the money will be invested if the returns are there.

    And even then, unless the long-term savings rate is changed, any savings made by, say, more efficient fridges will just be spent elsewhere. Every purchase we make has an energy component. If I save $100 / year with a better fridge, I’m going to spend that $100 on something else – maybe a flight somewhere, maybe a drive to a restaurant and a good bottle of red and a big fat steak. At this point you are just pushing things around – the net amount of energy used is going to even out.

    The thing that you and all the other unicorn chasers fail to realise that if $11 billion is taken out of the economy and thrown at inefficient wastage – that’s $11 billion dollars less value everyone has. You think that nickel-and-diming on a tax has no effect, but it does. You don’t get points for effort, only results. I won’t pay you more to paint my house if you do it with a toothbrush. Someone always loses when you pay for inefficiency. Somewhere, the economy has to shrink when you force people to waste money.

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    Cookster

    So when people make purchasing choices on electricity they can now choose between Coal Powered electricity at (for example only) $3 (instead of $2), and renewables at $9 (unsubsidised) – still doesn’t seem like a good deal to me? I suggest the Greenies start making some concessions on Hydro dam construction as I really can’t see how with known technology Wind, Solar or Tidal energy sources can come even close to coal, Natural Gas etc on cost per Kilowatt hour basis? Once again putting aside the science for a moment, the economics don’t seem to add up?

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  • #

    brc,

    What Mattb has yet to discover is the answer to the question: “Who is John Galt?” Oh it is likely he can give a superficial answer but he cannot give an answer with respect to its deepest reality oriented intellectual/philosophical bases. A mind that can be forced produces nothing of value and a mind that produces value cannot be forced. Neither he nor his beloved gun toting government thugs can change that fact any more than they can negate the three laws of thermodynamics.

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    Matt b

    Lionell, I’ve never even heard the question before:)

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  • #
    Ross

    MattB and Matt b
    A little lesson in the real world , because you guys seem to be hung up on the academic version of how this tax will work. When NZ introduced its ETS an electricity company that produces almost all of its electrcity from hydro dams was the FIRST company to increase it’s prices.That is, it saw an opportunity to exploit and it went ahead. There was a huge outcry but they did not remove the price increase.
    So to go back to MattB’s example in post 30. What would happen is the company who in theory should be able to maintain it’s price at $2 will quite quickly increase it to $3 or very near to it. This would apply especially in a market like the electricity market which qutie small ( from the supply side point of view)

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    Matt b

    brc in #51 I agree. Goddammit I agree pretty much 100%.

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    Matt b

    Ross in #56. If that happens then you nationalse them.

    that was a joke.

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    connolly

    In regard to the steel industry Greg Combet’s claim of a $2.60 a tonne increase is just a staggeringly lie for the purpose of disarming the ALP constituencies opposition to the carbon dioxide tax. But for the purposes of the argument lets accept the following assumptions:
    1.the tax will add the price of a loaf of bread to a tonne of steel;
    2. this increase successfully sends the market a signal to shift steel making away from blast furnace heavy carbon dioxide emitting technology to a non-carbin dioxide emitting steel making technology (there is one).
    3. Gillard and Combet are honest and competent policy managers (stay with me on this folks – I know its hard not to to have a laugh); and
    4. the tax (the loaf of bread on a tonne of steel hypothesis) works as an effective market signal and punitive correction.
    Accepting these assumptions there is only one conclusion. The consequence of the tax can only be to close blast furnace steel making in Australia.
    There are then two alternative minimal carbon dioxide emitting options for the steel market:
    1. The domestic market responds to the signal and invests in the alternative non-carbon dioxide emitting technology. The only alternative steel making process in existence (and for the forseeable future) is direct reduction process that pellatises iron ore. The obvious placement for such a technology is the Kimberley region. It is the Greens stated policy for Australian steel makiing to be done exclusively by this process. Ignoring such things as product quality, pricing. import market competition and transport costs the inevitable consequence of a successful punitive policy is the closure of the Port Kembla steelworks. Currently about 20% of the worlds steel is produced by the direct reduction method. Mainly in India. It cannot compete against modern large blast furnace technology in open markets.

    2. The domestic steel production just closes down and Australia becomes a major importer of finished and semi-finished steel products sourced from the big global steel producers which have no price of carbon dioxide emissions weighted into their cost structures. Of course this would not reduce global carbon dioxide emissions but it would reduce the price of steel on the domestic market as imported steel will not attract a carbon dioxide price (and thank you Craig Emerson).

    Which do ya reckon is the more likely outcome? Of course Gillard and Cobet would have to accept assumptions 1,2,3 and 4. But they reject the conclusion of Option 1 or Option 2. Combet promised Port Kembla steelworkers their jobs would be protected and their fearless leader Howse said he wouldn’t support the tax if it cost jobs in Port Kembla. So are they clowns or liars? My hard earned is on that they are both.

    There will be an interesting Federal election in the Illawarra when the Gillard (or Shorten) government calls the next election. It wont be a market signal and correction coming out of the Illawarra for the clowns and liars but a democratic one.

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  • #
    Tom

    Australia’s raising of a tax based on “science” that its proponents cannot verify and which ignores scientific process and peer review conventions is no longer a “policy” issue. It is a criminal fraud and would illegal under the Australian Competition and Consumer Act (formerly the Trade Practices Act). I would like to hear from legal practitioners on this subject.

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  • #
    Matt b

    brc people buy fuel efficient cars in huge numbers.

    10

  • #
    Bulldust

    on July 1 is around 18% with about one third being attributable to the cost of renewable:

    http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/9194720/renewable-energy-schemes-slammed/

    Just think if they went 100% renewable like the Greens want … not many people would be able to afford to switch on the lights anymore, let alone their PCs to blog, or fridges to store food. Forget warm showers in winter… may as well sell the old hot water heater altogether.

    10

  • #
    connolly

    Matt b @ 37
    You must come and tour the steel and coal regions with that clever black comedy “no pain and plenty of gain” routine of yours. O and do bring a hard hat with you.

    10

  • #
    Matt b

    Bulldust did you miss this bit:
    “I think it’s fair to say that a price on carbon is much lower cost than these particular interventions that revolve around renewable energy,”

    10

  • #
    crakar24

    Enough of the gibberish Mattb, most people here may be too polite to call you what you really are but i am not one of them.

    The dimwittedness of your statements knows no bounds,

    1, You defend the TAX by reducing one of the most complicated TAX schemes ever undertaken in this country to a simple $2 and $3 thought experiment.

    2, You then disavow yourself of the ALP/Greens and the TAX by claiming nuclear is the way to go.

    3, You then claim if people cant afford the TAX they can simply buy a new fridge WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    You may have the full six pack but you are missing the plastic ring thingy keeping them all together…………i have never in my life heard such bullshit.

    What people like yourself need to understand is that this issue first raised its ugly head 23 years ago when Hansen turned off the aircon before addressing congress that fact in itself should set alarm bells ringing but for the stone deaf present let me continue.

    If we are to accept at face value the postulations of Hansen, IPCC et al then we must act now….well we should have acted 23 years ago but in the end what have we done? The best…….no the only fix for this man made disaster is a TAX, thats right after 23 years of research grants, of media complicity, of dodgy studies, of blocking of studies being published, abuse of FOI laws and loitering around cracked crab buffets all they have to offer is a TAX. Can you hear the bells ringing yet Mattb?

    Now all of a sudden you want to go nuke well its too late for that now as well as by the time we get through the planning stages i will be dead and buried let alone building the bloody things. No what we should have done was spent all our money on R&D, R&D for fusion reactors or thorium reactors something other then stupid grants that claim clown fish cant navigate due to CO2.

    No Mattb people like you had your chance and you made a right cock of it its time some sanity was brought to the table.

    20

  • #
    Macha

    So using price forces to change spending behaviours is effective and efficient,huh?

    A bit like putting up price of cigarettes, eh? yet the government superannuation funds have noproblems investing in the tobacco industry for good returns?

    Like aussie LOST ~$20Billions on gambling in the last 2 years alone!.

    Good in theory – just lie the climate models. All theory – no real hard evidence.

    10

  • #
    Matt b

    Crakar24, are you back smoking the crackar again?

    10

  • #
    crakar24

    Ha ha ha ha ha (big belly laugh) smoking the crackar…………

    This is a little off topic but it should get Mattb all up and about

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/13/climate-can-drive-seismic-shifts-study/

    Now i must stress the reaserchers state quite clearly that AGW is not the cause of the Japan quake but i put it to you that we are only one computer simulation away from making a connection thus it is even more important that the TAX gets passed.

    10

  • #

    Matt b @ 55: Lionell, I’ve never even heard the question before:)

    Now you have. I suggest you investigate its answer. You might actually learn something for a change.

    20

  • #
    Matt b

    You’d right Lionell. I am John Galt.

    10

  • #
    Matt b

    You’d? oh dear.

    10

  • #
    Louis Hissink

    When two identical items are priced the same as in MattB’s example above, no choice is possible except on subjective valuations that one identical item is preferable to another identical item. If there is a choice, then it cannot be based on price but on some other intagible quality not reflected in the price. This is tantamount to wondering whether which apple of two identically priced apples one should buy – and this conundrum is the creation of an economically confused mind.

    The rest of MattB’s argument thus falls on this basic error.

    10

  • #
    Matt b

    At least I should be glad you didn’t say my items broke the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

    10

  • #
    jaytee

    Argentina here we come.

    No, Jo. It’s Bolivia, here we come. We can all worship Gaia. No, apparently we will worship her. It’s mandated.

    10

  • #
    Louis Hissink

    MattB writes “At least I should be glad you didn’t say my items broke the 2nd law of thermodynamics”

    I would have if I were a climate clown.

    10

  • #

    Ian Mott @ 12.28pm:

    The tax is supposed to send a price signal, remember? But if the poorest 50% of the population are fully compensated

    I addressed this HERE. If the Labor Government said that they would pay speeding fines for lower income earners, they would continue to speed.

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  • #
    connolly

    Mattb @ 67
    But shouldnt you be reducing your carbon footprint and laying off what is clearly putting a spring in the step of your posts?
    http://www.bizjournals.com/mobile/sanfrancisco/news/2011/04/12/marijuana-causes-global-warming.html

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  • #
    Pip

    Australia may be facing a perfect storm this year – the MRRT theft is unresolved but may get up, the retail and services sectors are flat, the fed govt has squandered its way to being almost $5b under water for next month’s budget, the housing market is in more trouble than widely recognised (see Steve Keen), deleveraging is continuing apace by both consumers and business, the currency is knocking exporters around, Europe is shaky and the US must rein in expenditure soon.

    What a fine time to handicap the only engine of growth, the priceless resources sector which – despite some ludicrous, crude propaganda – pays a very large proportion of tax, and is just now maturing after 50 years of working for this day to arrive. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory…the brazen tone of the ‘progressive’ politics is truly breathtaking.

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  • #
    Matt b

    Ha ha wow 1% really? I can’t honestly believe that.

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  • #
    Popeye

    Jo,

    Notice how all of the AGW proponents who are trying to FORCE their moral C..P onto us always start off with “the science is settled” or something similar in an attempt to negate and stifle any following debate about the “settled science”.

    They then get into suggestions that Australia should lead the way etc etc etc – we all know the agenda.

    What they NEVER get into is the maths about CO2 levels and how much we will change CO2 levels with OUR (Australia’s) carbon (dioxide) tax.

    I’m not a mathemetician and am willing to have my numbers checked but my maths is below – if anybody wants to dispute it feel free to do so!

    1 – Percentage of CO2 in earth’s atmosphere = 392ppm – let’s say 400ppm to make it easier

    2 – Percentage of CO2 attributal to man’s emissions @ 4% = 16ppm

    3 – Australia’s contribution to worldwide levels @ 1.5% (of the 4%) = 0.24ppm

    4 – Gillard’s proposed reductions by 2020 of 5% (if achieved) = 0.012ppm

    So Gillard and the Greens and ALL the other people pushing for this tax want to reduce Australia’s CO2 emissions from (wait for it) 0.24ppm to 0.228ppm.

    This will reduce the world’s man made CO2 contribution from (wait for it)

    400ppm to 399.998ppm by 2020?

    The tax is estimated to bring revenues of $12,000,000,000 (that’s $12 BILLION) PER ANNUM but let’s say $10,000,000,000 – ($10 BILLION) to stay on the right side of the ledger.

    Currently 2011 – tax will start in 2012 so let’s say 8 years at $10 billion pa.

    That’s $80,000,000,000 ($80 BILLION) to reduce Australia’s emissions by 0.012ppm?

    ANYBODY THAT CAN SUPPORT THIS SCAM BASED ON THE NUMBERS ABOVE IS, FRANKLY, NOT THE “FULL QUID”

    No wonder Flimflam admitted it is going to take a 1,000 years for us to see any difference – what an absolute joke they ALL are!!!

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  • #
    Matt b

    “2 – Percentage of CO2 attributal to man’s emissions @ 4% = 16ppm”

    DO you mean per year?

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  • #
    Another Ian

    Via http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/toronto-sun-liberals-carbon-plan-would-have-devastated-the-canadian-economy/

    “Toronto Sun : Liberals Carbon Plan Would Have Devastated The Canadian Economy
    Posted on April 13, 2011 by stevengoddard
    Prime Minister Stephen Harper deserves praise and criticism for his handling of the issue of climate change since winning power in 2006.

    Ironically, the praise he deserves is for refusing to take a so-called “leadership” role on global warming, for which he is constantly attacked by the Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Greens.

    The criticism he deserves is for not doing something that would make them even angrier.

    That is, denouncing — as prime minister — the Kyoto accord and everything it has spawned as terrible public policy, which is unfairly punitive to a big, cold, northern, oil-exporting, sparsely populated country like Canada.

    Let’s start by giving Harper credit where it’s due, since he’s the only political leader who makes any sense on this issue.

    To understand why, think of the economic chaos we’d be in today had Harper caved in to Liberal demands in 2006 that he implement the Kyoto deal they signed in 1998, ratified in 2002, and then ignored until they lost power.

    This meant Harper inherited a fiasco in which we were 30% over our Kyoto emission target when he took office.

    It also meant he had just two years to start lowering Canada’s carbon dioxide emissions to an average of 6% below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.

    Many people wrongly interpret this as meaning Harper had until 2012 to lower emissions to the prescribed Kyoto level, but that’s not what the deal signed by Jean Chretien — who must have been inhaling greenhouse gas at the time — said.

    Requiring Canada to lower emissions to an average of 6% below 1990 levels annually between 2008 and 2012, meant that for every year that target wasn’t achieved starting in 2008, even larger emission cuts would have been necessary in subsequent years to make up the difference by 2012.

    Complying with this, which the Liberals committed us to but never implemented, would have meant a ruinous, government-imposed economic slowdown on the country, starting in 2006, which, combined with the 2008 global recession, would have devastated our economy.

    http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2011/04/12/17969336.html

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  • #
    Brian H

    Just saw recently a breakdown of how long gov’t in the US could run on the income of the rich, plus all the profits of all US corporations, plus liquidation of all the assets of the rich.

    About 10 months. Less than one year. And then riding on the proceeds of wealth confiscation, and a great deal else, would end — for good.

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  • #
    Dr.TG Watkins

    Panorama, BBC, 1st April circa 1961, ‘Spaghetti grows on trees’.
    Most people want the same thing for our societies but those on the ‘left’ believe that money grows on trees, an inexhaustible supply to be spent on ‘good’ things.
    Democratic governments should have an inviable rule that they can spend no more than they raise in taxation. Only then can one have a sensible debate on the level of taxation and what it is spent on.
    Excessive government borrowing is entirely analogous to over leveraged banks with the same eventual outcome.
    It is very sad to see Australia attempting to commit economic suicide.

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  • #
    TrueNews

    @BRC #29
    “How, exactly, is one supposed to verify that an indonesian forest was cut down less than they were planning to, thus creating ‘carbon credits’.”

    That’s Easy.
    You take $430 million of Australian Taxpayers money, you spend it on Indonesia (via the UN Fast Start scheme) to build a massivley beaurocratic accounting system that will, supposedly, handle all the problems with ‘non dissapearing’ forests.
    Well, at least that is what Gillard/Combet did, and guess what – not a Carbon credit in sight.

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  • #
    Popeye

    Matt B @ 81

    Are you questioning my maths OR celecbrating a birthday?

    Back to the maths – can you tell us all here if (based on these numbers) you still support Dillard’s carbon (Dioxide) tax?

    Simple question – what do you think? (zzzzz waiting)

    Thanks & cheers,

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  • #
    BLouis79

    Oh my, politics gets even more cynical.

    If we rob the rich to give to the poor, we will get more votes. Robin Hood did it that way but not for votes.

    If we waste money fixing something that will fix itself (rising temperature), then we can skim off our cut, claim the credit and nobody will notice they have been fleeced.

    At least with a Gaddafi as a leader, you know what you’re getting.

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  • #
    TrueNews

    @MattB #49
    “…this is a key point carbon tax opponents are getting wrong. People will be “compensated” but then when making purchasing choices they still have the price incentive to save more of that cash by choosing a low carbon product.”

    So, when building my new house, I should choose:

    Chinese Cement for the Foundations.
    Chinese Bricks for the Walls.
    Chinese Aluminium for the Window Frames
    Chinese Colourbond(sorry that’s Bluescope Steel).
    Chinese Steel or Tile for the Roof.

    Because my friend on your $3 / $2 example, that is about the ONLY choice I will have.

    Net Effect = ZERO in terms of CO2-e abatement.
    Net Effect = MASSIVE in terms of Australian Jobs abatement.

    BTW.
    Read Combet’s speech again, and read carefully, between the lines, on what he is saying about compensation.
    It is not Total Compensation for the Low/Middle income earners, it is based on an expectation that they will conserve energy in order to reap the full benefit of compensation.

    10

  • #
    TrueNews

    I got bored, so I ran some quick numbers on compensation.

    The Compensation Pie isn’t Big Enough.

    If we assume that the figure of $11.5 Billion in revenue from the Carbon Tax is correct (Combet @ $26 per Tonne), and that $6 Billion of that revenue is reserved for compensation for Households.

    Then Treasury will need to take a serious look at the following expenditure.

    $2.4 Billion compensation for Emissions Intensive Trade Exposed Industry. (based on figures from the CPRS)

    $3 Billion that Ross Garnaut suggests is required to encourage the development of Renewables.

    A $2 Billion contribution to the UN towards their $100 Billion per year Climate Change Fund (Based on Australia’s 2.06% contribution to the $30 Billion UN Fast Start scheme)

    And the one area that Goverment seems to always ignore, the $1.4 Billion that the Local, State and Federal Governments themselves will require as compensation for the increased running costs of Hospitals, Police, Education, Defence and Government Buildings.

    I tot this little lot up to $14.8 Billion in compensation from only $11.5 Billion in revenue, and that is before any administration expense is factored in.

    Maybe Combet might have to slice the compensation pie a little thinner, or increase the cost of CO2-e above $26 per tonne.

    10

  • #
    Mervyn Sullivan

    A soon to be published paper in the journal Science (Enhanced Turbulence and Energy Dissipation at Ocean Fronts – Eric D’Asaro et al.) documents a new study of the ocean surface boundary layer and, to the investigators’ surprise, reveals that the rate of energy dissipation within the boundary layer to be enhanced by 10 to 20 times. This indicates that the atmosphere does not supply the energy for the boundary turbulence… the ocean does. This contradicts the prevailing scientific wisdom and shows once again that computer climate models are constructed using false assumptions.

    http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/wind-water

    This study is very significant indeed. It means the IPCC’s models are wrong by a factor of 10x.

    Why is this so important?

    It is very important because the IPCC’s mantra is heavily underpinned by computer model-based predictions. In turn, governments and economists, like Ross Garnaut, have pinned their faith in the accuracy of the 2007 IPCC AR4 in framing policy to fight climate change… like justifying a carbon tax.

    Eric D’Asaro et al. prove the models are grossly inaccurate. The consequences are therefore obvious. For example, the report of Ross Garnaut, (which relies on the IPCC’s pseudo science) must therefore be so seriously flawed as to be rendered obsolete. Furthermore, the whole basis for a carbon tax is demolished.

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  • #
    TrueNews

    @ BRC #51
    “If I were PM I’d announce that Australia is open for business when it comes to Nuclear power. I would find a suitable waste location… Then privately owned nuclear power stations can either sink or swim…”

    Forgive the Spin on your comments BRC.

    The cost of Nuclear Power is actually more expensive than Gas, the price is also distorted because de-commissioning is never accounted for. (Look up MAGNOX to get the facts). They also take around 7 – 10 years to build.

    The fact that Fukashima got ‘sunk’ and is still ‘swimming’ with radioactive water will set the cause of nuclear power back a generation.

    As a pragmatist, I started to consider its useage.
    As someone who has actually walked on the top a Reactor Core and also as someone who’s child was sent to a primary school where they kept Iodine tables as part of their Medical Kit, I advise caution.

    PS. The Core was not fueled, it was during constuction.

    10

  • #
    MattB

    POPEYE I’m clearly asking you to clarify your point #2.

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  • #
    MattB

    “The cost of Nuclear Power is actually more expensive than Gas, the price is also distorted because de-commissioning is never accounted for. ”

    There isn’t enough gas to replace coal.

    10

  • #
    TrueNews

    @crakar24: #65

    Aw, cmon Crackar, I like it when he’s simple.

    If he got into highbrow conversations like, Thorium v Mox or Kyoto Accounting v UNFCCC Accounting, then I might have to go and check my notes 🙂

    $2 v $3 is just toooo Easy.

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  • #
    cohenite

    The resident alarmist says: “There isn’t enough gas to replace coal.”

    http://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/worldshalegas/

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  • #
    TrueNews

    MattB #93
    “There isn’t enough gas to replace coal.”

    Santos is currently developing LNG in Queensland, we have Gorgon waiting in WA, and Chevron are sitting on an absolute sh-t load.

    Failing that, we could always capture Cow Burps for methane, or go back to the old WW2 practice of running cars off Pig Sh_t.
    If that, In your opinion, is preferable to using our plentiful supply of Coal.

    Nuclear, by the way, is NOT a Renewable, even with maximum Mox it runs 70% MINED Uranium 238. (and yes, traces of 235)

    10

  • #
    MattB

    Cohenite – just how much of that do you seriously think is economically recoverable? To replace coal with shale is not going to be cheap. I’m confident True News was note referring to shales.
    http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/02/24/advanced-nuclear-power-systems-to-mitigate-climate-change/

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  • #
    MattB

    TN in #94- 1st rule of a presentation is speak to your audience’s level.

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  • #
    TrueNews

    My thought for the Night.

    When you are 20 – you automatically want to change the world.
    When you are 30 – you automatically want to change the world for your child.
    When you are 40 – you automatically want to change your lifestyle.
    When you are 50 – you are automatically labeled a denier and an extremist.

    So goes Life

    Night all.

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  • #
    TrueNews

    @cohenite: #95
    Thanks Cohenite, for the info and the support.
    Unfortunately the jury may be out on shale at the moment, there is a lot of gas but the “pollutant’ level of extraction is in debate.

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  • #
    brc

    Truenews @ 90 : exactly my point. My little stump speech said there would be no subsidies. If they couldn’t make Nuclear work, then none would get built. Simple as that.

    I’m touched by your concern for your children, but it’s far more dangerous outside their school gate where the cars are. Our hospitals are stocked with anti-venine for snakebites – something that places like the UK recoil in horror about. Kids are often bitten by venemous snakes because they are inquisitive. You have to keep the risk profiles in check and don’t let certain fears grow out of proportion with their risks.

    No doubt Fukushima has set the nuclear industry back, but what it should be doing is speeding things forward in terms of shutting down old reactors and increasing the build of new ones. It’s a mess but then so was the Exxon Valdeez and oil tankers still ply the seas. Bad things happen in the world. There is no energy without risk. However, many, many countries around the world see Nuclear as the only option going forwards and they aren’t into the western guilt so much.

    Personally, in Australia, I think we should be just burning our ample coal deposits because it’s the cheapest. But I don’t have irrational fears about Nuclear either. If someone can make it work, then good on them.

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  • #
    Mervyn Sullivan

    Greg Combet, the Australian Minister for Climate and so on, at the National Press Club said yesterday: “The foundation of any such policy is the climate science.”

    There you are… the climate science… the ‘settled science’ of the IPCC. Pity Greg Combet has no idea about the wealth of studies that have been debunking the IPCC’s biased pseudoscience.

    For example, my previous post @ 89 reveals the latest study that demolishes the credibility of the IPCC’s computer climate models. The models are wrong by a factor of 10x.

    Now I point out another study by Professor Nasif Nahle about the Greenhouse Effect supposition. What is amazing is that Nahle has been a man-made global warming alarmist. But he has done a complete backflip on discovering that in nature, CO2 and water vapor mix together to decrease infrared radiation emissions/absorptions in the air. This is the opposite of what conventional climatology has been saying over the years.

    In plain simple English, Professor Nasif Nahle has discovered that Co2 acts as a coolant. Nahle stated: “In my experience, other scientists follow the mainstream about the greenhouse effect (GHE) without examining its basis. If they would examine the issue in more depth like I did, they would realize that it is not true; the GHE just doesn’t exist.”

    Access to the paper can be obtained from within the following article:

    http://www.suite101.com/content/greenhouse-gas-theory-discredited-by-coolant-carbon-dioxide-a365870

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  • #
    TrueNews

    @MattB #98
    Touche

    Comment #94 was meant to be obtuse, it was designed not to denegrate anyone directly (unless they had read previous posts) but it was designed to get a reply from one person. Guess Who ?

    PS. I accept your comment, but the #94 post worked as expected 🙂

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  • #
    MattB

    I posted #93 – that really was obtuse of you;)

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  • #
    MattB

    I see your 93 has been corrected to 94 leaving me looking like a fool… again.

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  • #
    Mervyn Sullivan

    Carbon Tax – a Costly Pointless Gesture

    Minister Combet’s announcement that they are going to compensate working families for the cost of carbon tax should confirm one thing; a carbon tax is going to cost working families.

    The fundamental issue here is that a carbon tax is not going to change the temperature of the globe or change the climate in any shape or form. It is merely a gesture. A gesture that means that those who are already finding it extremely difficult to get by are going to have that difficulty exacerbated by a pointless tax with a deceitful inference that it will the change global climatic conditions.

    What is the point of taking money off people, spinning it around a bureaucracy and giving people back a bit of their own money and expecting be thanked for it? Why don’t you just let people keep their own money and go away?

    In the meantime you put up the price of the fundamental mechanism of commerce, power, so what is now our competitive advantage? Obviously we don’t want lower wages so ultimately there will be fewer jobs.

    Is Australia going to be reduced to a country that digs up red rocks and black rocks, iron and coal and sends them over to where they don’t have a carbon tax so they can produce the things we used to produce?

    Doesn’t the government get it? The people don’t want this tax and surely the have some right in being respected on this decision.

    Even on the CFMEU website, the majority of the workers don’t want a carbon tax. I’m sure that this is not a National Party stronghold, so my advice to the Labor party is, listen to your own people otherwise it will end up in tears, like the NSW election.

    Senator Barnaby Joyce
    LNP Senator for Queensland, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate
    13th April 2011

    http://carbon-sense.com/2011/04/14/pointless-carbon-tax/

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  • #
    TrueNews

    @BRC #100

    We are probably not poles apart in our thinking BRC.

    I was only suggesting a note of caution, having been there, done that and got the tee shirt (from Windscale/Sellafield and 2 PWR’s at Heysham).

    Your thinking and attitude changes over the years, see my post at #98.

    The one thing I would be TOTALY opposed to, is taking any other countries nuclear waste.

    One foreign company, a few years ago, wanted permission to build a nuclear waste dump in WA, because it was trying to buy our uranium.
    ANALOGY:
    If I buy a Big Mac, and eat it, can I then crap it back out into the box and take it back to McDonalds for disposal.

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  • #
    MattB

    TNs nuclear concerns do raise a key issue… if the only real solution to climate change was nuclear power (which I believe it is), I wonder what that would do for levels of “belief” in climate change or public support for action to tackle climate change, given that nuclear has been so effectively demonised. Abbott would do well to get the Brooks and the Hansens on side for a while – credible warmist scientists who think that nuclear is the only way out… and incidentally who think an ETS is a bad idea (but Hansen does like a tax).

    I think that a comprehensive transition to nuclear globally would also be in line with many sceptical agendas. And would shaft the greens. Ok I’d get shafted but I’d be happy with that.

    Plus a full transition to nuclear would also mean CO2 levels would drop/level off so even your climate scientists could save face by never being demonstrably wrong, and same for skeptical scientists.

    Nuclear is not only the soln to climate change, it is the solution to this great political divide/mess at present.

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  • #
    MattB

    I’d take the waste here in WA for sure. Then sell it all back as fuel for IFRs. Imagine being able to mine all your uranium resources, then be given it back (while charging for the privilege) then getting to flog it back again:) genius.

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  • #
    TrueNews

    @MattB #109

    At #108 you were being logical Matt.

    re #109
    Any Waste should stay local, transport is the weak link.
    Unfortunately Plutonium 239 is in demand, mainly by the unsavoury countries of this world.

    Security then becomes a big issue, British Sellafield, (the old Windscale) has the only Police Force that carry Guns in England.

    Thorium (Pebble) Reactors may well be the answer, even though Germany has shut down their prototypes.

    Unfortunately again, We will probably end up buying them from China.

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  • #
    MattB

    waste already gets transported for reprocessing without too many terrorist attacks as far as I know.

    True story: I made my greenie debut in the 1980s in a greenpeace photoshoot in Scotland just over the water from Sellafield.

    What’s unfortunate about buying from China! God bless cheap Chinese goods I say! 🙂

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  • #
    TrueNews

    OFF TOPIC
    @MattB #108 – #109

    Matt, I have just re-read your two posts again, and in conjunction with each other.

    Are you a Broker ?

    Or even maybe an Altruistic Broker ?

    🙂

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  • #
    TrueNews

    @MattB #111

    Sorry, on review, my post didn’t quite read in context.
    I didn’t mean that there was a security issue in nuclear waste transport, there isn’t, it is an accident issue.

    Thats one blue each – we should quit whilst we are even.

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  • #
    Brian G Valentine

    I don’t know why but I am reminded of a quote from California liberal (=Labour party in Australia) representative Nancy Pelosi, who was trying to get people excited about Obama’s “free” health care plan for all:

    “Artists, musicians, aspiring actors, under this new plan, you won’t have to worry about having Health Care Insurance any more. You can go and develop your talent, and the Government will take care of your health care costs.”

    Everything is free for people who don’t want to work. It’s all going paid for by people who work (and “polluters”)

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    Damian Allen

    I see the poor deluded imbecile “MattB” still hasn’t moved to BOLIVA!

    Maybe we need a collection for his airfare.

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    Popeye

    Matt B @ 92

    It is a ratio (4% of 100% or 1.5% of 4%) – that means it doesn’t require a tag such as per year, per month or per diddly squat!!

    Now that we’re clear on that back to my question.

    ZZZZZZ – still waiting.

    Cheers,

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    Bruce of Newcastle

    Speaking of the carbon tax, this made my morning. From Tim Blair:

    Chatting last night with someone close to federal Labor, I said that the government seemed oddly confident in the face of carbon tax criticism. “No,” he said. “They feel doomed.”

    Phil Coorey was right, it really is a Typhoid Mary policy.

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    crakar24

    Thanks for the link Merv (102)

    Has this been published? His findings fit well with that other study that shows the models are over exaggerating the warming by 200 to 400% and i should remind everyone that study has survived for 18 months now without being “Santerized” yet so it must be good cant wait for it to appear in the next IPCC installment.

    To Mattb,

    The mere fact that you believe Nuclear to be mans saviour suggests that i may have misjudged you slightly i will make an effort to tone down my posts towards you for the time being.

    Though i dont agree nuclear to be the answer as we have heaps of coal but if we were to develope another fuel source i would suggest we look a bit further afield.

    http://www.thorium.tv/en/thorium_reactor/thorium_reactor_1.php

    Here is one option that is far better than nuclear, yes still in developement but that is what us humans do best, identify a problem and fix it not TAX it, thats how governments work.

    We also have this

    http://science.howstuffworks.com/fusion-reactor.htm

    Now fusion would be the greatest discovery by man but at the moment we cannot get it to work properly but it is quite simple really we get two Hydrogen atoms and smash it together to make Helium just like the sun.

    Both Labor and Liberal governments have missed the boat here after wasting money on stupid green schemes that were nothing but symbolism we could have lead the world in R&D on these types of energy sources but in the end our stupid government wants to lead the world on applying a TAX.

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    Matt b

    True News… the business card of my dreams:
    MattB – Independent Environmental Thought Broker and Urban Innovator.

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  • #
    will

    Ayn Rand could not have been more Succinct.

    This is the biggest snow job and worst case of policy-on-the-run I have ever seen.

    If the govt was really truthful about doing something about ‘climate change’,
    which indeed can only ever be a ‘spit in the ocean’ re: Australia’s impact,
    then they should ‘encourage’ industry/individuals to make a difference,
    and that’s it(ie. no carbon tax).
    In this context, the word ‘tax’ is an Oxymoron. ‘tax’ is not encouragement, but it is discouragement.
    It is however a way for govt to increase the size of it’s pie and thereby prolong it’s need to exist. They can then be inefficient in more places.

    If we (industries/individuals), are prepared to use our own hard earned money voluntarily, then that’s perfectly okay.
    If a ground swell of activity occurs, then that’s great too.

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    Hi Jo,

    We’ve been discussing this idiotic tax over at my place as well. I suspect our government has the results of its own polling in hand by now, but the numbers in parliament ensure there is precious little Labor can do about it. Julia Gillard has been reduced to Bob Brown’s ventriloquist dummy.

    http://libertygibbert.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/carbonomics/

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    Mark D.

    Brian V @ 114

    Everything is free for people who don’t want to work. It’s all going paid for by people who work (and “polluters”)

    I think verbal logic is like math logic so we should be able to re-arrange this to: Everything will cost if you don’t want to work and it will be free to those polluters that work.

    Yup!

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    Damian Allen

    The green communists want to tax Australians back to the Stone Age on what SCIENTIFIC BASIS?

    There is not one Peer Reviewed Scientific Paper which proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that human beings and carbon DIOXIDE (PLANT FOOD) are responsible.

    Our resident troll “MattB” has already admitted this fact previously in another discussion thread.

    The entire global warming scam is the greatest FRAUD in the history of civilization.

    Heads of the perpertrators must roll and serious and significant jail sentences must be imposed.

    Me personally, I’d be happy to throw the switch to fry them in an electric chair or by lethal injection!

    If you think that is a tad extreme, just remember people we are engaged in a WAR for our freedom and democracy.
    It is a fight that we cannot afford to lose!

    The question you have to ask yourself is “do you want to live like an animal under the jack boots of these communists, or live like human beings”……..

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    Brian H

    Damien;
    There is also the crime of mass murder by starvation to consider. The entire biofuel and ethanol outrage, deflecting land and crops to feeding pretend lower-carbon substitutes for fossil fuels, have driven food prices up 100%, with hugely deadly results.

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  • #
    Popeye

    @ Matt B

    All is very quiet Matt ????

    Remember my question @ 86 only requires a fairly simple YES or NO answer.

    STILL waiting – ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

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  • #

    Circular reasoning: If you ask Greg Combet for proof of his claim that Australia is the highest emitter of carbon dioxide, he directs you to the Garnaut review. The Garnaut review’s source? Combet’s Department of Climate Change.
    According to the UN’s figures Australia is not the highest emitter on a per capita basis. If you include only the developed world, as in Julia Gillard’s claim, Australia is still not the highest emitter. See Australia the Highest Emitter?

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    BLouis79

    @MattB #108

    Nuclear is the solution. That’s where Al Gore started, if nuclear is the solution, then what must the problem be? Works great if you a nuclear proponent like Brooks.

    The problem is that:
    * all human activity that consumes energy on earth generates heat (including nuclear), and physics says that heat distributed over mass raises temperature depending on the specific heat of the material. Nordell says human heat generating activity is near enough to explain the bulk of the observed warming.
    * on a long-term time scale, nuclear is *non-renewable*, whereas carbon dioxide can be photosynthesised by plants.
    * there is no demonstrable “greenhouse” material that can prevent heat loss in the atmosphere by trapping radiant energy (excepting bulk insulation)
    * nuclear energy is more expensive and less economical – market economics dictates that we will switch to nuclear if/when the cost of alternatives becomes too expensive

    I think it would be cheaper and more effective to seed clouds to make the earth cooler than change energy source, since the way to make the earth cooler is to block out the sun. (Funny how it’s cooler in the shade, must be due to the lower CO2 levels.)

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  • #

    “69 more firms move jobs, facilities out of California”

    http://www.ocregister.com/articles/vranich-296360-jobs-moves.html

    Businesses voting with their feet …

    Pointman

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    John Trigge

    On ABC 891 in Adelaide on Thursday morning, Combet was taken to task by a listener who pointed out that when he says ‘carbon’ he really means CO2.

    Combet failed to acknowledge this point but went on to say (paraphrased) that “there are 6 greenhouse gasses and the carbon tax would address them all”.

    I have asked 891 if there is a podcast or transcript of the session but there is not, unless I wish to pay the ABC for a transcript.

    It will be interesting to see the final wording of the carbon (dioxide) tax if it includes water vapour, the primary greenhouse gas; we may be taxed for boiling a billy.

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    Businesses are leaving California in droves. Part of the reason, surely, is the cost of electricity in California:

    Commercial electrical rates are already 50% higher than the rest of the country […] and Gov. Jerry Brown just signed a new law increasing the amount of power utilities must buy from renewable sources plus regulations for the California Global Warming Solutions Act will start soon.

    As in California, so in Australia from July, 2012.

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    Sorry, Pointman, I missed your link to the same story.

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    @Deadman, no problem mate.

    P

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    Brian H

    @127, BLouis;
    Since we’re on the brink of a mini-cooling, and longer term a major return of the ice sheets, any warming is to be celebrated.

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  • #
    3x2

    Then through the magic roundabout of “government” (with a bit of leakage)

    “leakage” seems to be what it’s all about. I noticed that our (UK) “industry” reps put a “floor price for carbon” through in the last budget.
    No doubt a the behest of Sachs, Deutsche Bank et al. A guaranteed minimum “leakage” all round.

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