Whether the Copenhagen Accord is half full or half empty is still being debated. Joe Romm takes says the glass is actually 2/3rds full. But as to why the glass isn’t completely full, George Monbiot makes the provocative claim that in part, we are responsible:
So what happens now? That depends on the other non-player at Copenhagen: you. For the past few years good, liberal, compassionate people – the kind who read the Guardian – have shaken their heads and tutted and wondered why someone doesn’t do something. Yet the number taking action has been pathetic. Demonstrations which should have brought millions on to the streets have struggled to mobilise a few thousand. As a result the political cost of the failure at Copenhagen is zero. Where are you.
Is this music not to your taste, sir, or madam? Perhaps you would like our little orchestra to play something louder, to drown out that horrible grinding noise.
The idea that the failure of British (or Australian) progressives to protest contributed at all to Copenhagen’s lack of success seems a pretty dubious one. As Monbiot himself recognized earlier in the piece, one of the two greatest obstacles to getting a global climate deal is the need to get the John Thunes of this world (or, at an absolute minimum, Blue Dog Democrats like Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln) to approve it. The second big obstacle to a deal is whoever is actually in charge of deciding Chinese climate policy.
But it does prompt an interesting question: what can those who want action taken on the climate do to influence those two bodies?
Who’s we, paleface?
Razor, in this case “we” is clearly those who want global action taken on greenhouse emissions through some kind of comprehensive binding global deal.
If you don’t share that goal, fine, but please do not derail this thread.
Robert, I believe that sufficient democratic pressure can influence the US senate just as, say, coal interests can do so.
If millions were on the street – then politicians would happily follow, allowing their doubts to be decided for them. However I don’t think there are yet these millions who believe the science enough to march.
Any deal had to be acceptable to the US Senate.
Therein lies the problem. How about the US and China deal bilaterally, and then everyone else can just join in?
I still believe the best way to influence China from outside is to cut emissions first – it is the right thing to do anyway – and it serves the purpose of proving our bona fides.
China doesn’t trust us to follow through on our rhetoric. Not when we tell them that half the US senate is anti-AGW – as is the Australian opposition. China suspects that the US is an election away from doing an about turn on AGW.
The impressive demonstrations for reconciliation (whatever that is) did not make John Howard do something he was personally opposed to.
I guess such demonstrations could put some starch into the resolve of pollies who are for the cause of the demonstrators? We would have to make the assumption that this was the case with Kevin Rudd.
As you suggested in your intro, effectively, at least if we are discussing things we can do that will bring about change on the timelines necessary, the answer is probably zero. We who take this issue seriously aren’t anywhere near the processes of government even in Australia, leave aside the US and China and India.
The keystone is almost certainly the US but since the 1945 the country’s public policy context has been swirling around the bottom of a very large toilet pan, informed by the cold war/Vietnam, post-Vietnam domestic and foreign policy revanchism and mora reamament and the associated debauching of public service in general and education at all levels in particular. I read somewhere that south of the Mason-Dixon line, nearly half the science teachers reject evolution and favour some variant of “Young Earth”. Whole swathes of the country are in thrall to one kind of superstition or another and put an equals sign between having a gun and being safe. And every one of those backwoods states send in the same number of senators as those from states where most people have made finished high school.
It’s easy to look at the Obamas and forget what a mess the country is in politially and culturally and one suspects that in that mess, the best organised and best resourced people — basically the rich polluters, will be able to stymie any measure that does anything significant even in a US context to cut emissions. It may take a generation to undo what Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush authored. And we don’t have that kind of time.
Really, the ball is in the court of the elites. They have to be more frightened of Climate Change than they are — a lot more frightened.
If the world were to break up into rival trade blocs, there would be a chance that eventually that would staunch growth enough to buy us some time and what with adjustment payments the most recalitrant states might buy in. Maybe Obama could simply proceeed by regulation and encourage industry to see a more general program as the lesser evil.
It’s tough though. The game is rigged against reason and in favour of free riders.
The key statement made by Monbiot:
“Demonstrations which should have brought millions on to the streets have struggled to mobilise a few thousand. As a result the political cost of the failure at Copenhagen is zero. Where are you.”
By which he means that popular mobilisation around this issue has been pathetic. I agree. If you didn’t walk against warming two weeks ago then you are part of the problem without doubt. The arrestees of Rising Tide (Newcastle, the world’s largest export coal port) over the weekend have my deepest respect for delaying coal export processes even for a few hours by chaining themselves to coal trains and tracks.
The immense vested class interests mean that expecting social democrats to negotiate a result without mobilising extra-parliamentary forces will be a failure now and in the future.
I believe that sufficient democratic pressure can influence the US senate just as, say, coal interests can do so.
Be careful what you wish for. I relied on democratic action to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. The result was I changed US foreign policy by declaring we would wage preemptive war on anybody who got in the way of our god damn right to increase our fossil fuel consumption, and to hell with the rest of you.
Another take:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/12/22/after-copenhagen/
No I didn’t walk, but I guess I better walk next time.
Attendees at the Melbourne Rally said the fashion for hours of speeches before the rally moves off down Swanston St has become ridiculous. The speakers are preaching to the converted, the climate change deniers aren’t listening. Evidently these days there is 2 hours of speechifying before the waddle past the cameras.
invest in education.
People won’t march in the street until they feel that the pain to themselves of their elected and non-elected governments NOT doing anything serious about climate change is greater than the pain they will feel from the inevitable policy adjustment and forced change to their own behaviour.
On that score, it’s a bit like the boiling frog story isn’t it? We all know the climate is changing, but for most people it is about how this impacts on them. If they don’t see a personal connection, they don’t feel sufficiently motivated to demand change. But by the time they ARE motivated, it will probably be too late.
In the meantime, it’s tragic how the whole issue has got tied up firstly with the tedious and never-ending culture wars and, secondly, the superpower political postioning between a fading US and a rising China.
In regard to the former, it’s depressing how all the reactionaries are walking around this week with smug looks on their faces, saying “I told you so” about Copenhagen. As if THAT will save them. We’re all in this together after all.
In regard to the latter, what sort of environmental leadership can we expect from the US or China? The United States is a country rapidly retreating into medievalism, nominally democratic but run according to the dictates of big business lobbyists, gun nuts and religious fundamentalists. China, meanwhile, is a dangerous totalitarian state run by thugs and goons whose continued hold on power depends on running the economy at a rate which is making its air unbreathable, its water undrinkable and its soil barren.
I guess here in Australia we could start by boycotting buying Chinese-made goods (which is about 90 per cent of manufactures these days) and resisting the Americanisation of our politics by the extreme right. Ultimately, we might be better to start working on a spaceship – because this planet is f***ked.
@wbb; “However I don’t think there are yet these millions who believe the science enough to march.”
I suggest it goes deeper than just not believing the science. I was accused of being a “climate denier” the other night by friends just because I dared mention that there were two schools of thought about global warming. This couple then went into a long diatribe about the need for action, how as a father I should be concerned for my children and they recounted their recent attendance at a global warming rally.
A crueler person, or one seeking an argument, may have pointed out his propensity to drive his V8 to Maccas regularly or their combined love of having their air conditioner running almost constantly. Needless to say, I didn’t mention the pool heated to near spa temperatures or the lights often left on overnight.
This is what scares me the most about all this. Even some the most ardent proponents for global warming seem to be having a hard time adjusting their comfortable lifestyle.
And while we’re on the subject; just what is a “climate denier”?
I’ve certainly not been to every march on offer, nor have I written to a politician every time I’ve been outraged by something, but I’ve “done my bit”, and I’m struggling to think of a single damned issue where public displays of anything have made a whit of difference.
iraq war. nope
climate change. nope
gay marriage. nope
reconciliation. nope
Forget it guys, the days of the Vietnam moratorium (reportedly) are way past.
We live in a democracy, it’s true, and the simple truth is that the concerns and fears of marginal seat dwellers revolve around small matters of economic security, jobs, health and education, not around big, worldly, long-term issues. Most people are entirely disengaged from the big issues of the day, and if they are engaged, aren’t going to change their mind on it anyway. So why would the politicians care? Much easier to listen to the blandishments of the professional lobbyists, who can at least deliver them tangible things, like $$ to spend on their campaigns.
Rhomboid@14
Well apart from the imprecision of the epithet, the ‘two schools of thought’ about anthropogenic climate forcing really is peculiar to those seeking to deny the mainstream science. Amongst scientists working in the field and publishing in peer-reviewed scientific journals, there is only one school of thought about the basic science.
It may well be that you are new to this issue, and aren’t aware of the context in which the ‘two schools of thought’ (more often the more vaucuous the science is not settled) is raised. If so, you are entitled to be a little miffed at being assailed, though your assialants are entitled to be a little miffed at your apparent willingness to declare in the absence of knowledge of that context. They may have decided to avoid the inevitable gish gallop around the ‘hockey stick’ and the MWP and the wine grapes on Hadrian’s wall and cut to where they thought you were headed.
Again, this tells me that you weren’t that unfairly done by, because this is the other great trope trotted out by those who oppose action. The business of dealing with mitigation will involve ensuring that costs of emitting behaviour are internalised rather than externalised, with options for near zero emissions available. This is something that governments must oversee. That individuals play the cards they are dealt by government is unsurprising — indeed, the reactionaries (when they are not opposing a “great big new tax”) count on incentives as drivers of behaviour. It seems a bit rich for them to complain that people are behaving irrationally or worse, as hypocrites. This is all part of the denier argy bargy however. Al Gore is rich and fat and not a vegetarian. People used jets to go to Copenhagen. People aren’t wearing sackcloth and ashes. Anthopgenic climate change must be a fraud …
There are not two schools of thought on this. There are two sets of cultural preference. One group is bothered by the world our choices are authoring. The other group is indifferent and wants to free ride on the backs of the first group.
Simple enough.
wilful: the young need leadership. Now’s the time.
This is the example that really annoys me.
I would like my conference travel to not contribute so much to climate change. And, while air travel is one of the hardest ones to do something about, I maintain that there are perfectly foreseeable ways that air travel can be done in an environmentally sustainable manner. But Airbus and Boeing aren’t going to invest in those alternatives just because 10% of the population would like green travel. It requires either direct regulatory mandates, or a sufficiently high carbon price.
romboid, what Fran said so well. A “climate denier” is a person who, in the face of the overwhelming evidence in support of the theory of anthropogenic climate change, denies that this is the scientifically sound approach and instead favours comprehensively refuted pet theories that have no scientific basis.
There’s quite a strong analogy to those who deny the existence of an extermination program by the Nazi regime of Germany from 1933 to 1945 that was responsible for the deaths of about 5.2M jews.
Sorry this does not relate strictly to this piece but I thought some of you might be interested.There have been many posts here and abroad lamenting the MSM coverage of the Copenhagen conference and this follows that theme.
I’m sure many of you, including South Ozzies, would quite understandably not know that S.A. premier Mike Rann was part of PM Rudds entourage. The only premier to go along he was there to CHAIR a parralel meeting of several hundred state and regional governments which included such luminaries as Arnie from California. The meeting was based on the premise that (as MR said) 80% of the decisions made relating to climate change are made at the state and regional level. I’m presuming that this prestigious invitation was made in recognition/respect of the efforts of his government (and SA generally) particularly in the areas of sustainable energy use and water recycling. In the week that MRann chaired this meeting Murdochs Adelaide Advertiser did not provide ONE SENTENCE of news or analysis of his time there (believe me I checked thoroughly!!). This was despite the fact that they had their federal politics corespondant Mark Kenny over there to give us his daily dose of negativity. Then to make this farce complete after not providing any coverage whatsoever the week before on Monday this week the first letter, prominently titled and placed, began…
“So, our prancing Premier went to the Copenhagen summit of over 190 nations to “co-chair” a sub-group. It is fervently hoped that he did not purport to lead by example. That would be gross hypocrisy.” etc….I think you get the tone.
For someone who is consistently referred to (smeared) as MediaMike he seems to have a lot of trouble making it into the media at times.
wilful; “There’s quite a strong analogy to those who deny the existence of an extermination program by the Nazi regime of Germany from 1933 to 1945 that was responsible for the deaths of about 5.2M jews.”
I certainly hope you’re not accusing me of being a holocaust denier based on the fact that I had a discussion with friends about global warming…
“But Airbus and Boeing aren’t going to invest in those alternatives just because 10% of the population would like green travel.”
Be interesting to see though what Brazil’s aerospace industry, the world’s third largest manufacturer of passenger aircraft, could come up with here – especially if it forms a strategic alliance with Australia’s expertise in composite materials and MEMS.
Personally I’m looking forward to the second golden age of airships – in a globally-enabled wifi world.
If yer cruising along in this while soaking up champers and horses duvets during a webcam conference, then why the need to arrive anywhere in under 18 hours?
That is until changing ocean currents stimulate the breeding patterns of colossal squid.
What practicle steps can we take? I was at the recent Walk Against Warming in Adelaide and as far as I could see Penny Wong or her entouage were not rushing around doing a head count and jotting down our slogans. But what else can we do between election days? Civil disobediance? Boycots? Who are we going to boycott, since most countries have respoded badly? I suppose we could pick on the worst Canada, Saudi Arabia, the USA, etc but you can’t boycott everyone.
I’m starting to believe that us latte sipping Westerners can only do so much. Perhaps mass mobilization for climate action will instead come from the third world. Many African and South American leaders including Evo Morales talked with the level of urgency needed. Perhaps if a critical mass of developing coutties (say the entire increasingly misnamed G77) get fed up with the intransigence of the developed world then carbon tarrifs could be placed on the worst emitters. Unfortunatly high emitters produce many much needed goods, so perhaps the EU and Japan could be given special treatment.
Of course, millions on the street are very effective, after all if not for the millions of protesters we in the West might have waged wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq, and now be involved in protracted guerilla wars. We might also have locked up refugees and treated them as criminals even after a change of government.
Ahem.
As Naomi Wolf has pointed out recently, the only effective protest is one that quite literally stops traffic. It has to shut down cities for days or weeks. Our efforts have fallen rather short of that.
It goes something like this.
On Tuesday, I use 3lt of petrol and 5kWh of coal-generated electricity.
On Tuesday night, we ask for change.
On Wednesday, we use 3lt of petrol and 5kWh of coal-generated electricity.
The politicians listen to us, but actions speak louder than words. As we wastefully consume, they listen to that.
So yes, Monbiot is right, but not quite in the way he thinks.
Er, Naomi Klein, not Naomi Wolf. I get my feminist lefties mixed up sometimes
@Fran Barlow: “because this is the other great trope trotted out by those who oppose action.”
So Fran because I offend you with my naive “two schools of thought” and dare to raise the hypocrisy of those who attend a global warming rally but then do absolutely nothing about reducing their personal impact, you automatically and incorrectly assume I oppose action.
I would dare say that I am doing alot more than my friends to minimise my particular carbon footprint. I see that as a lot more beneficial than attending a rally that only serves to make the attendees feel better.
Fat Freddy, what can you expect from that paragon of objectivity, Mark Kenny? And the Murdoch Press in general? You’d think that would be something to feel proud of, wouldn’t you, but no doubt they’ll try to turn it into a show pony exercise.
There are disturbing parallels, Rhomboid @ 21. (I spelt it correctly for you, you may have noticed.)
Herr Molotov, I flirted with non-violent civil disobedience 40 years ago. It didn’t work then, so I don’t expect it to now. I’ll take Edgar Broughton’s advice, 40 years too late.
Too many years, too many drugs …
Mark Kenny has always been an oxygen thief, btw. If he was on fire, I wouldn’t piss on him to put him out.
“I spelt it correctly for you, you may have noticed”
What makes you think I spelt a screen name incorrectly David? Why do you assume to know what it means?
I’m a mathematician. For me, it’s always rhomboid.
There are no assumptions, only axioms.
“There are no assumptions, only axioms”.
Oh dear god….
Are you thick Rhomboid, or am I? (Trick question – I know the answer.)
Rhomboid@26 said
One would need a reading difficulty to make that inference. Go back and re-read.
Fran
“Are you thick Rhomboid, or am I? (Trick question – I know the answer.)”
Well, I thought there may be some intelligent debate here, but apparently not. Even mathematicians resort to slagging.
Please keep it civil, folks, and stick to the issues. There’s been a bit too much sledging around here lately.
Thank you Mark.
@Fran Barlow; “Again, this tells me that you weren’t that unfairly done by, because this is the other great trope trotted out by those who oppose action”
Sorry, but how else can this be interpreted?
Romboid, it means it was your friends who assumed you oppose action; not Fran, whose post was an explanation of why your friends might have jumped to that conclusion.
You made it clear you’re worried about inaction.
Mr Denmore hit the nail on the head @ 13:
Precisely. The problem is too slow moving for the human brain to deal with. We evolved to deal with crises that develop over days or weeks, not centuries.
My God, Big W would be empty!
Robert @ 18:
It annoys you because you are in denial.
Please do tell, I am not aware of any, especially when air travel is growing at 5% p.a. globally. We’d need a 50% reduction in emissions per passenger by 2025 just to stand still.
As for Monbiot wishing for more protests from lefties, does anyone seriously believe this would have the slightest impact on mainstream politicians? All protests are dismissed as the great unwashed these days.
Romboid, you simply asked “what is a climate denier?”
I simply responded with my interpretation of the term. I cast no aspersions.
Although not a popular view, and one I may get howled down for, I am with Clive Hamilton in seeing it in a utilitarian fashion, that those who deny the science of cliamte change and actively work against solutions are (more) culpable (than us less-willing dupes) of murder of far more than 5 million people, not counting the injuries to nature.
Here is an example of a protest demonstration in Melbourne that was effective.
Wilful
Here’s what you are going to achieve by calling someone not convinced of climate science a denier.
The people who were never going to agree with you, with not agree with you, but with more fervour.
The people in the middle, who read one thing and move one way, then read another thing and move another way, but in small increments, regardless of whether we believe moving to a less carbon intensive way of living is something we should pursue, will resent you, and because the other side ain’t calling us something quite so offensive as a “denier”, with all it’s loaded meaning, we’ll move to where it is more comfortable.
Regardless of your logic for calling skeptics “deniers”, it’s not an efficacious strategy.
And that is leaving alone issues regarding events versus theories, past versus future, guilt versus culpability, and evil versus indifference.
I recommend you leave the slurs alone.
Howard, I don’t really care. I’m not (and have never claimed to be) Mr Influential. I am in despair over the looming climate crisis, and really quite angry a particular bunch of denialists. They deserve to be shot (no really, they do (sorry I know that plays into their hands, I’m clearly an eco-fascist or whatever their current despot of choice is)).
Anyone who’s still in the middle on this matter, but is following it closely enough anyway, is pretty thick if you ask me. It’s very hard to legitimately remain in the middle on this issue, the science has been settled for a long time now. Who really is ‘in the middle’, and what extraordinary level of evidence is required to shift them?
Just for the record, I didn’t call Romboid a denier, he asked a question, I tried to answer it. And I only use the term in online debate where everyone is already pretty fixed in their views.
I suggested you don’t use the term on anyone, but you’re comment about some people being shot clearly demonstrates you are beyond any level of reason. From now on, I’ll leave my postings on issues raised by those people who are more reasoned.
I used the wrong your/you’re. No “teh” references please.
HC@42 said of labelling people deniers:
For the record, I choose much more robust descriptors for those who oppose the mainstream science with free-rider- or culture-driven agnotology. I regard this as salutory, because it redefines the agnotologist position away from one about science and reason in favour of the true drivers of the claim.
Your main problem though is, as wilful notes, your assertion that there are indeed people in the middle. There aren’t, any more than there are people in the middle on the question of capital punishment or bull-fighting. Certainly, there would be many people who would admit that they lack the insight to make an independent judgement on the matter, but they aren’t in the middle. They are merely uncommitted and underinformed. If they are wise they will do one of two things: they will make it their business to become (in their own minds at least) sufficiently informed or do what most people encounters matters outside our expertise — accept the judgement of people who ought to have it — in this case, climate scientists.
I’m not arguing they are not underinformed. I almost certainly don’t know enough. Although, when I read some of the posting on here, I start to feel victimised for not knowing enough, regardless of why I don’t know enough.
People have more pressing things to deal with. If the worst predictions of climate scientists are prescient, then the thing that will make it happen is the fact that the affects will only be fully felt long after the emissions are made. It’s not immediate. So the washing and the cooking and the dishes and the mortgage and the schoolwork and visiting the grandparents and tonight’s Mentalist will all get in the way.
That’s the challenge for climate scientists: present the evidence in such a way where it is firstly bulletproof (certainly not as easy to criticise as Al Gore’s work), not hypocritical in any way (it’s the 21st Century, we have a thing called teleconferencing), easy to understand, presented in a way that people will consume, and convinces people the time to act is now, not in ten years time or ten years ago.
Until then, you will have a non-skeptic, non-believer middle. Whatever you think of them.
Is it entirely unreasoned to suggest that people be shot? Many would disagree with you, there are easily constructed hypothetical cases where shooting is expeditious and perfectly reasoned.
Of course I’m tongue in cheek, I don’t believe in capital punishment/murder by the state. But some denialists are wilfully propogating damned lies that they must, if they are not insane, know to be false. Society has a right to be informed, and be informed truthfully and by evidence where possible. People in positions of influence in the media shouldn’t be allowed to just make stuff up, it’s beyond irresponsible.
HC said:
They either have or you seek an impossible standard. No body of science is beyond the capacity of the mendacious to taint.
You might like to take a look at the work of Greg Craven if you want something accessible. Spencer Weart isn’t bad either. For the record, the claims about AIT’s flaws are greatly overstated. It’s a popular entry-level doco on the subject. It’s pretty good, but it’s not where you go if you want to examine the basic science with a fine-toothed comb.
Here I’m inclined to agree, but again, this is not really a concern for the agnotologists and fossil-fuel bagmen. It’s just a cheap shot.
It’s actually quite difficult to impress upion people the lead times involved in taking effective action without sounding at least somewhat hysterical or possibly convincing them that it’s all going to be too little too late. That’s a tough gig.
Fran
Ok, maybe I was describing the bar with a little more difficulty than is needed, but I was thinking by writing what it would take to convince enough people that action is needed now.
Clearly that hasn’t happened yet, because if it had, sufficient action would have taken place. Obviously a simple, yet comfortable, HoR majority is not sufficient, as the CPRS did not get through. I feel this will probably change after the next election, which will be a Rudd landslide.
I’ll look up the stuff you suggested.
I know it’s a tough gig. But it’s probably what is required. Humanity eradicated small pox, developed that special wheat that fed more people, and landed on the moon. Can’t be more difficult than that. But maybe the best action is if everyone actually did everything they possible could to stop their carbon addiction, and talking on the phone instead of flying on a plane would be a good start, although devasting to the tourism industry.
One thing that bugs me in the plane is the people who cough and sneeze without restraint. Most times they do that without consideration for the people sitting next to them and pass on their germs to us. I’ve wished for some form of protection from the microbes they are spewing out. I could wear a face mask but it is so uncomfortable and moreover it scares away everyone. So I came up with a product idea and patented it. I want to know how many others like me will find this product useful and so created a survey. Just fill it up and give me your valuable feedback. Thanks!
HC@50
A technical challenge, followed by an implementation challenge, but a much less complex problem than AGW.
As above
Only one government involved marshalling all the resources in a focused program that was sold as competing with them commie bastards to see which system was better.
Piece of cake.
What would be good is if the state enabled the populace to do this easily in a way that simply became entrenched in the culture. It may give a warm inner glow to trun off your appliances when you go to bed, but the reality is that you are unlikely to be abating very much, given that the plants supplying the load probably won’t be load following and so will probably not adjust their output, unless tens of thousands do likewise, and even then, the savings will be modest because thermal efficiency will fall. That’s why you get off-peak prices.
What you need is either low round trip energy storage at scale or load following plants. Then, individual choice can make a difference.
Or the VPN equivalent …
Schumpeter, creative destruction and all that.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
/implied facepalm
On the one hand apparently there is concern because people are not coming out into the streets.
On the other hand there is plenty people could do without the slightest action from government.
Romboid made some examples of people who claim to believe in AGW, and who had it in their power to do something about their own emissions. Well, if they believe, why aren’t they doing something? Do they need the government to tell them to stop heating the pool to spa temperatures, or to stop using the bleeding V8 to go shopping at Maccas? Most people CAN do something more than they are at present.
Have no kids – the planet has six bill of us already.
Do without the car – plummeting land values in poorly served public transport areas will soon get PT.
Work in a company that has green credentials – there are plenty out there, and there is a shortage of plenty of skills that would give such a deserving company or industry an advantage.
Have a small dwelling – much less to maintain and much less need of aircon or the like in summer or deep winter.
Eschew those restaurants that have those outdoor heaters LOL.
NO pets.
We can do all of the above without waiting for government to tell us what to do…and we can do it now. Most of the third world does too. (except for choice in what work they can get).
OH, and I do each and every one of them, so I practise what I preach.
Finally, I welcome criticism and advice on how I can do better – but only from those who also are serious.
People who claim to believe in the need for a low carbon future but do not do at least the stuff above frankly are worse than deniers and sceptics – at least you know where you are with those.
For the record, my “can’t be more difficult than that” was referring to creating the critical mass for global action for climate change, rather than actually solving the problem of climate change.
Don’t want to be misunderstood.
Here’s a thought.
The top 20 emitters by jurisdiction (counting the EU as one) account for about 90% of emissions — better even than a Pareto distribution.
If 192 countries can’t agree on anything, maybe the top 20 can. In fact, if you draw the line at the top 11 only one advanced country is out — Ukraine.
If the wealthiest part of this group decided to form a bloc with the poorest part to trade emissions and invite countries outside the bloc into the trade, offering aid as needed, maybe the whole ‘herding cats’ thing could be dissipated.
And when you can’t get #1 and #2 on that list to agree, where do you go?
I’ve been playing with charts and numbers. I found one that listed emitters and their emissions from the year 1990 to 2007 (excluding land use).
I put it into a spreadsheet and wrote a forula to work out how many countries you’d need in an agreement covering 90% of emissions from schedule 1 countries in this period.
Here’s the list:
United States
European Community
Russian Federation
Japan
Germany
United Kingdom
Canada
France
Italy
Ukraine
Australia
Poland
Spain
Total of emissions = 90.3%
Add China, India and Brazil to this list and you probably have a working group that is small enough to get an agreement and composed of countries with enough wealth to make sure that the poorest in the group stay in the program.
… and any agreement must be acceptable to the US Senate.
I tend to use the term “anti-AGW crowd/people/mob etc” for an inclusive and non-offensive term, but I do use sceptic, denialist, delusionist etc at times if it seems appropriate to that particular group.
On street demonstrations, numbers count. There were some beauties around the turn of the century, starting with the WTO ministerial in Seattle in 1999, followed by anti-globalisation marches in Prague and Genoa, where police stimulated violence and one person was killed. The WTO was held in Doha in 2001 to make the assembling of large crowds impossible and Cancun in 2003 was on an isthmus for the same reason.
The last really big one, I think, was at the European Social Forum in Florence late in 2002. The crowd was impossible to estimate, with half a million typical. One report I read said that people were still leaving the assembly point 8 hours after the lead bunch set off. It was the forerunner to the 15 Feb 2003 peace marches which were impressive world-wide but would have needed to be at least three times larger in the US to impress Dubya’s brain.
Since then crowds have tapered off considerably.
On countries to blame, India told their domestic audience they worked in concert with China, Brazil and South Africa to make sure there were no quantitative targets. This story says Obama was invited to meet the Chinese and found the other conspirators in the room.
The Europeans were totally pissed off because it’s the first time when the deals are done that they were left out. Using a G20 or major polluters grouping leaves the poor out in the cold, as there is no way that India and China represent them.
Fran, you’re quite right.
Essentially, if you did a deal at the G20 it’d cover the vast majority of the world’s emissions.
Quite so. But it’s still inappropriate for the poor and amongst the most vulnerable not to be at the table.
Just looking at Fran @ 58’s list, Africa is not represented and I wouldn’t regard the addition of say South Africa as sufficient. Then you have the island states in dire danger.
The WTO overcomes this problem by its ‘green room’ and ‘mini-ministerial’ meeting selections where you end up with 25-30 in the room, representing major players and all organised groups. There are complaints about this, mostly the mysterious and unidentified method of selection, but it’s possibly a serviceable compromise with some improvements in procedure.
Fran @58: Would be interested in the link to your data since I have been doing similar fiddles with data for emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Important point to note is that the relativities have changed dramatically since 1990. By 2007 China had become the no.1 emitter with 21% of the total and India at 4th with 4.7%. Australia was 12th with 31% of the total coming from countries that emitted less than Australia. To cover over 90% of the emissions you would need to go down to Nigeria at 37 which emitted only 0.35% of the world total.
The problem with the figures is that they count emissions in the country where the emissions actually occur rather than the end use consumer. Countries like China look bad because there has been transfer of emission intense manufacturing from the developed countries to countries like China since 1990. As a result, China’s emissions grew at an average of 10.5%/yr between 2003 and 2007. By contrast, the world figure was 3.5%/yr and Europe only 0.2%.
What stands out is that not much progress is going to be made unless the US and china can reach some agreement and high per capita emitters like Australia and the US show some leadership instead of bleating about other countries whose per capita emissions are a fraction of ours. India already has per capita emissions below the world average required to meet the 50% reduction of 1990 emissions. (Based on 2007 populations.)
Brian
I regard the key objective as being the formation of a negotiating group that has a credible chance of reaching a minimally adequate deal. Top do that the group must
a) have sufficioent coherence and interest in reaching a consensus on mitigation
b) be strong enough actually and in perception to resolve collective action problems to the advantage of the consenting group
c) have the resources to draw in others once the consensus rules
The above group I named satisfies these conditions, IMO
Fran @ 58,
The problem with your list, Fran, is that it represents just 15% of the world’s population with (http://www.lisproject.org/lws/introduction/finalconf/06.1p%20Davies-Sandstrom-Shorrocks-Wolff.ppt) 90% of the worlds wealth. Where as that sounds like affordability, it is always translated as degree of risk of positional loss.
We have to start somewhere, BilB. After all, a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.
Fran 56,
And, list aside, what ever could be achieved by “trading emissions”? There is nothing to trade! The idea of continuing to emit if some other country becomes a carbon sink is a bankrupt concept. The reality is that globally carbon absorption is in decline for both land and ocean. With population certain to continue increasing for some decades, a change in the planetary carbon absorption is unlikely to improve even with the most determined efforts. If this is true, then please explain what is available to trade.
There is only one path forward, and that is to dramatically reduce emissions. The 15% of countries need to get there mind into ACTUAL emissions reductions and abandon this farcical seach for APPARENT emissions reductions.
ETS is a devalued concept. It was a good idea 20 years ago when the population was several billion lower, when if the world had taken up the global warming challenge it may have actually worked. In today’s world of 7 billion people and rising the possibility of an effective ETS has gone. Environmental dynamics and human dynamics combined will not allow an emissions juggling act to succeed.
The “West” has to eliminate its use of coal, full stop. This is the primary challenge. If the west can meet this challenge then the greater part of the other 50% of emissions are likely to dissipate with the technology overflow.
Solar energy is the only energy source with sufficient scope to solve the global emissions problem. As the population increases and the problem becomes more severe with each year of delays the more powerful the solution has to be. Future energy systems have to replace both coal and oil. Nuclear energy solutions do not have the power to solve global energy needs in scope, scale or time. Even worse for as long as governments procrastinate hoping for a simple non solar packaged answer the opportunity window for avoiding dangerous climate change is closing. CSP is the only available ready to go energy solution with the rollout rate capability to avert dangerous climate change.
BilB asked
adherence to targets; lowest adherence cost; possible lower than anticipated results; hedges against losses through early adoption of emissions-reduction technology — ergo greater willingness to adopt and do BPR
CO2 doesn’t respect frontiers, so it is foundational.
If that were true it would strengthen the pertinence of an ETS
Hmmm … what was the world population in 1989?
Agreed, but what is the most efficient mechanism for urging this result? Regulation will not work, except at unacceptable cost to the domiant stakeholders. A properly audited ETS wedges the stakeholders and does an end run around governments. That’s why the enemies of mitigation suggest that “direct action” and if not that, then pigouvian taxation, is preferable. They know it will be easier to subvert that.
We’ve spoken of CSP and that is never going to work on a world scale, and is unlikely to be implemented even here on the scale neded to replace coal.
That said, if there is scope for CSP to be cost-competitive, then it is via a suitably robust ETS …
Fran: I find it obscene that countries like Australia and the US are reluctant to act unless India commits first. My 2007 figures have India contributing only 4.7% of world emissions. (All the figures quoted here are based on the burning of fossil fuels.) More to the point, it has per capita emissions that are only 28% of the world average (less than 6% of the Aus figure.)
We are not going to make much progress unless enough significant emitters with high per capita emissions actually start driving down their emissions and stop demanding that countries like India and China should accept lower standards of living than we have for the next 40 yrs.
In 2007 there were 20 countries that each contributed more than 0.5% to total emissions AND had per capita emissions more than 1.5 times the world average. These countries contributed 53% of total world emissions. (58% if all countries with a per capita above 1.5 times world average were included.) Almost all of the 20 made at least some commitment at Copenhagen so there would be between 15 and 20 of the 20 who would be a logical members of a working group that works together to bring down emissions from the high per capita emissions.
I have my doubts about an E20 that includes countries with much lower per capita emissions. The discussions would get bogged down on the who should act/compensation type issues instead of the serious business of demonstrating that the developed world really is serious about saving the planet.
John D said:
I prefer terms like irrational and reckless.
In principle, I agree, but in practice, unless the world can be kept to the better side of 2 tons per capita CO2 all the sloganeering will be moot. You bundle that which should be unpacked. The cost of staying the right side of 2 tonnes per capita should not be borne mainly by the developing world, but by the high emitters. That’s where an ETS can help.
In the end, the people of the first world will probably baulk at letting off China and India, despite the bona fide objections that people like you and me have raised and pretend the objection is one of exigency. Tied aid on the other hand is difficult to object to without sounding as if we are simply being greedy.
Fran,
There is a great gaping whole in the ETS understanding. The idea of placing a price on carbon was originally intended to skew demand away from carbon based energy towards “alternatives” with trading being a balancing device (originally conceived when it was believed that natural carbonsinks could balance emissions, the problem has moved on). This touchey feely approach would be optimistic in a steady state world let alone the callamitous vortex of escalting negative influences that our world is accelerating towards (the accumulating negatives population, increasing global living standards, declining fossil fuels, choking environment, receding glaciers, melting ice caps, accelerating natural methane releases, acidifying oceans, drying farmland, human induced land degradation, etc,etc). The necessary delivery rate of “alternative” energy resources required for the world to eliminate fossil fuel based electricity infrastructure is beyond the ability self stimulated market resources (ie forty years to replace every thing times 2 [electricity needs to power transportation]).
“CO2 doesn’t respect frontiers, so it is foundational”
This is rhetoric, not science. The worlds natural ability to absorb CO2 is oversubscribed many fold (one study put this at 40,000 to 1), to emit CO2 in one place believing that compensation is achieved in some other place is bodgey accounting.
“If that were true it would strengthen the pertinence of an ETS”
An ETS is fiddling around the edges, for the above reasons.
“what was the world population in 1989″
http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/sixbillion/sixbilpart1.pdf
see page 5
The CPRS is horrendously inefficient. Considering the size of the challenge and the time frame, direct action, as I have demonstrated, is all of simple, cost effective, minimally disruptive for Australia. The bulk of Australia’s electricity infrastructure must and will be replaced, and CSP is the only deliverable solution available today. I have demonstrated without challenge that a simple levy on electricity paid by the users of that electricity (the ultimate user pays instrument) is sufficient to bring this about without distorting the economy.
Global CSP is definitely achievable for the “90%”, but obviously the total solution is a mix of solutions.
I think that it is worth spelling out again how simple the fix is for Australia’s electricity infrastructure.
The Funding
A 3 cent per unit (Kwhr) times 220 billion units (Kwhr)(our current annual electricity consumption) yields $6.6 billion per year. This yields $200 billion for the 30 year infrastructure build plan. The resultant electricity infrastructure is fully paid up upon completion and is not straddled with the repaymments and interest payments on top of maintenance and infrastructure replacement accruals that a privately funded investment based infrastructure would be. The resultant generated electricity price will comparable with present electricity pricing. The recent 20% electricity price hike as part of a total 75% price increase set for 2013, forced by government upon the electricity distributors in preparation for the now doubtfull CPRS, has pushed retail electricity from (for my factory) from 13.5 cents per unit to around 16 cents per unit. So the 3 cents per unit on top of that will push the price per unit to 19 cents, still well short of the 24 cents per unit that electricity will rise to under the CPRS unless the CPRS is abandoned, in which case the first 20% increase is supposed to be withdrawn. For balance, though, consider that electricity retail pricing in 1968 was 10 cents per unit if my memory of my father yelling “turn that damned heater (one bar radiator) off, it is costing 10 cents an hour to run” is correct.
The Infrastructure
The annual, 20 year averaged, power output of the Mohave Desert SEGGS VIII CSP installation times 1600 is the equivalent of Australia’s 220 billion Kwhr consumption. Australia’s electricity comes from a variety of sources including hydro and wind so the net replacement build required is for around 1200 SEGGS VIII equivalents with a $200 billion budget. CSP has seen consistent significant efficiency improvements through the life time of the running facilities, and there are further dramatic efficiencies available from the use of higher temperature heat transfer fluids. This simply means progressively lower build costs and lower running costs. Over the 30 year infrastructure build time other technologies may become equally cost effective, in which case the build plan would likely include these to make a broader mix of infrastructure types than can be envisaged from this point. The primary driving principle is to retire fossil fuel based electricity generators in the shortest possible time.
Conclusion
It is easily possible to replace all of Australia’s coal fired electricity generating infrastructure with Solar, Wind and Geothermal alternatives in the required time frame to offer 50% CO2 emission reductions within 30 years with a programme that will keep pace with a growing transition to electrically powered transportation. This is possible with a simple user pays 20% levy on retail electricity prices, a cost level that will not measurably distort the economy. This in no way undermines the advisability for carbon pricing for the management of the other 50% of Australia’s CO2 emissions, it in fact reinforces such initiatives.
Challenge
Demonstrate how the above thinking is substantially flawed. Demonstrate some other method by which Austalia’s fossil fuel powered electrcity infrastructure can be replaced with in 30 years in a manner that preserves our current low cost of electricity.
BilB
The easiest refutation to your proposed scheme is that 30*1GwE nuclear plants would cost at worst about $90bn not $200bn and they can be placed anywhere — not just where the sun shines and the land is cheap and water is plentiful. They require less concrete and steel and copper. They can also do flash desal or ammonia production for liquid fuel or fertiliser with any redundant capacity they have.
Secondly, your plan covers only Australia, not the large parts of the planet where CSP would be a lot less feasible. We’d still have to deal with the other 98.5% of the problem. Not much of Russia or Japan or Western Europe could use CSP or wind.
As noted before, I would be prepared to pay a premium for CSP if that were the only way of losing coal from the power supply, but hardly anyone else will. In practice, while your sentiment is genuine, your proposal is one that buttresses more coal, or at best, gas.
Fran,
The cost of the CSP is entirely unclear. The $200 billion figure is over generous from all of the information that I have seen. There are conflicting assessments, as there are with nuclear.
Most importantly you are yet to address the issues raised by Dr Irene Kieczenow and Scott Ludlum
http://greensmps.org.au/blog/nuclear-debate
from what I can see they represent a king hit on nuclear as far as Australia is concerned.
That aside, if there is a total energy solution available for $90 billion, this would be funded from a 10% levy on electricity over 30 years or 20% over 15 years, Therefore, you have just declared that the CPRS is a total waste of time as far as electricity is concerned. If the CPRS requires that electricity prices rise by 75% to coax people to change their energy habits with no clear certainty of outcome, this can only be seen as total folly when the same cost to the economy directly applied would fully fund a user pays $90 billion energy solution in 4.5 years making Australia 40% to 50% emission compliant by 2015. A world first.
You surely must be starting to see the inefficiency of the CPRS where electricity is concerned.
Either way Australia has only to get on with the job of building what ever energy infrastructure that is available right now. There is no impediment other than the understanding that it is possible. What does Barak Obama say? “Yes we can!”.
From what I’ve seen it seems like a massive underestimate. The marginal extra connection costs will be enormous (roughly $2m per km), and we are not even talking about the water you will need to supply.
And if we really did attempt 30*1GwE nuclear, then the cost would be a fraction of that $90bn — probably more like 1/3 of that.
Saying that the CPRS will cause electricity prices to rise by 75% is simply silly. None of the treasury models for the CPRS put this figure on it. You can’t include other system upgrade costs in the overall figure for the CPRS. Your levy would be on top of whatever else within the grid has to be done.
As to the Ludlum debate, I did listen to it but really Ludlum didn’t add anything but the old anti-nuclear power talking points we’ve heard so often. He was still debating Chernobyl, much as enemies of socialism keep wanting to raise the USSR as a talking point. It’s unimpressive, and as someone who is not only sympathetic to the Greens but who has assisted their candidates and hopes they do well, this is disappointing (though predictable).
I’d have preferred that he approach the matter in terms of the balance of utility, showing how a suite of non-nuclear options could produce greater quantifiable utility on a world scale and how we could make all of those other states agree to take this up.
Fran @78 states:
“As to the Ludlum debate, I did listen to it but really Ludlum didn’t add anything but the old anti-nuclear power talking points we’ve heard so often. He was still debating Chernobyl, much as enemies of socialism keep wanting to raise the USSR as a talking point.”
It is not only the enemies of socialism who raise the USSR as a “talking point” but socialists as well and for good reason. It was a terrible failure and any currently existing socialists who do not pay attention to the historical failures of actually existing socialism do the (remnant) socialist project no favours by continuing to minimise the failure.
Much like nuclear power advocates, really, and they way they want to ignore the real historical failures of the nuke industry.
Who said the science was settled?
/dry
Fran the 75% is published information
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/nsw-may-pay-62-more-for-electricity-20091215-kt6g.html
“And if we really did attempt 30*1GwE nuclear, then the cost would be a fraction of that $90bn — probably more like 1/3 of that”
I really think that you should substantiate this “too good to be true” possibility. By this claim the Stimulus was sufficient to replace our entire coal fired electricity infrastructure. Mere petty cash in investment terms. You now have the total solution down to a 20% levy for just five years and Australia is 40 to 50 percent emission compliant.
Your ideas on grid connection are fanciful, Fran. The figure that I have seen repeated is $400 million dollars to connect any one location over a significant distance. So for a CSP site that might generate 4 gig the cost is minimal.
On the nuclear debate, Fran, you are cherry picking the topics. Not at all credible.
The global CSP programme is well researched and published. Refer to the huge amount of information put forward by the Desert Tech initiatives. You might also research Siemens involvement.
Fran, making outlandishly dismissive statements does not a proof make.
Fran, I think you really do want a ‘plug and play’ techological solution to energy production whereby we unplug coal and plug in nukes and then are able to continue our lives without paying the full price of social reconstruction that will be entailed by a transition to renewables. At a social level the costs of such a transition would involve significant loss of productivity and the virtual disappearance of the ‘convenience’ society. In so far as there might be shortfalls in the capacity of renewables to produce currently existing ‘on demand’ supply then the shortfall could be mopped up by measures such as: power pricing designed to minimise consumption; limited trading hours; radically reduced working hours; job sharing; a tax regime that rewards particular types of consumption and punishes others (public transport even more heavily subsidised, private motor vehicle transport taxed very heavily); job sharing to mop up increased unemployment. These types of solutions might give us an habitable planet.
Transferring the production of power to nukes means the same old patterns of production, consumption and coporate authority over our lives as citizens. What you advocate is a technological solution to what is not merely a technologically created problem but one that arose out of the social relations of production and consumption as much as it did from the unaccounted costs of production.
BilB said
Here’s the headline on the article you link to.
Not a good start for someone arguing the toss on the numbers. After your comment (refuted) about there being “billions” fewer people 20 years ago, you really need to be more careful.
1. It’s NSW, not Australia, and country NSW not NSW as a whole (that should be a clue as to why these costs apply differentially.
2. It’s up to and includes other costs
And they aren’t sure because they add
The article makes clear …
This article really underlines how dioshonest Abbott is, and yet you cite it uncritically and apparently without reading the fine print, or even the bold print. Incredible.
So you’re saying that you only need 200km of HVDC lines?
Where are you placing these facilities?
Anthony Nolan said:
If a plug an play technological solution is available, that will by definition be the full price of social reconstruction, providing of course the full cost of the footprint is internalised.
Wading through your remaining text, what you seem to be saying amounts to this. We’ve done bad and so now we must be punished for our sins with a more ascetic lifestyle, even if a solution that does not entail this presents itself. That sounds like empty moralising rather than an argument from utility.
Earlier, Anthony said:
The question is one of pertinence. If someone proposed to redux the usages of the Bolshevik Revolution under comparable circumstances, then the critique would be valid. It’s not socialists who keep raising the failure of the USSR when advocating the rule of working people. That is the province of reactionaries. We socialists distinguish between what we propose and what was done in the past just as one can distinguish between the unhoused graphite core military reactor at Chernobyl operated under the auspices of a moribund and irrational regime and what we propose now.
Also BilB regarding costs … the UAE has just contracted to build four nuclear power plants between 2017 and 2020 — a total of 6400MwE for about $US20bn — that’s close to the original figure for 30GwE of about $90bn …
Of course, if we were buying them in bulk, and mass producing them …
Fran @84:
“We socialists distinguish between what we propose and what was done in the past just as one can distinguish between the unhoused graphite core military reactor at Chernobyl operated under the auspices of a moribund and irrational regime and what we propose now.”
What intrigues me here is the statement “what we propose now”. As a socialist, then, what exactly do you propose to overcome the moribund irrationality of the soviet example? Moreover, how does what you socialists propose relate to or derive from the history of socialism?
On the technological issues associated with nukes: reactors are one thing but ecological problems associated with mining and waste disposal are another. See the following from that most Radical of papers Der Spiegel (2009):
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,654969,00.html
Please note that the waste was consigned by Électricité de France which is the largest electricity company in Europe, runs 58 reactors in France and annually sends around 13 percent of its radioactive waste to Siberia which amounts to about shipping around 108 tons of uranium from La Hague in northern France to Russia. One would imagine that Électricité de France has more than than sufficient technological/engineering expertise and coporate capacity to pay for a satisfactory solution. They haven’t, clearly, but what is your understanding of why they haven’t?
Fran,
The SMH article came out well after the first 20% price increase for NSW was installed. If you add up the full schedule of price increases it comes to 76%. The Integral energy webb site at the time of the first increase had a comment virtually appologing for the increase. I just checked and the wording is now changed. Of course the power bills will stay high if the CPRS is removed. Utilities realise that change is essential, but with the corporates running the changes the public will foot the bill at the reatail rate for construction rather than the “owner builders” rate.
The first significant CSP installation was planned to be installed at Moree where is direct access to the Eastern grid. HVDC is not required for short runs. HVDC is proposed for the trans continental link joining west to east.
On the Nuclear announcement, they have yet to be built. On time and on budget? global experience is against that. Some things are just not mass produced, Fran. 6 reactors or 36 reactors is not “mass” production. Building machines where materials have to withstand extreme conditions is a slow process. Every weld has to follow strict proceedures and be xray tested. This is not mass production. Manufacturing thousands of solar concentrator panels, on the other hand, is mass production.
By the way, that 20.4 billion figure may very well be Euros not US dollars
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/18dec09-uae-us-energy-79607392.html
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3825717,00.html
several other articles that suggest that may be the case. The news is very fresh and everyone appears to hedging around defining exactly what a $ is.
If that is the case then that puts your guestimate at the $US 180 mark.
Too many conflicting articles on the UAE deal to be clear. Another article mentioned 75 billion dihrams which does convert to 20.5 $US, but other articles talk of an American involvement, so the Korean involvement may be only part of the construction.
Too many conflicting articles on the UAE deal to be clear. Another article mentioned 75 billion dihrams which does convert to 20.5 $US, but other articles talk of an American involvement, so the Korean involvement may be only part of the construction.
Bilb @75: You might do it that way, however, to my mind the best way would be to issue a series of contracts for the supply of clean electricity (or the reduction of net emissions). The attraction of this approach is that the rate of replacement of coal fired can be controlled and the price of electricity only ramps up slowly as the proportion of clean electricity increases. If you are talking about a 30 yr program and a price of clean electricity twice that of dirty electricity, the average price of electricity would ramp up at only 3.3% per year. For more details see here
Good point, John D. But a key feature of what is proposed here is that the power facilities enter service fully paid for and owned by the end users. This provides the unique opportunity to not have a mortgage, one of the largest figures in the balance sheet. The important figure missing is the cost of fuel for CSP as this comes free from the sun on a daily basis. The one major expense for CSP is labour. CSP has a larger work force than any other power system. The long and short of it is that the cost of the power generated will be near to the current cost of coal fueled electricity. There will be no significant ramp up of electricity pricing if the special nature of the funding is employed. The other unique feature of CSP is that the main part of the system that requires replacement is the mirrors. The twenty year opporational experience is that there is a 1% breakage rate of the mirrors. The current method proposed for the European system is to cover breakage with a 2% insurance scheme. So there is a little home work. Assume a staffing of 500 people per gigawatt and an insurance cost of 2% on a 3 billion dollar investment and see how the cost works out. My estimate (I guessed 7.5 hours per day at capacity for 320 days per year and an average staff cost of 60,000 per year each) is between 6 and 8 cents per unit for CSP at the current efficiencies. Future plants have the potential to be significantly more efficient and require some fewer staff. There are, of course, many other costs which I think that the operational budget covers.
BilB
UAE
Take a look at the map BilB. Does this look like a country that is short on insolated land near a population centre? Is the UAE short on cash for infrastructure?
Yet they opt for nuclear power. Apparently they are planning on spending $US40 billion all up on nuclear power, when they could be installing CSP. Maybe you should write them a letter and set them straight on how to save on energy infrastructure using SEGGS.
Bilb @91: I am obsessed with the idea that “a series of contracts for the supply of clean electricity” is the only way to clean up electricity. However, there are a number of questions that should be asked when assessing a proposed system:
1. Does it require any sudden jumps in the price of electricity?
2. Does the price of electricity ramp up in line with the average increases in the cost of electricity?
3. How does it take account of technical and social issues associated with particular technologies or the clean-up in general? (We don’t want all our wind power to be located on the Eyre Peninsular for reliability reasons and the social impact of shutting down particular mines/generators will vary substantially.)
4. How well does it satisfy the key issues for the various stakeholders?
- Government?
- Investors?
- Consumers?
- Employees of existing generators and mines?
- Owners of existing generators and mines?
ETS and carbon taxes do poorly in the light of these questions. You will have to evaluate your system.
On a another note, if manpower is an issue, solar thermal seems an obvious target for robotic mirror cleaners.
Fran: the UAE as a model of rational planning? You cannot be serious. No matter how much sunshine they have it is a terrible place beset by the most appalling problems. Abu Dabi is now synonymous with a playboy prlayground/tax bolt hole for the worst elements of mid- east and euro-trash ruling classes:
“More bad news from Abu Dhabi, the ultra oil-rich sheikhdom in the United Arab Emirates.
Human Rights Watch released a scathing report yesterday accusing the government and authorities responsible for land development of exploiting and abusing migrant workers from South Asia in construction on the Island of Happiness–specifically in the building of imported prestigious institutions that Abu Dhabi intends to showcase there. These include branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums as well as a Middle East campus of New York University. HRW called on the museums and NYU “to show that they will not tolerate or benefit from the gross exploitation.”
The UAE government responded quickly, arguing that the 80-page report failed to recognize the government’s consistent efforts to improve worker rights and conditions. UAE spokesman Anwar Gargash acknowledged “drawbacks” but said that HRW sensationalized them through “sound bites,” “arbitrary generalizations” and “minute research sampling.” Gargash said that the UAE was open to “constructive criticism” and believes that “respecting workers rights is a moral, cultural and economic imperative.”
http://mideast.blogs.time.com/2009/05/20/abu-dhabi-sad-island-of-happiness/
Pathetic.
Oh there is more:
” Abu Dhabi is still reeling over recent allegations that a sheikh in the ruling al-Nahyan family supervised the torture of an Afghan grain trader–a gruesome scene that was caught on videotape. The government said that it detained Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan and is investigating the matter. Whatever the outcome of the probe, however, the torture episode has already done serious damage to the credibility of the Abu Dhabi royals. The Washpost reports that it is complicating U.S. plans to cooperate in developing the Arab world’s first nuclear energy program with the UAE.
After the torture video video was screened for stunned congressmen in Washington, Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts said: “A country where the laws can be flouted by the rich and powerful is not a country that can safeguard sensitive U.S. nuclear technology.”
Read more: http://mideast.blogs.time.com/2009/05/20/abu-dhabi-sad-island-of-happiness/#ixzz0b3CxHVRU
Well, the Amricans can talk, can’t they, about torture being a sign of inadequate culture to safeguard nukes! I don’t agree with the Congressman’s analysis but still, you’d have to agree with his ideas about the ruling castes of the UAE.
Um, so if I can point to examples of poor governance in Australia (our farting around with talking about doing something about lowering our carbon footprint being a prime example), I can then conclude that our NOT going for nuclear is of a piece with that?
I mean if that line of reasoning works for discussing the UAE, surely it works the other way round?
Advancing arguments that have little intellectual merit, in this forum especially, do little to convince.
Whoops: I am NOT obsessed with the idea that “a series of contracts for the supply of clean electricity” is the only way to clean up electricity.
Oh, and there are utilities in Australia that use solar for remote outback communities of several hundred. So the nasty power companies are willing to give it a go. But they still haven’t got the hang of providing full power overnight without diesel backup. (Some small battery to AC stuff – but not enough for full power usage).
So the solar needs a carbon based backup – which means capital costs are nearly doubled. Not sure if that little entry has been factored into the calculations.
Marks @96: I’m not sure exactly what your point is but (if this is wrong then pardon me) that Australia’s failure to adopt nukes is an example of poor governance(?). My view is that if there is a reaspn for foot draginng on that front from the major parties it is that they are aware that there is immense opposition to nukes in Oz. Moreover, what support there is (appx 60% general suport for the idea) drops radically to 40% when the proposition is put that if you agree to nukes then how bout one near where you reside?
As to the UAE – my point, unpacked, is that Fran’s offering of the UAE’s decision to upload a nuke instead of going solar is nutty because little that happens in the UAE has anything to do with governance. The technical rationality of a decision between nukes and solar would not have entered into consideration because the UAE are governance free zones and bloddy terrible places as the above references @94 + 95 suggest. If they’ve opted for a nuke it is because there is a deal and $$$ for sheiks and the US corporates between whom there would be no ethical distinction at all.
So Fran’s example of the UAE’s decision to preference nukes over sunshine doesn’t offer proof of the superiority of nukes over sunshine. Her example is null.
I think that argument has merit.
Of course anthony nolan, you said in a recent thread that 100% of Australians wouldn’t have a nuke in their back yard. Both Robert Merkel and I contradicted you, and now you readily admit that 40% of Australians, with absolutely no education campaign or mainstream support for nuclear power, and following a thirty year fear campaign, still realise that the risks are practically unmeasurable.
Anthony Nolan@86
I’m obviously not going to take up your offer to discuss the the thematic congruence of my iteration of socialism with those of the past. That would be a massive thread derail. In some more apt place, we can explore that. I’m interested in empowering working people on a world scale, which for me amounts to increasing their life chances and their prospects of achieving their full humanity and entails a radiocal narrowing of inequality and a very substantial improvement in the amount of energy each of the people in the bottom half of world life chances currently gets. I will comment in passing that your advocacy for ascetism is hard to reconcile with the perspectives of the socialists I’ve read, even if we include the post-war “neos”.
The articel to which you refer raises moree quesrtions than it answers. If shipping waste to Russia is profitable, why is only 13% of it shipped?
How much waste would have gone into what may fairly be called living tissue sequestration if France had been a conventional power user during this time? How much CO2 would have been emitted and where would this have been “stored” and how long would it have harmed the biosphere from a human perspective?
No Anthony @ 99 that was NOT my point – as well I think you realise.
My point was that you cannot just make an assertion, quote a very few selected (and contested) facts about the UAE and then stand that up as some sort of proof of your assertion.
I was merely using your methodology, but with a silly example (it’s called reductio ad absurdem) to make the point that you really were using an argument that is more likely to leave readers feeling that their intelligence is being insulted.
Bilb @ 87
“The SMH article came out well after the first 20% price increase for NSW was installed. If you add up the full schedule of price increases it comes to 76%.”
Some clarity.
The 20% is already built into the retail price rise. The retail price rise includes all the components (wholesale, transmission/distribution and retail). So the CPRS costs are built into the wholesale building block, the earlier 20% (from the AER determination) into the distribution costs, and the new retail costs, only about 3-4%.
So the IPART report really had nothing new and significant to rpert, it just highlighted what the costs would look like once stacked up together.
So 75% by 2013 is grossly inaccurate.
Wilful: recent thread evidence was linked to a survey which I will locate for you. 100% of Australians would reject a nuke in their backyard if fully acquainted with the facts, Im sure.
Marks: if yr accusing me of deliberate obtuseness then say so but it was not my purpose. Besdies, who contests what facts about the UAE?
Facts from Wiki:
“Politics of the United Arab Emirates takes place in a framework of a federal, presidential, elected monarchy. The UAE is a federation of seven absolute monarchies: the Emirates of Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Qaiwain. The ruler of Abu Dhabi is President of the United Arab Emirates, the head of state, and the ruler of Dubai is the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, the head of government.”
Wiki
I don’t know about you but I don’t accept that any meaningful social policy development is possible within an absolute monarchy. I dismiss any decision within those states on the ground that they are made as executive fiat and therefore don’t represent anything other than the will and interest of a ruling clique. The rationality of the decision is redundant under those circumstances.
Hrgh,
What on earth are you talking about? Regardless of how the windfall is divided the fact is that the retail price for electricity has gone up 20%, and will go up another 44% or 58%, depending on who supplies my electricity. There is no other way of reading that SMH article (@81). And CPRS compliance is cited as be the primary driver. 75% by 2013 is exactly what is signalled. The fact that the 20% was quietly applied before the press got onto it some months later might suggest that 75% is not the bottom line at all, it could well go higher.
I might add Anthony Nolan that pointing to the unethical conduct of a regime doesn’t entail supposing that every policy it follows is irrational. The US has been unethical and irrational domestically and internationally on an epic scale for many years, and yet not every policy it has enacted during that time is nuts.
Many people think Sweden a fine place but it does use nuclear power and is likely to contract more in coming years. Just as well too, for Swedish Nuclear and German Coal, along with Norwegian Hydro underpin the feasibility of West Danish off-shore wind.
I can’t help but wonder what you’d have said if the UAE had gone with CSP and I’d raised your argument against it … Perhaps I shouldn’t wonder.
Fran
Fran:
“I might add Anthony Nolan that pointing to the unethical conduct of a regime doesn’t entail supposing that every policy it follows is irrational.”
In the case of an absolute monarchy – yes it does. While the US is irrational in ways that fascinate it is nevertheless subject to the rational public administrative regime that typifies governance in modernity. Absolute monarchies are not subject to rational administrative processes and they are not in any way hindered by other expectations, such as transparency or accountability. When considering our own decisions it is absurd to take examples from states such as the UAE which lack even the fundamentals of modern governance such as administrative review tribunals, separation of executive power from administration and so on.
If you reject this then you may as well argue that North Korean nuclear policy is best practice.
Had you cited Sweden as a model then I would have addressed the deficits of Swedish decision making which are specific to the particular model of social-democracy there. Unfortunately, however, you cited the UAE I guess in an attempt to convince BilB that even an abundance of sunshine in places like the UAE doesn’t add up to a convincing case for the UAE to adopt solar and this is because of the technological deficits of solar. Arguing by example failed because I offered a counter interpretation using the same example which suggested that the UAE decision for nukes over solar had little to do with a rational policy decision and more to do, like everything else that happens in the UAE, with the interests of people who think they are god/king rulers.
Even 114 Ruddites could not tip the scale to reach a consensus for more than a hundred World Leaders to sign up. Apart from the flawed science, the failure of such Quixotic attempts denies the lessons of history. The Treaty of Versailles was to end all wars in 1918. The U.N. was to end all wars in 1945 and the tortuous verbosity of the Nuremberg trials and the other Nuremberg in Tokyo to set the reasons into history merely sopped to a rule of law. Pensive Penny explaining the difficulties of a consensus from her perspective as an excuse for failure, ignored the simple lesson of history – that obtuse nations were not likely to agree with one another let alone for the World and the project was doomed from the start.
To say that, Stewert, is to ignore the successes. Ozone hole action, millenium bug. I’m sure that there are many others more to do with engineering. My feeling is that there were 3 basic agreements, all based on per capita CO2 emissions. There were the low emitters who agreed that the high emitters should cut it out. There were the medium emerging emitters who agreed that they need more time. And there were the large and massive emitters who agreed that they would do something small towards helping the problem if everyone did as much or more before hand.
So there was agreement of sorts. I, personally, feel that the failure at Copenhagen was more the fault of Australia than of any other nation. Australia, as the worlds highest per capita emitter, has done the least of any other country to physically act on Global Warming, and Australia has compromised the least while demanding the most of others. Rudd and Wong both were proud to claim that Australia “punches above its weight”, only in this case it was a knock out blow.
And to elaborate a little further, Robert (I should have said above rather than your surname), there is no nation on this planet better placed to do the right thing on GWA. We are just 20 million people presiding over a continent, a mountain of mineral wealth, the size of the United States, a continent with the best per capita solar wind wave and geothermal resources on this planet, and we cannot find the good will to do the rtight thing as far as Gobal Warming Abatement is concerned. To the contrary we, as a nation, are determined to continue using coal power by what ever method until there is none left in the ground. Just disgraceful.
And our leaders have the audacity to presume to have the high ground on environmental action, presume to be “players” on the international stage, see themselves as deal makers. What the……………….
But most importantly did other nation notice all of this? Do other leaders see the ludicrous nature of our position. Of course they did.
More than any other nation, we are to blame for the shit fight at Copenhagen.
BilB: spot on. To which may I add that Australia has the stable governance, no mass social issues of pressing need, no common borders. We are ideally positioned to make a transformation to low CO2 emmissions economy but seem content, at this stage, to live on borrowed time. I always have a laugh at the idea of Australia ‘punching above its weight’. What hubris. What a crock. I blame the inadequacy of tertiary education – not enough of it and the quality is diminishing so rapidly that it appears that there is a rapid dumbing down of citizen’s capacity to think through complex issues.
Do we desire to do something about carbon emissions or not?!? William Blake said something about desire and the crux of that was that whatever stops the desire governs you! Who saw that Labyrinth movie(Pans Labyrinth?!?) the other day?!!? Wow, all we need to do is make ourselves a door! Look at the man/woman in the mirror and make a change: if we have nothing to give then we are just as bad as the ones we complain about! Ideas, guys and girls, what we need is some ideas about how to attack this issue in the face of such unwillingness of others! First of all I would say that we have to resolve that we the people have to make the change in the first place- just like Arnold Schwarzenegger told us a few weeks back! Let us look at ‘Conspicuous Consumption’ and keep looking at it! Maybe someone would care to define it for us….”GO!”
Copenhagen is our collective fault in that we have all “allowed” a system of government (democracy) and international governance (the United Nations) to evolve that now appears to be incapable of taking the action required to address climate change.
Our democracy is not representing the people – it is representing industry interests and ignoring (or paying lip service to) the science
The UN is where the self-interest of nations overwhelms the common good – the ongoing rich country – poor country dichotomy. The perils of climate change are just another dimension to this ongoing issue. But it is a dimenstion that now threatens life on earth as we know it.