Affected Governments are building energy intensive desalination plants.

So much for imposed demand management.

Co.———————————- IPO——————Jan 2008 –Gain
Australian Renewable Fuels May 2005@$1.00 $0.045 –95.5%
Australian Biodiesel Group Dec 2005@$1.00 $0.021 –97.9%
Sterling Biofuels……………… Sep 2006@$1.00 $0.079 –92.1%
Natural Fuel……………………. Dec 2006@$1.50 $0.11 –92.7%
Australian Ethanol …………………………….$0.45 $0.035 –92.2%

That is if we have unaccountable governments who aren’t tied to the electorate.

Corrected for intent.

Could be worse. Could be all about fractional reserve.

The fractional reserve thread is likewise crawling slowly toward the 3000 comments mark. There are wagers on which will get there first.

Good news. The age of cheap electricity is coming to an end

Well it’s not entirely good news now is it. In fact it’s actually shithouse news in many ways.

John Humphreys of LDP fame calculated that a broad-based carbon tax would lead to something like a 10-20c in fuel prices. An outgoing government would introduce it just before an election, knowing that electricity prices would not rise until later.

Corrected for reality.

Outstanding. Now if only John Humphreys or someone will come in I can actually learn something. The Carbon Tax thread at Catallaxy is months old has two and half thousand comments and we’ve hardly discussed it all.
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At the monment it’s all about Iraq!!!!

Could be worse. Could be all about fractional reserve.

However, in the real world electorates won’t vote for parties that will beggar them.

John Humphreys of LDP fame calculated that a broad-based carbon tax would lead to something like a 10-20c in fuel prices. A smart government would introduce it just before an election, knowing that electricity prices would not rise until later.

As to the difference between “can’t” and “won’t”, they are not so straightforward. Clearly, if we were to go on something akin to a war footing, we could cut our emissions by a great deal very quickly. But I simply don’t see that happening, unfortunately.

That’s how I would see a new brown coal generator being built. But nah, they’ll all be expensive gas ones, until we run out of gas.

Dirty, big Chinese banks have lots of money looking for a profitable home.

Keeping the lights on while doing one’s bit for climate change is not going to be easy. As for nukes, forget it. The Victorian government can’t even dredge Port Phillip Bay without running a nimby Green gauntlet, and that’s after an exhaustive environmental study that found it to be harmless. Anybody who thinks nuclear power stations are going to built anytime in the next generation has got rocks in their head.

It would be a great excuse to start using nuclear power of course, which isn’t a bad thing.