Vote: Nuclear, Coal, reneawbles

[Filthy]

You vote:

Nuclear?

Clean Coal (if possible)?

Solar?

Wind?

Tidal?

Me anything than Nuclear. If the Ancient Egyptians had nuclear their waste would still be glowing. Solar if possible. Could it be possible that solar is not being pushed by the Rodent and the blokes he works for at the most powerful Trade Union in Oz the BCA, that if the Government subsidised homes and industry into Solar, that after it was done (putting aside the tens of thousands of jobs it would create) there would be little or no need for the other choices for as long as the Sun shines and you store the power in the battery's in your roof, then AGL, TXU and so on would be out of business? Or am i being too cynical?

Oh and this...hee,hee

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 02,00.html

[spikefan]

I am not ideologically anti-nuclear but I don't see a reason to deploy a difficult, capital intensive and dangerous technology at this point, this looks like the wrong decision.

Definitely one should first start looking at the other obvious options such as solar. Tax breaks to encourage new homes and even existing homes to go solar should work quite well. The efficiency of solar cells has increased dramatically in recent year forcing people to review the conventional wisdom that solar is a toy for rich and soft hearted environmentalists.

I believe wind and tidal do work in some locations but are little more than fun engineering projects: renewable energies yes, important not so sure.

So the big gamble is clean coal. Coal is today but far the worse way of producing heat and electricity. Clean coal is a difficult engineering challenge, maybe Australia should cooperate closely with other environmentally motivated countries rich in coal and good a chemical engineering such as Germany.



and ... yes, you are far too cynical

[danstar84]

Obviously, renewable would be the first point of call. Get as much as possible from the sun, wind, water etc.

I think nuclear should be low on the list. I am not against it, but if we can improve on current methods, it will cost a hell of a lot less.

I am not against nuclear power as a last resort. It has come a long way, and should continue to improve over the coming decade. Holland from memory are trialling a new high tech nuclear station, be interesting to see how it goes.

[jimmyc1985]

If we put the same emphasis on trying to curb excessive demand for energy as we do excessive demand for water, we could drop our greenhouse emissions enormously, quickly, and in a cost effective manner.
A little silly thing like everyone changing lightbulbs from incandescent to fluorescent/long-life is going to save us 4 million tonnes of greenhouse emissions, or about 0.7% of our current yearly output, by 2015 (this initiative was recently announced). How many other demand reduction measures are there like that which could add up to a significant greenhouse emission saving? There must be dozens: tightening emissions standards on cars, whitegoods, forcing industry to use more energy efficient machinery, forcing homes to have better insulation to reduce the need for heating/cooling etc.

Fair enough that the current and long term focus is on ways we can reduce our greenhouse emissions through adopting new stationary energy output mechanisms, as power stations generate about 50% of our greenhouse emissions. But in the short term, i'm amazed at the lack of focus on how we can reduce our demand for energy - if energy were like water we would've already reduced our emissions significantly. But being in Australia, we've got so much untapped energy around us that all the focus automatically falls onto supply side issues.

Could it be possible that solar is not being pushed by the Rodent and the blokes he works for at the most powerful Trade Union in Oz the BCA, that if the Government subsidised homes and industry into Solar, that after it was done (putting aside the tens of thousands of jobs it would create) there would be little or no need for the other choices for as long as the Sun shines and you store the power in the battery's in your roof, then AGL, TXU and so on would be out of business?

That's the whole point, really. Howard has consistently said he doesn't want to change any of our greenhouse gas emitting ways of life if it involves conceding some sort of economic advantage. The wider community, it would seem, is outraged at this position.

However, the hypocrisy on the part of millions of us is ludicrous for this very reason: very few members of the community are willing to dig into their own pockets to make a change for the good. Basically, we all bag Howard for for not wanting to change because it'll involve giving up some form of economic advantage, but we as a broader community aren't willing to pull our fingers out of our own arses and do something: anything we want done has to be subsidised by the government. What about if people put whatever they've saved for a new plasma towards getting solar panels? Why should the government have to subsidise these activities when the community isn't willing to bear an iota of the expense involved?

This is where i do my lolly on the greenhouse debate: everyone bags Howard, yet a great majority of us merely mimic his position. We ain't willing to spend a f****** cent at our own detriment, and neither is Howard. It's an old style, Western stand-off, and we're all staring at each other waiting to see who'll flinch first.

[Filthy]

I am just posing the question that if Governments stopped spending money on self advertising, self promotion al aimed at getting itself re-elected (all of them....billions nationwide), stopped pork barreling as in the Uni $ allocations we saw this week, stopped Government waste and duplication etc and say just concentrated on getting everyone on Solar, we are talking about a ONE OFF COST!!

Problem solved....forever!

Or is that to simple? Simple solutions are best I always thought......

[pevfan]

Did you see 4 Corners last night. Briefly, it was a story about how the same so called nay-say experts that spoke for the tobacco industry refuting smoking's links to cancer are now being used by the fossil fuel giants to rubbish the global warming experts like Al Gore et al.

One of the points raised was the clever and mis-leading use of language, like referring to it as climate change rather than global warming which carries with it a far more urgent message. How one of the Nay-say lobbyist (forgotten his name now) was constantly in Bush's ear in the early days of his Presidency at the time that the US pulled out of Kyoto and Bush rescinded many of the Greenhouse gas emission laws that had been put in place by previous admins.

Anyway, turns out now that that same lobbyist no longer denies the dangers and is urging anyone who will listen not to treat this as a political issue at all because, as he says, there's too much at risk.

I missed the very start of the program but from the general gist of it I gathered it was a Canadian Report and sadly, it appears that the Nay-sayers are getting their way in that Country. As one of the commentators said, Kyoto is practically dead in the water in Canada now.

[jimmyc1985]

I am just posing the question that if Governments stopped spending money on self advertising, self promotion al aimed at getting itself re-elected (all of them....billions nationwide), stopped pork barreling as in the Uni $ allocations we saw this week, stopped Government waste and duplication etc and say just concentrated on getting everyone on Solar, we are talking about a ONE OFF COST!!

Problem solved....forever!

Or is that to simple? Simple solutions are best I always thought......

Mate, with all respect I think you missed my point. I too think solar is a good part of the solution to our greenhouse emissions problems. I wouldn't say it's 'problem solved forever' due mainly to solar's difficulty in generating baseload power, but it's an increasingly attractive option none the less.

However, the major point I was (cynically) trying to make was the merry-go-round we're currently on in relation to who should fund the cost of switching over to more environmentally friendly energy options. Everyone in the community is apparently very concerned about global warming, but when it comes to talking about the actual financial cost of funding these proposals, the knee-jerk reaction from the wider community appears to be: 'let the government fund it! It's not up to me to pay!'. With regard to that attitude, I'm completely sick of it and I find it hypocritical and confusing that people can claim to be so concerned about the problem yet are generally unwilling to 'put their money where their mouths are'.

Basically, what people need to understand is that the main job of the federal government in a market sovereign economy dominated by the private sector, as is the case in Australia, is to make laws; it's not to spend money. We, the consuming taxpayer and private business community, need to get our heads around the fact that any changes to our current energy generation is going to cost money, and WE should bear the vast majority of that expense. The government's role is to put the laws in place that will encourage the private sector, which comprises about 80% of Australia's economy, to make the necessary investment.

As I said, I don't think people comprehend that at the moment. Ask the average Joe if they'd be happy to sink $5,000 or whatever to deck their houses out with solar panels and I reckon the vast majority of respondents would say something along the lines of "get stuffed!!!". Until such time as the vast majority of respondents alter that attitude to where their response would be "yeah, fair enough, I understand it's unreasonable to expect anyone other than us to bear the brunt of the cost so I'll happily fork out the dough", we aren't going anywhere.

[Filthy]

Good points as usual James, (you doing Eco/Law right?) and you make a lot of sense.

But if all of a sudden there were tax incentives in:

- R&D to make u beaut panels even better than what we've got (apparently we are losing our brightest & best to overseas developers!!).

- Tax and Government subsidies/loans for businesses to tool up for manufacture for the increased demand.

- Naturally, demand for workers in raw materials, manufacturing, installation and maintenance would follow.

- And as demand rises, so do production levels which as you know pushes prices down (I bought my litle bloke a DVD from Aldi the other day for $30!! What were they when they came out?).

- As we get to be best in the world at it, an export market opens up which all the oil, power, gas company's would hate.

Quite apart from empowering the little bloke against the minuscule but powerful elite, COL should fall and the planet gets cleaned up.

What have I missed?

[jimmyc1985]

Good points as usual James, (you doing Eco/Law right?) and you make a lot of sense

Close Banking and Finance/LLB is what i'm doing. Dunno why i did Banking/Finance in hindsight when i could've gone the much more conventional option of Commerce/LLB, but anyway.

- R&D to make u beaut panels even better than what we've got (apparently we are losing our brightest & best to overseas developers!!).

Fair enough, i agree we could and should devote more government spending to R&D/innovation. What does get reported quite a bit in the media is our lacklustre commonwealth government spending on R&D over the last 15 years, and it's a poor reflection on the government for sure. The upswing is that there's high levls of private business R&D spending going on in Australia at the moment, so to some extent the private sector is picking up the slack. As relates to solar power R&D, the problem with government spending on R&D is the same as any other form of R&D - you can spend plenty over a long period of time and make minimal gains. The theory is that private enterprise should be better at 'picking winners' than the government could ever be and would invest R&D dollars better. Whether that's necessarily the case, i don't know.
But, on the topic of solar R&D in the private sector: have a look at what Ceramic Fuel Cells (ASX:CFU) are doing. Qutie interesting and good to see we look to already have some of the world's leading technology in this area.

Tax and Government subsidies/loans for businesses to tool up for manufacture for the increased demand

Perhaps, yes. Although, as you'd be acutely aware, Australia's future as a manufacturer is very limited; we simply can't do what they can do in China, Korea, and even some parts of Eastern Europe for the same price. We have our niches in manufacturing where we are still really good on a global scale, but generally we're uncompetitive in many areas by today's standards. If we wanted millions of solar panels, what we could perhaps do is design them to world's best standards, set up the manufacturing operations in China and then import them back here at lower cost.

Naturally, demand for workers in raw materials, manufacturing, installation and maintenance would follow

Yes it would. But our labour market right now is as tight as a fish's proverbial, particularly in the skilled blue collar sector, and it's likely to get worse long-term as the baby boomers gradually exit the employment market. So an increase in demand for workers wouldn't necessarily be a good thing; it would mean an increase in input costs (labour), for starters, and unless you 'create' new employees through migration or other means, you start taking employees away from other industries. That's why i was so ropable with Beazley's policy in last year's budget reply of reducing the number of skilled migrants; it was an absolute shocker given the circumstances we're in.

And as demand rises, so do production levels which as you know pushes prices down (I bought my litle bloke a DVD from Aldi the other day for $30!! What were they when they came out?)

Well, that's true that when demand rises, more producers enter the market and prices eventually fall. But supply usually takes a long time to catch up to demand, so in the short term if you had a sudden spike in demand, there'd be a sustained increase in price.
Also, DVDs and other technology items (like Playstations, for example) don't suddenly become cheaper because of increased production capacity. The reason why they become cheaper is because items like Playstations and DVDs use pricing methods known as 'skim pricing': when a Playstation first comes out, it costs $400 and Sony 'skims' the wealthiest 20% of the market; then a month later they drop it to $350 and 'skim' the next 30% of the market, and so on and so forth. Prices in that regard don't reflect market fundamentals, they reflect a pretty evil pricing strategy that marketers love to use to make more money for big companies!

As we get to be best in the world at it, an export market opens up which all the oil, power, gas company's would hate.

Yeah, the big fossil fuel companies would hate it for sure. So much so that they'd probably try to sabotage whatever efforts people make to develop alternative energies!

Quite apart from empowering the little bloke against the minuscule but powerful elite, COL should fall and the planet gets cleaned up

Well, the 'little bloke', like i said, is really playing to our inner callings. I personally don't believe we as a broader community are ready to embrace wholesale efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions because we can't get over the fact that it's going to cost money. Right now, it's far cheaper to burn fossil fuels and continue with 'business as usual', hence i can't see any drastic change soon. It'll happen some time in my lifetime for sure, but i don't know if such an attitude will be embraced before my olds kick the bucket.

[spikefan]

Wow, that was a good post Jimmy and well written, you guys are taking this to a level well beyond a friendly footy forum

Fair enough, i agree we could and should devote more government spending to R&D/innovation. What does get reported quite a bit in the media is our lacklustre commonwealth government spending on R&D over the last 15 years, and it's a poor reflection on the government for sure. The upswing is that there's high levls of private business R&D spending going on in Australia at the moment, so to some extent the private sector is picking up the slack. As relates to solar power R&D, the problem with government spending on R&D is the same as any other form of R&D - you can spend plenty over a finallylong period of time and make minimal gains. The theory is that private enterprise should be better at 'picking winners' than the government could ever be and would invest R&D dollars better. Whether that's necessarily the case, i don't know.
But, on the topic of solar R&D in the private sector: have a look at what Ceramic Fuel Cells (ASX:CFU) are doing. Qutie interesting and good to see we look to already have some of the world's leading technology in this area.

I believe that the future of Australia's economy -as most other advanced economies- lies in advanced R&D and IP creation. While I agree that the government should not pick winners, the government should focus on creating an environment where R&D thrive and were the private sector also puts money into R&D. This is broad, and goes from education to infrastructure, to fiscal policy, to actual subsidy of critical functions in the form of research grants. I don't think the current government has done enough and I most of all welcome the efforts by labor to get closer to the business community since this is a case were government and business must work together.

Naturally, demand for workers in raw materials, manufacturing, installation and maintenance would follow
- Yes it would. But our labour market right now is as tight as a fish's proverbial, particularly in the skilled blue collar sector, and it's likely to get worse long-term as the baby boomers gradually exit the employment market. So an increase in demand for workers wouldn't necessarily be a good thing; it would mean an increase in input costs (labour), for starters, and unless you 'create' new employees through migration or other means, you start taking employees away from other industries. That's why i was so ropable with Beazley's policy in last year's budget reply of reducing the number of skilled migrants; it was an absolute shocker given the circumstances we're in."

Yes, and this is a real moral dilemma for progressives in a global economy. I believe there is only one human race and cannot give credit to any theory (and more surprisingly from the left) were the labor of a worker should be worth more because it come from a privileged nation/ ethnic group. A tough problem though since completely open workers migration is not a viable solution today either.

(I bought my litle bloke a DVD from Aldi the other day for $30!! What were they when they came out?)
- Well, that's true that when demand rises, more producers enter the market and prices eventually fall. But supply usually takes a long time to catch up to demand, so in the short term if you had a sudden spike in demand, there'd be a sustained increase in price.
Also, DVDs and other technology items (like Playstations, for example) don't suddenly become cheaper because of increased production capacity. The reason why they become cheaper is because items like Playstations and DVDs use pricing methods known as 'skim pricing': when a Playstation first comes out, it costs $400 and Sony 'skims' the wealthiest 20% of the market; then a month later they drop it to $350 and 'skim' the next 30% of the market, and so on and so forth. Prices in that regard don't reflect market fundamentals, they reflect a pretty evil pricing strategy that marketers love to use to make more money for big companies!

Here, I disagree. When DVD was introduced (started at $1000) it was novel and the people that developed it invested Billions of dollars in making it happen: new algorithms, new optical disk. The first DVD players had 100's of components inside.
DVD and PS2 became cheaper because of Silicon integration and technical progress in silicon manufacturing and laser diodes manufacturing.

Quickly with silicon integration the DVD went to $200, then China got involved in manufacturing and the price went to $99, then with more silicon integration to $59 so far so good. A DVD player today consist of a couple chips, a pickup with a laser diode and a couple inexpensive motors. Then the retail price went to $30. The problem is that it cost A$28 to build a DVD player in China - and then there is another $10 of royalty for the intellectual property in the DVD player. The fact that it is available at $30 shows that China is still subsidizing its electronic industry and also continues to blatantly disregards international IP laws, something that will change as China grows up.

As an industry the consumer electronic industry has about 2-5% profit in a good year - in a bad year this is -5%. All the money in DVD and PS is made from content (movies and games) not from players. So no evil industry, no evil skim pricing, just innovation, cost reduction with technical progress and finally fully commoditized products available to the consumer. I just hope the some thing happens with solar cells or fuel cells.

As we get to be best in the world at it, an export market opens up which all the oil, power, gas company's would hate.
-Yeah, the big fossil fuel companies would hate it for sure. So much so that they'd probably try to sabotage whatever efforts people make to develop alternative energies!

One thing with capitalism is that it adapts, the alternative energy companies will become the new leaders and the fossil fuel companies will just be ... dinosaurs. The question is whether the natural rate of adaptation is quick enough to avoid social cataclysms (like running out of fossil fuel), this is why govt. intervention is justified if the evidence shows that there is a danger.

I personally don't believe we as a broader community are ready to embrace wholesale efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions because we can't get over the fact that it's going to cost money. Right now, it's far cheaper to burn fossil fuels and continue with 'business as usual', hence i can't see any drastic change soon.

Education and open discussion can prepare the broader community to evolve without a disruptive break in standard of living. Electing a government with a bit of vision that acts without dogmatism cannot hurt.

And I also believe we will make the 8..

[F111]

It has to be renewable....eventually.

The current infrastructure is too entrenched to go quickly, so they should work on cleaning it up. New CO2 collection technology may be a good place to start.

Nuclear has too many inherent problems...however we are uranium rich. That just makes nuclear more attractive to the movers and shakers unfortunately. Keeping up with the Indians and Pakistanis isn't a good enough reason for me.

Sun and wind are plentiful here so we should use it. The best and most efficient wind generators should be constructed in every Parliament House. They're full of it.

[j-mac31]

Nuclear has too many inherent problems...however we are uranium rich.

Apart from storing the waste safely and keeping it away from weapon makers, there are no problems with nuclear. What if the waste was sent into space say every five years? The US spends so much on space projects these days, surely they could actually do something useful with it, other than spying.

Having said that, I'm all for renewable - wind and solar. How about both in the desert? We have so much desert in Australia that surely plenty of wind farms and solar panels could be built without people complaining of the ugliness, seeing as there's not much to look at anyway.

[dom_105]

Nuclear has too many inherent problems...however we are uranium rich.

Apart from storing the waste safely and keeping it away from weapon makers, there are no problems with nuclear. What if the waste was sent into space say every five years? The US spends so much on space projects these days, surely they could actually do something useful with it, other than spying.

Having said that, I'm all for renewable - wind and solar. How about both in the desert? We have so much desert in Australia that surely plenty of wind farms and solar panels could be built without people complaining of the ugliness, seeing as there's not much to look at anyway.

Yes, in theory I have always thought this to be a good idea.

But the US can not risk another Challenger disaster.

[F111]

Nuclear has too many inherent problems...however we are uranium rich.

Apart from storing the waste safely and keeping it away from weapon makers, there are no problems with nuclear. What if the waste was sent into space say every five years? The US spends so much on space projects these days, surely they could actually do something useful with it, other than spying.

Having said that, I'm all for renewable - wind and solar. How about both in the desert? We have so much desert in Australia that surely plenty of wind farms and solar panels could be built without people complaining of the ugliness, seeing as there's not much to look at anyway.

Yes, in theory I have always thought this to be a good idea.

But the US can not risk another Challenger disaster.

In this scenario, the planet could not risk another Challenger disaster.

[j-mac31]

Nuclear has too many inherent problems...however we are uranium rich.

Apart from storing the waste safely and keeping it away from weapon makers, there are no problems with nuclear. What if the waste was sent into space say every five years? The US spends so much on space projects these days, surely they could actually do something useful with it, other than spying.

Having said that, I'm all for renewable - wind and solar. How about both in the desert? We have so much desert in Australia that surely plenty of wind farms and solar panels could be built without people complaining of the ugliness, seeing as there's not much to look at anyway.

Yes, in theory I have always thought this to be a good idea.

But the US can not risk another Challenger disaster.

In this scenario, the planet could not risk another Challenger disaster.

Bring back the old Saturn Vs that launched the Apollo missions. (or perhaps newer, better rockets)
Shuttles are used when there is a desire to return to Earth, something not needed with nuclear watse.

[The Man from Bomberland]

I'm open to nuclear power. My understanding is it's utilised effectively in many countries and they are yet to experience problems. I think the future for Australia rests with clean coal though. There should definitely be a lot of money put into this area. While renewable sounds great in theory, the reality is we're many years away from runing our power mainly on renewables. That doesn't mean it should be ignored completely though. It definitely has a place.

Clean coal seems the way to go with the inclusion of renewables. One thing for sure is we can't keep going the way we are now.