So where would you invest, using LCOE alone ? You’ve heard that solar is 20 times more expensive than new coal, then 9 times, presently 5 times, 2 times in 2020 and par by 2030. Did you spot a pattern ? Never mind the benefits that others talk about.

This is not an argument that coal is all bad. Some coal is needed at times and constant output is what coal is good at. But we have outgrown the days when we had no other choice. The technology is better, it is being used more, it happens in spite of being driven by the MRET and little else.

Given the AGW argument doesn't wash with Contrarians, recent gains for solar by emerging technologies are still a consideration. Undecided persons may wish to check it before they form an opinion on where they want energy to come from. Not just next year's energy, but while ever we have sun.

To be told that the LCOE of solar was once 9 times the cost of coal would not be a surprise. In the decade prior to that, no doubt the LCOE for solar was 20 times the cost of new coal. This argument loses itself over time. As Mr Sheehan recognises, the LCOE for the most expensive solar is currently 5 times that of coal in 2011. This opinion was based on an EPRI (US) study and quoted by the Productivity Commission, and quoted again by the Melbourne study here;-

http://www.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/~rogerd/Renew_Energy_Tech_Cost_Review.pdf

 The Melbourne Report indicates that solar prospects in the near term are very good. By 2020 the LCOE for utility scale PV will be $150/MWh. This is less than 2 times the cost of new coal, and without RECs or FiTs, subsidies, or taxpayer backing. In 2030 IEA says solar will be $100/MWh. Compare that with new gas in 2030 - also $100/MWh.

Given that every generation plant of every kind has a service life of over fifty years we need to have a longer view than worry what energy will cost next year. The historic LCOEs for both coal and clean indicate coal is a mature technology and its evolution progresses at a slower pace than solar, which has a radical price curve. The exception could be carbon capture and storage, which is being progressed vigorously by CSIRO. Technologies needed by both (ie the turbines, the grid and efficiency gains) continue to evolve at their own pace.

Well that probably wouldn't be a bargain. LCOE is and should be a handy means of comparison. If there were no generators in existence but we knew the LCOE of each type when constructed anew, no doubt we would use it against the deployment of solar because of solar's higher cost. There would have to be some other consideration, such as air quality, or external environmental impact of extracting, processing and transporting coal, or accessible coal simply runs out, or maybe some perceived benefit of reducing the concentration of CO2-e in the atmosphere, to warrant additional investment required to get energy from solar.

Coal came first because it is good value, and the efficient technology needed for solar didn't exist at the time. We have been fair to ourselves and the coal industry by being dependent on it for so long. Australians of several generations back have paid for each and every coal-fired generator and its coal with their taxes before selling them.

Those who turned up to the Multi-Party Climate Committee decided it is only a likewise bit of public money and carbon tax that allows investment in clean generators to be considered on the same playing field. Solar has another disadvantage in that we have none. The first plant is expensive, but do more, scale it and you get better economy, just like we once did with coal. The banks begin to lend at mortgage rather than speculative business rates.

When are the climate deniers going to realise that reputable climate scientists writing about their research into climate models, and showing evidence of failures of the models are doing their jobs, and so are the models. Climate models are only meant to model the climate for the particular parameters the model is set to predict, and to do as good a job of it as is possible for a non linear system with limited data. The more models are interrogated the more likely they are to be improved and make better predictions. But making better predictions are only to reduce risk as best we can, by better knowing what will happen to the climate.

It is not the model's job to prove or disprove anthropogenic global warming. Just to make the best predictions possible with the data available. The models are predicting warming and climate change, the disrepencies are in just how quickly it will change, where it will change the most, and which way it will go, how stable it will be etc. In other words, warming is happening, none of the potential climate changes are good, and we're just trying to predict how bad it is going to be, and where, to better prepare ourseves for the consequences of what climate change is already in the pipeline, or could be with different policy and emmissions scenarios.

Don't confuse the specifics of the prediction with the prediction.

@Chris Frazer. If I could follow what it is you are trying to say, we could continue the conversation. Please clarify and provide any relevant links. What is your point about LCOE (Levelized cost of electricity)? Do you mean that if the government throws massive amounts of taxpayer funded subsidies at renewables, that the price becomes levelized? What order of magnitude are you talking about, are you saying solar is 51 times more expensive than coal rather than 50 times more expensive?

Up until coming across this SMH article I had always used an American study which had solar PV at 10 times more expensive than coal. That was based on solar PV being 900% more expensive, plus the cost of a coal fired back-up power station. What a bargain?

Well Bill i checked it and it is a good thing SMH changed their Sheehan piece for the LCOE figures for clean energies wind and solar, a mistake which you were allowed to follow at the time you wrote. I hope Mr Sheehan wouldn't be wishing the actual LCOE for clean energy to be out by a whole order of magnitude !

@Chris Fraser. Hi Chris, thank you for your enquiry. My source is a recent Sydney Morning Herald article, titled "Labor all tied up in red and green tape". The link to the article is:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/labor-all-tied-up-in-red-and-gree...

It would have been prudent of me to follow up on the Productivity commission source, but I've been spreading myself a little thin lately. Perhaps you could assist us unpaid volunteers by following up on that yourself. I have no reason to doubt the SMH on this matter, given their pro-AGW leaning.

ok, Bill, ok. Let's check the Productivity Commission's factors and methods. Please post the link to the Report for the info of all clean energy fanciers.

@ Vicki Kyriakakis. Speaking of emeritus professors, 1973 Nobel Laureate Ivar Giaever has just resigned as a fellow from the American Physics Society, condemning the group's official stand on global warming. Apparently he stated in 2008 that "I am a skeptic...Global warming has become a new religion". Link to article:

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/214181/20110915/ivar-giaever-global-warm...

This is not the first time an emeritus professor has resigned from the American Physics Society over this issue. Similar stirrings have occurred amongst other leading scientific societies, but it's unlikely you'll hear about it on our ABC.

@ Vicki Kyriakakis. Stubbornness applies to both sides, and scepticism thrives when the facts don't fit the theory. I recall the IPCC had projected temperatures to skyrocket over the past decade, towards the top right hand corner of the graph, but the past decade's trend has been fairly flat. Please refer to any satellite data. It's the facts which are stubborn. You say we've known about all this since the 1800's but the first IPCC report did not attribute warming to man's CO2 emissions. Nor did the second IPCC report in 1995, until one scientist acting alone changed the conclusion. Did you know that? Even in the third IPCC report of 2001, there is a disclaimer; "In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible." IPCC TAR,2001) Section 142.2.2, page 774. Unsurprisingly this has not been mentioned on our ABC. If we look to last week's Catalyst "Science under siege" program we can see how views such as yours are reinforced through clever editing. An alarmist scientist appearing on the program had the benefit of a name and title, whereas a former CSIRO sceptical scientist was described as "Man B" in the transcript. It's no wonder the public is so ill-informed when the government broadcaster is so blatantly biased. Please at least recognize, that most of us here participating in this debate, (which was over before it began), care for our children's future.

@David leComte. Thank you for your historical observations on smoking and tobacco. This illogical argument by innuendo comes up so often, there are probably people out there who think that smoking tobacco has something to do with man-made global warming.

I once met an AYCC youth volunteer who seemed to think man-made global warming could be solved by an additional tax on cigarettes, so who knows what nonsense such groups put into our kids' minds.

If I can draw any similarities from your analogy, it's that a carbon price which makes energy artificially more expensive, will also lead to potential human harm and premature deaths. I've heard stories of pensioners who are already dependent on blankets to keep warm during the daytime, because they can't afford their power bills. Perhaps carbon pricing will even overtake the death rate from tobacco smoking.

As "independent" unelected bureaucrats on intergovernmental panels keep raising the bar by raising emissions targets, population would decline even further thereby assisting in meeting higher future emissions reductions targets. Where are we going with this?

I grew up in the 60s, when most male adults smoked.

In the country town that I lived in, all the boys of my age group smoked.  By the age of 17, most of the girls smoked.

The scientific reports linking smoking to cancer and other problems were often dismissed on the radio and in newspapers.  I cannot think of any adult ever warning about smoking, including both my parents who thought that all this cancer stuff was nonsense.

Most teachers smoked, and would do so in the staff rooms and in the playground.  They seemed to see smoking in the schoolyard as a discipline issue, not a medical one.  Some would just "look the other way".

I wonder how many people of my baby-boomer generation who, despite all the evidence, became addicted to nicotine.   More interestingly, how many died prematurely.

The evidence deniers today, are, at least, as potentially harmful as those in the 50s and 60s.

"With no global warming since approximately the year 2000 (despite what the professional data adjusters  would have you believe) all Abbott has to do is wait for the black carbon tax to become a white elephant. Unlike the wonder bra, it may not happen overnight, but it will happen."

Since there is easily availalble information and evidence that proves you are completely wrong on this point, one can only conclude Stephen Short that you are willfully ignoring the facts. In which case, one also would question what you have to gain from ignoring the fact that it's been widely reported that 2010 was the warmest year on record and that 10 of the warmest years on record have been between 2000 and 2010.

You can say no (and you probably will) but they'll still be the facts tomorrow. And the day after that. And the Earth will also still be round.

It's incredible to me just how stubborn some continue to be about the science of climate change. They roll-out much refuted spin, claim no evidence exist where copious amounts of evidence exist, and generally put year 9 science teachers to shame for not doing better work to educate Australians on basic scientific principles. We've known that too much CO2 will increase global temperatures since the late 1800's. Evidence from multiple streams supports that this is indeed what is happening. And yet... and yet. They call emeritus professors zealots and our best scientists, alarmists. They claim conspiracies where none exist, and generate hysteria about looming economic disasters where the most level-headed and honest business execs and economists have already shown otherwise. I'm all for free-speech, but this enormous mis-information campaign will cost us our children's future. Those who wilfully peddle anti-scienfic and economic claptrap should be deeply, deeply ashamed of themselves for the enromous damage they do to our country and our planet. I'm inclined to think that many are being paid for the privilege of polluting the debate.

@Chris Fraser. The Productivity commission figures for the cost of generating  electricity in Australia last year are $79 per megawatt for coal, $97 for gas, $1502 for wind and $4004 for solar. Don't you see the drama?

If all coal and gas were replaced with "clean" energy the Australian economy would disappear almost completely.

Furthermore, the proposed "independent" Clean Energy Finance Corporation as mortgagee, would end up owning our children, grandchildren and country.

I think you're right, TA has backed the wrong horse on both counts, that is climate policy and "boats".

Sadly he will likely win the next election regardless, then u turn on his policies leaving Alan Jones, et al looking, well, even more silly. But, he is the PM! Job done but at enormous cost to we the hapless taxpayer. 

I never imagined that I would live in country where our scientists receive death threats simply for doing their job.

I remember when the Taliban took control of Kabul, one of the first things they did was break into the local version of the Bureau of Meteorology, smash all the equipment, and arrest all the scientists chanting that "only God can predict the future!".

Predictably, with no short, medium or long term forecasts famine and shortages ensued. 

This is the twilight world Abbott and others are creating with the attacks on science. The end of reason, where science can be determined by your politics rather than the careful gathering of evidence

Wikipedia:

He (Lovelock) partly retreated from this position in a September 2007 address to the World Nuclear Association's Annual Symposium, suggesting that climate change would stabilise and prove survivable, and that the Earth itself is in "no danger" because it would stabilise in a new state. 

In a March 2010 interview with the Guardian newspaper, he (Lovelock) said that democracy might have to be "put on hold" to prevent climate change.[28] He continued:

"The great climate science centres around the world are more than well aware how weak their science is. If you talk to them privately they're scared stiff of the fact that they don't really know what the clouds and the aerosols are doing...We do need scepticism about the predictions about what will happen to the climate in 50 years, or whatever. It's almost naive, scientifically speaking, to think we can give relatively accurate predictions for future climate. There are so many unknowns that it's wrong to do it."

BTW, I never said Lovelock was senile. I've been a lifelong admirer. I was referring to accusations levelled at Prof. Freeman Dyson of Princeton University who was widely derided in the US as being senile when he spoke out against AGW catastrophism. 

Lovelock was never, and never will be on the side of those cretins who elevate an uncertain science to the status of a medieval religion, complete with witch burning and revival of the concept of heresy.

Real science doesn't need the Al Gore rhythm method.

Stephen Short

It is grossly disingenuous to characterise James Lovelock as senile or his position as having changed.  

You come across as reliable as "The Australian Conservative" who offer the headline  "Now Lovelock says he might be wrong about climate change", and then bury on a separate page the following:

To boil down any of Lovelock's thoughts to a few sentences is to do him a serious disservice, but here goes. As he sees it, climate change is now all but out of control. We should certainly cut our greenhouse-gas emissions, but focus most of our efforts on adapting to a world that, sooner or later, will turn troublesome beyond words. . . .  From time to time, he dispenses optimism, of a sort: he's not having the standard-issue predictions of steadily-rising global temperatures, and thinks that though the Earth could suddenly heat up in a way that few models have so far predicted, we might also have longer to prepare than some people think.

"Who knows? Everybody might be wrong," he says. "I may be wrong. Climate change may not happen as fast as we thought, and we may have 1,000 years to sort it out."

To knowingly confuse true scientific sceptisism with 'turning' is a disengenuous misrepresentation. 

Should readers of Climate Spectator now assume that all your posts bear the same veracity?

@Michel Syna-Rahme, I see you are continuing to spread unfounded allegations for which you have no evidence. This is not surprising as you also appear to rely on the IPCC's failed computer modeled climate alarmism, for which there is no empirical evidence either. Perhaps you could identify some scientific facts which you feel have been misrepresented by sceptics. There's certainly been a lot of clear cut misrepresentation in the political spectrum since the last election, but I note you are not concerned about such. Opinion polls suggest the laymen are generally disgruntled, and presumably these political misrepresentations are playing a large part, so I'm a little surprised at your contrary interpretation of where the masses are at. Self delusion and denial often go hand in hand. If the symptoms persist they may escalate to making unfounded and false allegations.

'IPCC AR4 GCMs overestimate the warming in the
tropics for 1979–2010, which is partly responsible for the
larger T24‐T2LT trends in GCMs. It is found that the discrepancy between model and observations is also caused by the trend ratio of T24 to T2LT, which is ∼1.2 from models but ∼1.1 from observations. While strong observational evidence indicates that tropical deep‐layer troposphere warms faster than surface, this study suggests that the AR4 GCMs may exaggerate the increase in static stability between tropical middle and upper troposphere in the last three decades. In view of the importance of the enhanced tropical upper tropospheric warming to the climate sensitivity and to
the change of atmospheric circulations, it is critically
important to understand the causes responsible for the discrepancy between the models and observations."

Qiang Fu, the lead author of this recent paper is one of the major gurus of global climate modelling. He is a very eminent scientist:

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~qfu/

As Fu et al. contains the above text (and plots like their Figures 2 and 3) then you know IPCC is in trouble with the ensemble means of all their GCMs.

Or, to put it into the sort of more basic terms you high school science warmista nongs might understand:

If the Fu Shits, WEAR IT.

@Michael Hasset. There seems to be some divergence between the three other major climate monitoring agencies and GISS NASA which is worth looking into, but here is a little light entertainment titled "thermometer magic" before you move on to the serious science:

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/thermometer-magic/

So I'd recommend checking out what UAH, Hadcrut and RSS have to say, before getting carried away with Greg Combet's favourite line about the 2010 La Nina year. Here's one link for starters:

http://www.paulmacrae.com/?p=129

A direct quote from the article he linked to: "satellite MSU/AMSU observations generally support GCM [General Circulation Model] results with tropical deep‐layer tropospheric warming faster than surface".

Phil Clarke: I think it's more than just the think tanks... remember, the fossil fuel industry represents several hundred billion dollars worth of profits.  If they throw a few tens of millions at PR campaigns to try to persuade people that burning coal & oil & gas isn't so bad after all, despite what those pesky scientists say, then it's money well spent, in their view.  I'm sure the tobacco companies felt the same way, heck the oil companies even hired the same 'scientists' to rebut mainstream science...

Irrespective of individual party preferences it seems to me that nationally we were all far happier with a more co-operative direction on climate change polic, as existed with a Turnbull/Rudd Parliamentary leadership. 

Abbott's Climate Change denial based team was an aberration and I believe people are increasingly realising that that particular populist gambit has run its course

I think we mostly want to get back on track in dealing with our international environmental problems and move on. The only people really upset would be a few old folks in Right Wing Think Tanks who can't see what harm there is in the bubbles in their Gin and Tonic

Stephen Short, NASA GISS data gives 2010 as the hottest year to date. And you have mis represented the article you referenced.

Wil B - because they are members or affiliate with members of the 'Climate Sceptics Party' and those paid to confuse the laymen of our country by misinterpriting scientific facts. It is dismal but quite entertaining watching them go on record with 'stuff' that most of us know will become their downfall. We can either go around in circles with them as they waste their time or watch and wait for them to be silenced by the masses.

The early impact of a carbon tax may very well be a fizzer. It's also fair to argue there is "Nothing to see here folks", just as when a cancer cell is activated in a body, it tends to initially go by unnoticed.

The Abbott / Turnbull differences may inspire compelling commentary from some of our media, but this is a moot point given that Labor's carbon tax / ETS, is a hair's breadth away from the similarly economically damaging "direct action" plan. Based on past commentary from the Libs, if other countries go jumping off cliffs, it seems likely "direct action" will also morph into an international ETS.

There seems to be a longing for the past amongst some of our media commentators looking back to the same characters and untarnished climate myths of the late (pre-December) 2009 bipartisan period in our history.

Tony Abbott certainly changed the political landscape from 1st December 2009 with his "Great big new tax" platform and has succeeded in winning over the Australian public to a great big new tax under a different name. Some might refer to this as window dressing.

If the weak and discredited IPCC science which underpins the bipartisan renewable energy targets and bipartisan demonization of carbon dioxide was subjected to a well publicized mainstream science debate and the public became better informed, the political landscape would then truly be transformed and Australia would be saved from this cancer.

It seems that Mr Burgess is more concerned with seeing Tony Abbott fall/fail than making a comment on what is important - the truth behind this debate.  He allows his incredible left wing bias to cloud the real issues around this debate, which are whether there actually is a man made climate change problem firstly, and secondly, if it exists, whether putting a tax on it can solve it!

The evidence over the last decade suggests that AGW is not real, and we know climate has cycled and changed over billions of years, since long before man was a species.  The debate seems implausible to begin with.  How imposing a tax could affect more than the economy, when the climate seems to have a mind and a path of its own, seems silly, to say the least.

Mr Burgess, when you have something of scientific value to contribute, I'd love to hear from you, but for now, this is more than enough!

Because a lie repeated often enough becomes truth.

Because faith is a powerful tool for self belief, regardless of good motivation or intent

Because such oppinions only exist in this debate by the defacto nature of free speech - and that one does not have to be qualified to claim to be qualified in such an environment.

So to continue 'being', nutters both rich and poor have to  contribute to as  many possible media oppurtunities to simply continue 'being' - they have no other physical reality  (peer reviewed science) of which  can be used to continue their ideas without oratory exertion.

Compassion for those whose paths will ultimately prove fruitless, that is the true nature of suffering - far beyond that which they casue others.

In fact getting rid of rabbits and improving land management practices has done far more than any ill conceived “Green policy” based on imported science from the Northern Hemisphere. These facts can be proven right now.

I always suspected a carbon tax would be simply a form of bunny money!