What governments are good at is procrastination and spin rather than action. We need action.

Yeah hence my argument. Your comment re solar panels by yesterday and everything may be true. Given the wide spectrum of different views it’s hard to know what we need by when really. I’ll just say: As soon as possible .
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But unless solar power can compete now we can’t really rely on it to solve the problem. And chuckin’ money at it won’t help necessarilly. It might very well hinder. Why would the solar industry get into the research needed to boost efficiency and make the building of huge fields of solar collection and energy transfer viable if we simply paid them to erect sub-standard stuff now?
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Of course that said markets work because people make money not because they necessarilly make the world a better place. It is an interesting question. We need transideological thinking and that means that supporters of different economic paradigms will have to get used to the idea that doctrine’s no good and facts are.
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I just feel it pertinent to stress the market virtues here. If I was arguing this on Catallaxy I’d probably be asking thorny questions viz will the market do the research we need?
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I do think we need to get the energy market open and keep it there however. Nuclear, as much as I HATE IT, looks like being a middle-term solution. But for obvious reasons renewables are more desirable. For everyone (except that lot that make money digging stuff up outta the ground). When/if renewables become viable, and I think they might soon, it’s important that the mining industries can’t lock the fatal competition out.

There was something on the news recently about Rio Tinto’s much improved price for its iron ore which will result in an added unexpected royalty bonus of something like $200 million for WA next year. I’d spend the $200 million on solar panels - what else to do with all that unused, cleared, fenced, government owned, unobstructed space above our metropolitan railways? We really need to get a move on with things that work, while looking for things that work better.

In essence and as I understand it, their model requires the responsible Minister to set a feed-in tariff for each different type of renewable energy (wind, solar PV, solar thermal, micro-hydro, wave energy, geothermal…) based on a) what is currently required to make it affordable, and b) the Minister’s judgement of its potential to produce economical electricity in the future. So if I propose to build a mouse-powered electricity generator that costs $1.00 per kilowatt-hour to create electricity, and I convince the Minister that future genetically-engineered gerbils will make this economically competitive down the track, there could be a feed-in tariff of $1.10 for gerbil electricity.

Now, of course, I’m being more than slightly facetious here, but the point is that it’s the Minister trying to pick and choose which technologies will succeed. In 2005, this would have resulted in money being thrown hand over fist at hydrogen-based energy systems, and corn ethanol.

Unfortunately, carbon cycle feedbacks, albedo feedbacks, long tails in the way that short feedbacks affect climate sensitivity, melting ice sheets and a few surprises suggest that we will need to make deeper reductions much faster. It seems unlikely to me that our governments will enact policies that will lead to the carbon price being approximately equal to the social cost of carbon in the near future. Until that happens, there is a strong case for support for renewables. Until the carbon price approximates the social cost of carbon, greenhouse gas intensive industries are also recieving a subsidy.

The Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts is presently conducting an inquiry into Christine Milne’s “Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment (Feed-in-Tariff) Bill 2008″ and is seeking submissions from the public by August 15. My understanding of the bill is that it is somewhat different to the feed-in-tariff laws in South Australia or Victoria - anyone is eligible for the feed-in-tariff provided that they are not receiving MRET certificates for it rather than just households. It also covers a variety of different renewable technologies.

Can anyone here say with a straight face they believe the average cost will only be about $50.00 per person per year? (the last figure ive seen mentioned by Rudd)
If so I have some Sydney bridge real estate for you.

Furthermore, not all fossil fuels are equal; efficient combined-cycle natural gas beats the pants off brown coal being burnt to turn old, inefficient steam turbines like at, say, Hazelwood.

Finally, it might be cheaper in many cases to simply use less energy.

What combination of the above turns out to be the right mix at any given point is something I don’t know, and nor does anyone else. That’s why I think the principle of putting a charge on greenhouse emissions and letting the market sort it out seems a reasonable one to me.

We needed the solar panels yesterday, and even more today, when WA is in a power ‘crisis’ because a pipe somewhere blew up. Solar may be primitive, but so are bicycles and we still need to use those as much as reasonably possible.

There may be clever ways of making the market do things but I suspect that if you want something done now, and it isn’t necessarily ‘economic’, like buying renewable power from diverse sources even though some are more expensive than others, government purchasing is the best option. What governments are good at is procrastination and spin rather than action. We need action.

I agree, fair enough.

You’ll have to pardon my ignorance with this question… What sort of subsidies exist at present for the coal industry in Australia (which of course may be different from state to state)? Is it known if any such subsidies will also be phased out along with the MRET scheme?

Also we do need to act immediately and not let time talking about emerging technologies stop us from achieving progress. Where are we compared to Germany and other countries - a long way behind. Let’s copy what has worked for them, now, while encouraging new technologies.

Adrien - we need the government to be the buyer - that way we can get a diverse range of renewables feeding into our system, even if they all cost different prices, we need diversity. But if, say, solar panels are the quickest way we can get something up and running, the government can let industry know that it will be putting out a series of tenders every couple of years, for several hundred million $$ each time, and the cheapest and best will win the contract: that should encourage improved and cheaper technology. It’s definitely time to stop talking and start building renewable power generators, on a large scale.

She also visits Zurich to find out about the 2,000 watt society. This is founded to promote the principle that sustainable global energy consumption, if rationed fairly across all nations, would average out at 2,000 watts per person. The US currently sits at 12,000, India at 1,000 and China at 1,500.

Currently, MRET has a list of what counts as renewable, which seems to capture what at the moment is actually what a reasonable person would count as renewable: eg,
hydro, wind, sewage gas, solar water heaters, geothermal, …

There is some discussion about certain biomass technologies such as whether to allow burning wood waste from native forests as opposed to plantations but I don’t think such quibbles show that there is a big problem with the definition.

Use of fossil fuel (such as coal however clean) or mineral resources such as uranium is of course not renewable and is not counted.

A hard-arsed definition of sustainable would require it to be renewable, but who wants absolutism? The sun itself won’t last forever.

But really, anything that needs the input of stuff dug up from the ground cannot be described as renewable. Arguably it could be sustainable “for a long time” if there’s enough in the ground of course.

Then we can have a look at the adequacy of that target and the means planned to meet it.

The 2020-2030 phase out of MRET seems reasonable. Do we know whether renewable actually means renewable, or will this be a “clean energy target” which includes clean coal, nuclear etc?