Senator Bob Brown insists all coal driven power stations should be closed by 2020.

I would suggest that the public be given an opportunity to see what it is like to be without those power stations, say for one day a week, every week, for say, a year.

As power stations cannot be switched on and off like lights in a home, it will be cheaper and better for the operators to simply cut off the power for 24 hours once a week.

Power stations will be compensated for their financial losses by the Greens, the Labor party and those true believers in the Liberal party.

This will give the public some basis on which to make judgments.

When the power goes off, there will be:

* No trains.
* No airline operations.
* No shops open.
* No food available.
* No coffee shops.
* No paper shop.
* No radio and or television transmission.
* No air conditioning.
* No electric blankets in winter.
* No refrigeration.
* No washing machines.
* No electrical appliance systems at all.
* No electronic communications systems.
* No sporting events.
* No 000 calls.
* No ambulance.
* No Fire Brigade.
* No medical operations.
* No X-rays.

I have been wondering whether the public would stand this for a year; especially over a non-existent problem. If Senator Brown gets his way they will have to endure it for ever.

Apart from hydro power, coal driven power is still the cheapest source of reliable power on earth.

Ronald Kitching
Rockhampton QLD Australia.

While the Rudd climate regiment is stuck in Copenhagen, achieving not much, they should look beyond their posh hotel for some lessons in energy generation.

Read on: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/lessons-from-europe.pdf [PDF, 158 KB]

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”

The Walrus and The Carpenter, Lewis Carroll, from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872

Once upon a time there was a land where cabbages were very popular. People used them for all sorts of things. There were central farms where they were grown, and distributed to supermarkets from where people bought them. The subjects in this land could buy the cabbages for about 17 cents each.

One day the King decided that it was a bad thing for the cabbages to be produced by these large farms. He said it hurt the environment to have them transported all the way to the supermarkets. He also said too much water was used on those farms.
(more…)

By Viv Forbes

Four energy sources power most of our world – oil, coal, uranium and gas. These are the earth energy sources that provide heat, light, transportation and power for most homes, factories, farms, vehicles, engines and appliances (for Australia and New Zealand, cross out uranium).

Australia has large buried resources of all of these fuels, and we lead the world in exploration, drilling and extraction technology.

So what could go wrong?

In just three words – stupid energy policies. Big Nanny must intervene in these markets with ever changing rules on tenure, investment policies, development conditions, restricted and no-go areas, market mandates, export embargos and discriminatory taxes and subsidies.

Complete article: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/gas-wastrels.pdf [PDF, 111KB]

A dust storm on 25th September 2009 viewed from the office of the Carbon
Sense Coalition.

Read more: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/dust.pdf [PDF, 271KB]

By Peter Lang

This paper compares the capital cost of three electricity generation technologies based on a simple analysis. The comparison is on the basis that the technologies can supply the National Electricity Market (NEM) demand without fossil fuel back up…

The three technologies compared are:

1. Nuclear power;
2. Solar photo-voltaic with energy storage; and
3. Solar thermal with energy storage.

Full article here. [PDF, 52KB]

Here is the original article: Solar Power Realities

Viv Forbes

In a lifetime of observing and participating in politics, the world wide campaign by the international green movement (aided by the power-seeking UN bureaucracy) to monitor, control and tax every food, energy and transport business in the world is the most dangerous development I have ever seen. It has the potential to blight the lives and investments of the majority of Australians who are unable to find a safe place for themselves on the government payroll or in the protected Climate Change Industry.

Full article. [PDF, 87KB]

The Government will probably reintroduce the Renewable Energy Targets Bill (The RENT Scheme) very soon. The Liberals are unlikely to stop it – they are too engrossed in considerations of survival, and too many are hostage to Green dreamers, Green Industry speculators and vested interests lined up to profit from suffering electricity consumers.

This bill has nothing to commend it.

Firstly, the whole idea of the Emissions Trading Systems beloved by the Lib-Lab party and the merchant banking speculators is that it allows the market to determine the cheapest way to reduce emissions. It is totally negated when politicians mandate or subsidise certain energy systems. Thus the Rent Scheme should be shelved until the fate of the Ration-N-Tax Scheme is finally decided.

Secondly, it would be foolish in the extreme to force Australian industry to pay elevated electricity costs before it is clear what is coming out of the IPCC talkfest in Copenhagen in December, and what our international competitors are doing.

Thirdly, there is no chance that a force fed program to force solar/wind to supply 20% of Australia’s power will succeed without the risk of disruptions to power supplies and rapidly escalating costs for electricity and gas (which will be needed to back up unreliable green power).

And finally, the environmental “benefits” are very doubtful. When the massive land dislocation, and the minerals, energy and emissions resulting from the manufacture and installation of thousands of wind towers and solar panels are fully accounted for, we may find that Green Power is not so green after all.

This bill should be postponed until a full sensible assessment is made.

Viv Forbes

PDF version of this article. [PDF, 29KB]

A statement by Mr Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, Australia.

The Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition, Mr Viv Forbes, today called for an audit by the Productivity Commission into PM Rudd’s Green Jobs Plan.

Forbes explains:

“Whenever politicians claim to create jobs, close examination usually finds that the jobs were created in another country and their policies have merely created more welfare recipients.

“Much of the tax funded subsidy money being thrown at “alternative energy” is creating jobs in China making the hardware. Then it employs a few short term people installing the stuff. In the end, the only real jobs created are repairing wind towers and cleaning dust off solar panels. Even these are not real jobs because the moment the government stops forcing electricity companies to use their expensive and unreliable green power, these jobs will also evaporate.

“Real jobs are those that produce unsubsidized goods or services that can be sold in open
markets at a profit.”

Read the full statement. [PDF, 267KB]

Supply-Demand Characteristics, Storage and Capital Costs
By Peter Lang

This paper provides a simple analysis of the capital cost of solar power and energy storage sufficient to meet the demand of Australia’s National Electricity Market. It also considers some of the environmental effects. It puts the figures in perspective…

Conclusions: solar power is uneconomic. Government mandates and subsidies hide the true cost of renewable energy but these additional costs must be carried by others.

The http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/solar-realities.pdf [PDF, 738KB]

Addendum – Comparison of Capital Cost of Nuclear and Solar Power: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/solar-realities-addendum.pdf [PDF, 52KB]