On Sunday morning munching the muesli I was not amused to read Glenn Milne’s article suggesting Peter Garrett will be a major target in the election campaign.
There’s nothing wrong with this in principle. It depends whether the campaign is based on lies. Not straight out bare-faced lies perhaps, but distortions designed to mislead.
It is.
Clearly Howard is trying to kill two birds with one stone. Firstly climate change and secondly Peter Garrett himself.
Milne tells us that Garrett is a major asset according to Labor Party research, a values politician, in the game for the right reasons, very credible on climate change and after Rudd has “the highest positive recognition rating of anyone in the Opposition.�
Howard’s main point of attack is the 20% by 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target supposedly espoused by Garrett. No doubt you’ve all heard the mantra of “the Garrett recession.�
As Milne points out the 20% target has no substance. He did mention the figure as a backbencher, and Milne says he also mentioned the figure as a possible energy savings target. But it is not Labor policy right now, as Garrett has specifically confirmed numerous times. Labor has been as careful as Howard to avoid medium-term targets.
Howard has been hammering a quote from the Prime-Ministerial Task Group on Emissions Trading Report which says that reducing emissions by 20% by 2020 would mean 264 million tonnes, which is equivalent to replacing all existing coal-fired power stations with nuclear and taking all the cars off the road. This quote was conveniently fed to the media by task group convenor and head of PM’s department, one Peter Shergold.
This is a scam. The quote must have been inserted into the report in order to be used in the way it has been. It’s clever, because the figures have a basis in reality.
This issue was introduced on a thread at Quiggin’s at comment 16 by carbonsink and comprehensively dealt with there. What it comes down to is this.
There were 547mt of emissions in 1990. That covers all sources including agriculture (incl. livestock), tree clearing and forestry.
Less 20% equals 437mt.
264mt more than that is 701mt.
The 2005 (latest) total was 559mt.
So Shergold is saying that instead of advancing by 25% to 701mt, we need to lose 264 from the 2020 figure in order to meet the 20% target. That is equivalent to 194 from electricity generation plus 70 from road transport in terms of current emissions.
And so it is if you check the latest GHG accounts (2005) (pdf).
But he could have told a very different story. As carbonsink stated:
A reduction of that order could be achieved relatively easily through energy efficiency, switching from coal-fired electricity to gas-fired electricity, and more renewables. Instead he chose to frighten the bejesus out of the electorate with his “cars off the road� statement.
The irony is, I think, that the same John Howard advised by the same Peter Shergold will almost certainly come out with a similar target to support the emissions trading scheme when the internal working party reports next year. If we are silly enough to re-elect him. But they wouldn’t be that crass. It will be 18% in 2020 and 30% in 2030 (avoiding the dreaded 2050) or just 23% in 2025. Or something like that, demonstrating their infinite responsibility and fine judgement on these matters.
The important thing now is that Rudd’s climate change agenda be defanged and Garrett be made to look like a stomping, gyrating clown.
That’s the standard of politician we’ve chosen to represent us the last four times we had the chance.
“There’s nothing wrong with this in principle. It depends whether the campaign is based on lies. Not straight out bare-faced lies perhaps, but distortions designed to mislead.
It is.”
No! I don’t believe it. Not from this government. Never.
Well Howard needed to start his campaign in some manner. Dont be so harsh, nothing else is looking up for him…. and Garrett is an idiot, so labor has left itself open to attacks on that front.
The very sort of atypical Liberal voter (outer suburbs, blue-collar or clerical worker earning less than $80k, aged under 45) that has kept the Howard government in office – or has denied government to Labor, depending how you look at it – is the very sort of voter who has fond memories of the Oils.
Making Garrett out to be a dangerous freak plays well to the Liberal base (aged 55 , never were Oils fans). The onus is on Labor hardheads like Swan, Tanner and Emerson to make the case that they, and not Garrett, will be making the big calls on economic policy.
This tactic has been tried with Julia Gillard, who took a lickin’ but kept on tickin’. Now that government is in sight, hopefully Labor will be a more disciplined outfit than in previous years. Garrett is a less experienced politician than Gillard but he’s a tough and smart and can work the media, he’s hiding his light under a bushel to some extent. Rudd also has the ability to cover any weaknesses, whereas Beazley/Latham/Crean would let it all hang out and stay vulnerable across a number of fronts, cultivating an impression of indiscipline and sloppy management that Rudd doesn’t have.
Spot on, Brian. I’ve been trying to convince people for the last week and a half that this is Howard’s children overboard for 2007, but with little success thus far.
I’d actually say that it isn’t just a distortion designed to mislead, but indeed a barefaced lie. The line in the Task Group report itself is a distortion designed to mislead, but what Howard said took it way beyond there, right into the realms of the lie.
The report said clearly that the cuts from BAU to 20% below would be “equivalent to” blah. Howard is on the public record saying that to achieve such cuts “would require” shutting down every coal fired power station and taking every car off the road.
However you cut it, that’s a lie. As carbonsink points out, you can achieve it with efficiency and renewables. If you also take landclearing to zero, stop old growth logging and shift our car fleet to more efficient vehicles over the next decade, you can do it easily.
The other interesting factoid in what the Task Group said is that they claimed the cuts would be equivalent to shutting down every coal fired power station and replacing them with nuclear. Ooops. They could have gotten away with it if they hadn’t added that last bit. That’s totally unscientific. Firstly, you can’t feasibly build that many nuke plants in that timeframe. Secondly, the huge energy inputs in building them, if you could, would blast our emissions sky high in the short term. And, most importantly, what the hell is a Task Group adamantly opposed to ‘picking technological winners’ doing saying it would have to be nukes???
‘The very sort of atypical Liberal voter (outer suburbs, blue-collar or clerical worker earning less than $80k, aged under 45)’ Andrew wouldn’t it be all the lovely old ladies in old people’s homes, the undeducated and uninformed that vote for Howard and believe everything he says that would be the backbone of Howard’s support base? You know all those people who still think there is a debate out there about global warming. Ratty has been very busy gulling them all with two main lies: A) How renewables can’t provide baseload electricity and B) That emissions targets would wreck the economy. And they will believe him too, Goddammit.
Peter Garrett just hasn’t got as much traction with this lot because he is not your average sober nondescript respectable suit that started off as a suburban solicitor and spent years climbing up the ranks of the conservative bastions of society. I mean Malcom Turnbull has only about as much experience as Garrett in the political ring but nobody is taking any notice of him however dim and of no discernable value a merchant banker may be. Garrett is a pioneer in a way – the first rock music artist in parliament, but however sane and sensible his message is, however intelligent, passionate and articulate he is the silent majority zombies who all vote for Ratty hesitate to take him seriously and Ratty is just totally delighted.
But nonetheless I think Garrett is appealing to a lot of people out there because of his fresh air approach and notwithstanding the cries of ’sellout’ interestingly from the conservatives. And a lot of Greens voters (including myself) are sophisticated enough to understand the reality of mainstream politics and Garrett’s decision to go into it and to make allowances for that. It will be interesting to see the outcome of the election, but even if Labor loses surely Garrett would not have been a bad risk to take. Whatever the Coalition is throwing at him, he’s standing up pretty well because he isn’t flaky and he’s a good team player. Generation change is in the wings and I’m sure the tide will turn in the long run…
Precisely my point, Megan. The oldies have always tended to vote conservative, but by themselves they can’t get him into government or keep him there. Those who do, those who caused Keating to cry Et tu, Brute in 1996 and have been an enigma/source of frustration to Labor ever since, are the very sort of person I described. If Howard keeps singing to the choir, he’s finished.
It’s important to distinguish between those who’ll always support Howard and those who might not this time – if there are enough of the latter, the former lose out.
Garrett is placing the pillow over the face of the Greens in this election. As I said here, Labor will take out Kerry Nettle.
“the Garrett recession.�
Shivering in a Garrett, maybe?
(Note to self: Don’t give them ideas!
Megan – your attitude that the voters who vote for a Federal Liberal government are “old ladies in old people’s homes, the undeducated and uninformed” is exactly why the ALP has been the Federal opposition for so long.
Democracy sucks doesn’t it!!
“Garrett is placing a pillow over the face of the Greens in this election.”
Garrett’s placing a pillow over the face of every single one of us by failing to tackle Howard’s 2020 lie up front. Instead of responding to the attack by saying “don’t be ridiculous, of course 2020 targets don’t mean shutting down every coal fired power station”, he backed away from it and refused to deal with the substantive issue.
In so doing, he effectively made the lie accepted truth.
Nice work, Peter.
I don’t know why Howard didn’t just try this one on:
Australia’s hospitals probably use about 1-2% of its electricity; schools another 1-2%. With electricity making up about, what, a third of total emissions, that means that reducing greenhouse emissions by even 1% would be equivalent to shutting down all hospitals and schools in Australia!
So in Jonny spin, how dangerous is this Garrett bloke? The ALP’s meant to be strong on health and education but having a greenhouse target – any target – will require us to shut down every school and hospital in the country and plunge us into the dark ages. And you thought high interest rates were scary…
I attended an interesting talk by Arthur Sinodinos a fortnight ago (awful little creature). He confirmed then that Garrett was a target.
It was very interesting, in response to a question about climate change policy, his answer was “we missed the public’s mood on that one”. Nothing about policy or leading, just about public perceptions. That’s the kind of person Howard has had to be such a success for so long.
A) is not really a lie. Renewables can’t provide baseload electricity – except for hydro.
A baseload power plant is one that provides a steady flow of power regardless of total power demand by the grid. You can’t GET a steady flow of power from wind, solar, thermal, wave power, etc, because it’s not available in steady amounts. But B) is definitely a lie and the Ratty *is* being deliberately misleading overall.
I would not be surprised if the Libs targetted Garrett – whether it has traction is another think. I’ve noticed that Garrett is not quite the high profiler he was a few months ago, so maybe the game will move on from there. Of course, the incredible hypocrisy of the ALP in at once approving Anvil Hill and at the time setting targets for reducing emissions probably wont get such a run during the election itself. But then, Garrett is a tempting target because has equivocated on some issues, not been able to deliver on others. He is a ’soft’ target in this election – but not necessarily Labor’s achille’s heel.
I’m still of the mind that climate change also wont be Howards children overboard, but the economy will again figure as critically important, and will again play out as the key messaging from the major’s – the “we’re better at managing your money” sort of thing.
On Andren, my comments in the pollbludger thread Andrew E is referring to still stand – I just don’t think he will pull those votes even if people do think he is a reasonable sort of person. His impact rurally is exaggerated with Calare success being the product of hard work in that electorate which will largely be unrepeatable in the federal election.
Ummm Razor
Polling from just before the 2004 election showed 43% of 18-34 year olds, 47% of 35-49 year olds and 55% of over fifties voting for the Coalition on a two party prefered basis. So Megan is right about older voters favouring the Coalition.
The 2004 AES found that postgraduates were more likely to vote for the ALP on a two party prefered basis (54%) than the Coalition (46%). A similar patter existed for those with bachelor degrees (52-48%).
On the other hand those with no post-school qualifications were more likely to vote Coalition (55-45%). So although a considerable number of other factors come into play a correlation between lack of education and Coalition voting does exist.
Howard is relying on the fact that people may like Rudd, but they are not against him at such.
That is true I think. Many voters are not that enthused by him, and they like Rudd, but for Howard if he can plant a seed of doubt, it may be enough to get enough people to vote for him again….he’s not great they will say…but he’s competent…and maybe he’s right…the other mob may stuff up. Let’s vote for Howard and let’s forget about politics for another three years.
We can all remember during the ‘Tampa’ that the refugee policies between Labor and Liberals were not that different. But enough people voted for Howard because he successfully was able to portray the Labor party as a soft ‘let-all-the-queue-jumpers-in’ party. Basically because Labor could scream black and blue but many average voters would always see the ALP as the party more pro-refugee.
Same with Latham. The government relied on the perception that the Coalition is a better economic manager to paint Latham as a risk (his personality did not help). The fact that interest rates are not set by governments was irrelevant.
So we have Garrett. It does not matter that he has an Arts degree from ANU and a Law degree from the University of New South Wales and has been the president of the biggest Australian conservation organisation (and a failrly middle of the road at that).
‘An ex rock star in charge of a major economic portfolio!’ They will scream. The trick here is to shift Garrett from an environmental prespective (a winner) to an economic one (a risk) by mentioning the 20% by 2020. Not true? If stated enough it may be enough to create confusion and doubt amongst voters that are not that into subtleties. Again Tampa, and Interest rates. Falsehoods, but enough to make people think ‘not to risk it’. And the fact that the economy is going well it is a factor that will help the coalition.
The shameful thing in all this is that the Canberra Gallery (ABC and Fairfax included) will not condemn this as a travesty of democracy but will comment on how clever Howard is and has wedged Labor.
Rebekka, you’re completely wrong.
Solar thermal power generates very steady power that already provides baseload in the USA and Europe.
Bioenergy provides baseload as steady as coal or nukes.
Wave and tidal power provide completely steady power.
Geothermal energy provides completely steady baseload power, far more steady than coal or nukes, in fact.
Wind certainly has peaks and troughs, but, when gathered over a large enough area, can provide steady power, if not 100% baseload.
Tim, the solar thermal plants operating commercially in the US use natural gas as well as solar to ensure base load operation. Gas-fired boilers provide steam to back-up solar-generated steam. The newer sorts that *may* in time provide baseload power are not in commercial operation yet.
I wouldn’t have categorised biomass or biofuels as renewable, because it’s not currently carbon-neutral. I suppose technically that doesn’t mean it’s *not* renewable, but we’re not using it sustainably. See here
How on earth can wave or tide power provide “completely steady” power? Are you suggesting there is no variation in waves and tides???
Geothermal is not, strictly speaking, renewable. And you’ve said yourself that wind power can’t provide 100% baseload.
So how exactly am I “completely wrong”?
Tim: this may be rather offtopic, but anyway…
Tidal power , Wilson Tuckey’s dreams notwithstanding, is a complete irrelevance in Australia, and, if you’re proposing the low-impact tidal current turbines it may be predictable but it certainly won’t be continuous.
Wave power is only just starting to see very early-scale test deployments in tiny amounts – and, in any case, waves are highly variable in intensity. I’ve been down to Jan Juc more than once to be confronted with waves that wouldn’t be out of place at St. Kilda beach…
As I understand it, current solar thermal projects provide constant power by burning natural gas when the sun’s not around. I don’t think thermal energy storage is widely implemented yet.
I’ll agree on geothermal, but HFR geothermal of the type proposed in Australia has is still at a very early stage.
As to wind, I’m not sure how much spreading turbines around actually helps. Wouldn’t a high pressure system over south-eastern Australia (hardly an uncommon occurrence) nearly shut down most of the windfarms in Australia for a couple of days?
Ain’t it funny how Piers Akerman ran almost exactly the same line in the Sunday Telegraph.
See here.I wonder if this means that Glenn Milne is taking the line that is being peddled to the up-market readers of the Oz and the Courier Mail, whilst Piers has been tasked with staying on message to the down market readers of the Tele..Cheers…
Sorry, that should have been here….
Cheers…
Bloody hell! I’m being quoted at LP.
For the record, I’ll say that I’m uneasy about Garrett and I can see why the government is targeting him. He might wear a suit and tie these days but I reckon he still frightens more conservative voters.
Well Rebecca, Victoria’s brown coal fired power stations wont provide reliable baseload either if we run out of water to cool them.
Scenario aint far-fetched either – it came rather close this year. Could easily happen within 5 years.
As you note, hydro is a baseload option (Tas and NZ today), and geo-thermal looks promising. Solar scientists also seem quite confident that some hotter areas of the world could do it on straight solar – but these things will always be in a mix of sources.
The idea that one or two solid sources of power will consitute “reliability” is probably dating quickly.
Its also worth noting that if solar tech improves slightly in watt efficiency, and becomes more affordable (hardly far-fetched, as thats the path all evolving tech takes – probably inevitable) – it actually reduces the amount of baseload required by sponsoring hoe production of 5-10% of gridload.
Frankly, the more I read, the fewer reasons I see to be negative about renewable baseload. But it will take committment, R&D, and price signals from government.
And as Ive argued earlier, as long as the equation {R&D investment
hmmm “less than” sign = destroy following text!
That last sentence was
as long as the equation {R&D investment is less than hidden costs of non-renewable pollution, to be paid by future taxpayers} holds true, then there’s no economic sense to the notion that subsidised renewables are “inefficient”, or not “competitive”.
They just don’t seem to be up to it. I was going to get stuck into Glen Milne for not exposing the Shergold scam and accuse him of not doing his homework by keeping up with blogs like here and Quiggin’s.
I agree with tim that Garrett should have taken the issue head-on. It’s a problem, that the truth is more complex than the lie. They are going to have to think about it when the Garrett recession turns up in election advertising.
I’m inclined to think that Howard has already succeeded in recasting climate change as an economic issue.
On power sources, I understand part of the problem is steady baseload, but even trickier is meeting the peaks, especially ones that are not regular. Monbiot says no-one has modelled how anything more than 20% renewables would work. He reckons in Britain that 50% is about the limit and that’s with calling on emergency power in an emergency.
Just expanding that, hospitals and other major facilities already have emergency power plants which in total are a significant resource. Already some have contracts with the grid to supply supplementary power to the grid within 20 minutes of getting a message.
Peter Garrett was “against” when it suited his previous purposes and “for” when it suited his current purpose. What a perfect politician Peter purports.
Oh, come on, Rebekka. You can’t simply redefine geothermal and bioenergy out of renewables. They are consistently accepted by pretty much everyone as part of the renewables portfolio. It’s as dodgy as reducing unemployment figures by redefining unemployment. Sure, there are environmental concenrns with each of them, but, as I’ve said before at LP, there are environmental concerns with every energy generation technology, and we simply need to find the least impact which is still effective.
Lefty E already half made the other point I’d make, which is that, if you want to be ultimately technical about it, there is no such thing as true steady power. Sure, tides, waves, sun and wind are not 100% steady. But neither is coal or nuclear, I’m afraid to tell you. And water shortages are only half the story.
There are hundreds of outages of boilers at coal stations across Australia every year, both scheduled and unscheduled. The only way coal provides steady baseload is because there is heaps of spinning reserve going all the time in case of major unscheduled outages.
Here’s the thing. Managing a power grid is a bloody hard thing to do. Matching supply to peaks of demand, dealing with hot weather, televised football finals, etc. In fact, supplying baseload is the easy part. Experience in Europe has shown that it is a relatively simple thing to manage a heavily renewable baseload supply, using detailed meteorological predictions against demand predictions, ensuring that you have sufficient reserve (which can be bioenergy or hydro, for instance, rather than coal), etc. In Germany and Denmark, they have 5 minutely predictions of wind speed and sunshine, giving them an extremely clear picture of how much energy they will generate from those sources at any time.
The line that renewables can’t supply baseload is a lie. But from many people it is not a deliberate lie – rather it is a failure to see outside the box. We have used coal and nukes for baseload for so long that it is hard to imagine life without them. We can, and we will.
Peter Garrett was “against� when it suited his previous purposes and “for� when it suited his current purpose.
What was he against what he is now for?
We think Garrett is simply awful from our viewpoint.
His district is just over our shoulder and we see his down at heel single mother slatterns and blacks and Unionists and Greenies, ALL on CenterLink while we work very, very hard for small return.
The Garrett Recession will also add to Climate Change, as there will be less taxes to give to farm families and agribusiness stricken with drought horror.
Only Mark Vaile and Howard/Costello can save us from this.
Tim, you and LeftyE (who I’m convinced keeps deliberately misspelling my name) seem to have taken my technical correction to mean I’m pro-coal and anti-renewables – nothing could be further from the truth.
I understand extremely well that:
And I am all for significant government price signals and the sort of R&D we need to *make* renewables baseload capable. I was just saying that currently – other than hydro, which is currently problematic in this country because of the ongoing drought – they ain’t.
As for this
Sorry, but that’s simply not true. Biofuels are currently significantly less carbon neutral than other forms of renewable energy due to the high use of fossil fuels in the production of biofuels. The combustion of biofuels produce carbon dioxide but always reduces the greenhouse effect in direct proportion to the amount of fossil fuel it saves from being burned. The carbon in biofuels is often taken to have been recently extracted from atmospheric carbon dioxide by plants as they have grown. The potential for biofuels to be considered to be “carbon neutral” depends upon the carbon that is emitted being reused by further plant growth. To be carbon neutral, or nearly so, wood harvest must be at or below the level of sustainable yield. There is significant potential for biofuels to *become* carbon neutral, but they’re not at the moment.
And geothermal just ISN’T renewable. Specific sites cool down after a finite amount of time – the government of Iceland has calculated that their geothermal energy could provide 1700 MW for over 100 years but say “It should be stressed that the geothermal resource is not strictly renewable in the same sense as the hydro resource.”
There’s a lot of it – that’s NOT the same as renewable.
Rebekka, Lefty E’s spelling is shocking. The only thing intentional is that he doesn’t bother to check it. Still he could make a teensy effort over your name.
I think there needs to be a different term which embraces renewables and geothermal. “Renewables” stricly doesn’t make sense for many of the forms of energy we are talking about, when you think about it.
Howsabout ‘non-fossil energy’?
Yeah, how bout a blog spell checker, nerdy puter brains trust out there?
Some of us cant be buggered reviewing our own work, you know.
What about us!!? Spare a thought for the hurried online ranter.
Sorry Rebekka – I really hadnt noticed the k’s till you mentioned it.
Regarding “baseload” – it is an artificial construct of large scale coal fired power generation – the plants can’t be easily shut down, so they are kept “idling” – an the outputs are referred to as “baseload”. Interestingly, the (old) SEC had a program to utilise baseload during “off peak” periods by charging a reduced tariff and encouraging electric hotwater heaters to use the “off peak baseload” overnight. So many of these systems were installed, the electricity demand rose, so they had to increase “baseload” production!
So, the only thing that really matters for micro or macro power grids is matching demand with supply! Yes, it is that simple. No “baseload” is required to justify keeping coal power chugging along. This is one of the great lies being told by Howard, Turnbull, Ziggi and EVEN Garrett. This is “framing the debate” to exclude renewables and FALSELY portray the only “feasible” options as coal, gas and nuclear. Politics is dirty stuff. Very dirty. And disempowering. The average punter is just bamboozled by the claims and couter claims, when they could just put some panels on their roof. Small distributed systems that empower individuals don’t fit well with big business and the big politics that aligns to it though.
In Europe and WA where large scale wind plants have been operating for some time, it has been proven that the wind is always blowing across distirbuted, so steady power supplies have been achieved. This can be supplemented with “good biomass” such as burning waste byproducts, mallee oil tree thinnings (WA), crop residues etc. (Not to be confused with “bad biomass” such as corn ethanol where fossil fuel inputs to produce the ethanal exceed the energy provided by the ethanol). If wind and solar don’t provide enough (while we reduce demand by 30% – not good for big business either!) than gas fired power stations can be used to boost power as a transitional strategy.
Geothermal power from hot rocks is not actually renewable energy, but the Cooper basin (and other sites) show great potential to provide large amounts of emissions free power (again transitional until renewables can meet demand). No mention of this in the “framed debate” either. I wonder why? (trick question).
The problem with Garrett in particular and Labor in general is that they are still playing the small target matching game. Clearly 2020 (and 2010, 2015) reduction targets are essential to meet 2050 targets. They should be leading on this position and clearly differentiating on it. Instead they are playing cute and Howard is turning it into a negative for them. This is Tampa all over again. Ziggi and Howard are even on the record saying we can “get used to” global temperature rises of up to 3 degrees, which would be mean loosing the Great Barrier Reef, all Australia’s snow, sea level rises of at least 1m etc. Wow.
Labor will lose this game if they don’t wake up. Howard has outplayed them at it before, and stands a very good chance of doing so again. “Its Time” to show some leadership and stop the cat and the rat stuff.
Howard is a distortionist, a climate change vandal and is economically incompetent. He is under the thrall of big business, and is doing everything he can to by time and keep Australia burning and exporting as much coal as possible (nuclear is just a red herring & more debate framing). Get on the front foot Labor.
Rebekka, I didn’t mean to imply anything personal about you at all, merely to take on your statement, which I believe is incorrect. There are various forms of renewable / zero emissions energy (and I acknowledge that some ‘renewables’ might not be zero emissions and vice versa) which already provide baseload as steadily as renewables.
To me, that’s the crux of the issue. It is easy to say renewables are intermittent, but forget that coal is, too, quite frankly. Baseload energy is not about the source of the energy at all – it’s about the ability to have reserve up and running fast in large quantities.
Re geothermal, the resource is so tremendous in so many places, that it will last a very very long time, but I acknowledge that technically it shouldn’t be called renewable. Nevertheless, it is generally seen as part of the renewables portfolio. In addition, it is zero emissions.
Re bioenergy, of course there are bioenergy developments that aren’t zero emissions. I for one was part of the campaign a few years ago to stop native forest biomass plants being built in NSW in part for that very reason. On the other hand, there are developments, with sustainable cropping of plantation or waste streams, which are carbon neutral. In addition, with a bit of work on biochar, we could feasibly generate a negative carbon energy source without the risks of geosequestration.
Sure, this is into the future. But in the present there are already technologies that are baseload capable, particularly in combination with other renewable technologies.
Sorry, that first para should have concluded:
“which already provide baseload as steadily as fossil fuels”.
Razor, I’m not the only one saying it. Actually articles in the OZ have been pointing out that the backbone of support for Ratty has consisted of the uneducated and uninformed. That’s why Ratty pays so little attention to education and training and this country is undergoing a major skills shortage crisis. Also, I know lots of little old ladies (who happen to be my relatives) who just love Ratty and it’s maddening to hear them repeat the sort of things Ratty wants them to believe – that global warming doesn’t need radical action, we have to depend on nuclear energy, that AWAs are absolutely necessary, that the economy would all be rooned if we so much as even think about voting Labor.
My attitude may sound disparaging but it exasperates me how a whole lot of people just go through life not using the brains they have and are content to go on mouthing Howard’s slogans to their wits end. On the other hand it would just suck to have an informed, literate and inquisitive public wouldn’t it? Maybe that’s why Ratty has been in for so long.
Rebekka, OK so I’m maybe not as ofay on the technical front as you are. I have heard and read scientific opinion to the effect that renewables can provide baseload power but there seems to be a debate about this and that is interesting. It is interesting that Howard doesn’t acknowledge that there is a debate and puts the answer to the question emphatically outside the realms of possibility.
But OK let’s just posit that you are right – that renewables cannot provide baseload electricity at this point in time. So then are you willing to concede that given the amount of government funding and subsidising that the coal industry has enjoyed over the years (as compared to the diminishing trickle renewables get at the moment) that renewables would be very likely getting to the point where baseload electricity provision is a reality – and in a much shorter time frame than it would take to develop nuclear or clean coal electricity?
The reality is that Howard is not backing developing renewable energies and if I and a lot of other people are right, Australia is going to be missing out big time on employment, technology, industry and trade in international markets. You may note that China is taking a particular interest in developing a renewable energy industry specifically because they do not want to rely on buying coal or even uranium from Australia in the long term and they have also set very ambitious emissions targets. And you can bet your buttons India will be warming to the same idea.
More on the ‘baseload fallacy’ here
(PDF)
(Written by Mark Diesendorf from Climate Action Network Australia)
m
Megan and Chris – amazing!!!! there are old people and those without tertiary degrees who support the Coalition and they obviously don’t have the capacity or knowledge to make reasoned decisions.
What about my family? A range of tertiary degrees, small business owners and public servants who are all solidly Liberal voters because we believe they are the best at running the country. Are we all stupid????
Guido said “The government relied on the perception that the Coalition is a better economic manager to paint Latham as a risk (his personality did not help). The fact that interest rates are not set by governments was irrelevant.”
The Federal Government may not set the interest rate, but their fiscal policy has a direct impact on interest rates – or do you have a Nobel Prize winning new theory on the impact of Government spending on interest rates – i.e. Nil????
Well Razor, anyone who thinks Ratty is leading this country in the right direction either A) has ideological reasons beloved of a lot of well-heeled, well educated liberals (like some of my friends) who believe in this freedom-of-the-individual-which-doesn’t-encompass-everybody philosophical guff they go on about, or B) they sit back and believe that just because Howard has ridden the crest of a ten-year and still counting mineral resources boom that he knows best how to run the sacred Economy and that’s all that matters doesn’t it?
Actually I am sick of this obsession with the sacred Economy. Why must I continually couch arguments for an egalitarian, compassionate, forward thinking and dynamic society in economic terms when this country is becoming such a cultural wasteland with its interminable belief that economic beancounting is all that matters?
But I suppose it’s no use arguing with you lot, your minds are made up. I am on a different wavelength obviously, for lots of reasons that I don’t care to enumerate here. No doubt you have heard of some of them – neglect of education, skills shortages, an overdependence on mineral resources and a profound lack of foresight on the environment come to mind….Oh fuck it, what’s the use?
Please point out where I said that over fifties and those with no post-school qualifications “don’t have the capacity or knowledge to make reasoned decisions”.
RE: the baseload fallacy
I would have thought what’s really required is not ‘always on’ power generation like coal or nuclear, but power generation that can be fired up very quickly when required. Gas and hydro (if there’s any water!) fit this category.
High Voltage Direct Current across the country would help as well. With a landmass as large as Australia the wind is blowing or the sun is shining somewhere in the country almost all of the time.
Sven Teske spoke last week on the renewable energy industry and intiatives in Europe. He is a campaigner for Greenpeace in Europe and an engineer by background.
One interesting idea he mentioned (among many) was putting solar panels directly above tram (and train) lines and shelters. They generate DC and feed directly into the lines with virtually no transmission losses. The can also provide some shelter for tracks and stopping points. They are connected in series to get the right voltage.
This is being done in Europe in Freiburg and some other cities.
This a very simple and obvious idea. What a great pity that the so called “debate” here is all about CCS and nuclear.
Climate change is basically a political problem. At present, there is little political will to address it.