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Should Australia subsidise clean coal?

In the last week clean coal has been back in the news with energy minister Josh Frydenberg looking to Japan as an example for Australia. Since the Fukushima disaster Japan has replaced most of its nuclear capacity with new clean coal/ low emissions technology. With much of Australia’s existing power infrastructure due for replace, its large coal reserves and the relative infant state of renewable energy technologies clean coal seems like the perfect solution to Australia’s energy problems. But, is clean coal just a pipedream? Should Australia be subsidising it?

Australia has set the goal of reducing its emissions to 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030. Since the repeal of the unpopular carbon tax Australia’s primary method of achieving these reductions has been a 23.5% renewable energy target by 2020. In addition to this various State governments have set even more ambitious RETs such as Queensland 50% target … Read the rest

It’s time to say NO to renewable energy targets

‘How will you be able to look your grandchildren in the eye and tell them you didn’t do anything about climate change?’ If you’ve engaged in any kind of climate change or energy policy debate, you will have no doubt heard this question asked. The point of course being that the only moral course of action is to reduce our use of fossil fuels drastically by switching to renewable energy post-haste. If you disagree with this outlook you are a ‘denier’, ‘dinosaur’ or a fossil fuel shill. The reality though is that forcing us onto unreliable renewable energy sources before they are viable is expensive, destructive and morally bereft.

Apart from financing climate change initiatives globally, Australia has committed to the RET which aims for 23.5% of our national energy production to be renewable by 2020 and represents a doubling of our current levels of renewable energy production. Bill Shorten’s … Read the rest

Climate Waste Environment

The Winds Have Changed

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop illustrates the total lack of awareness of how the world has changed, having just reaffirmed Australia’s support for the disastrous Paris Climate Accord at the same time that US president-elect Donald Trump underlined his determination to destroy it by appointing Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to run the EPA. Among the many accolades for this choice is the damning opposition of the left-leaning Politico website. Progressively, the Trump appointments are demonstrating how he intends to unwind the economy-stifling green excesses of the Obama and previous administrations.

In the climate field the next target is NASA. Who can forget how warmist pin-up scientist Brian Cox was allowed to show a NASA doctored temperature map in a Q&A gotcha moment designed to humiliate Senator Malcolm Roberts (presently in Washington at a meeting with Myron Ebell, who heads up Trump’s EPA transition team.) Gavin Schmidt, who has inherited the … Read the rest

Climate Waste Environment

Hazlewood Power Out, Prices Up, Jobs Gone

The climate change movement and green activists have claimed another victory in their war on carbon, electricity and industry. A victory which of course is at the expense of the rest of us in terms of a higher cost of living and more unemployment. This is the impending closure of one of Victoria’s largest coal fired power stations at Hazelwood in the state’s Latrobe Valley region. The carbon tax may be long gone but the push for more expensive renewable energy hasn’t stopped, it has just shifted to other policies.

It appears clear that the Andrews Labor Government in Victoria has refused to learn anything from South Australia’s experiment with heavy reliance on renewable energy. That reliance on renewables results in them having to import coal fired power from Victoria which was a major factor in the state-wide blackout last month. The state already has one of the highest … Read the rest

Climate Waste Economic Freedom

Why Climate Spending Does Nothing and Should Be Scrapped.

The industrial burning of fossil fuels has released CO2 that is purported to be responsible for .7 degrees of planetary warming over the last century, and climate models predict it could be responsible for up to another 2 – 6 degrees over the next 100 years. Despite the fact that very few of the climate change predictions made since the late 80’s have come true (think empty dams, no more snow in the UK and an ice-free arctic) if a warmer earth is going to be problem, what can we do about it?

Mainstream thinking tells that leaving fossil fuels in the ground is the answer. According to the IPCC we must act now to reduce emissions substantially in order to reduce climate risks and increase our chances of adapting to a warmer world. Across the globe various carbon pricing schemes, taxes and renewable energy subsidies have been put in … Read the rest

Climate Waste Economic Freedom Environment

Renewable energy targets are incompatible with the National Electricity Objective

South Australia’s electricity is neither reliable nor cost-effective. The National Electricity Objective, as stated in the National Electricity Law (section 7 the National Electricity (South Australia) Act 1996), is:to promote efficient investment in, and efficient operation and use of, electricity services for the long term interests of consumers of electricity with respect to – price, quality, safety, reliability, and security of supply of electricity; and the reliability, safety and security of the national electricity system. Why then has South Australia failed to achieve an electricity supply that is neither reliable nor cost-effective?

One possible answer to this question is that, South Australia’s ambitious renewable energy target is incompatible with the national electricity objective. This has huge implications for other states such as Queensland, that have set a 50% renewable energy target by 2030.

Competitive federalism and the South Australian experience has shown that renewable energy targets are a wasteful … Read the rest

Category: Climate Waste