Australia has a ~$3 trillion economy, of which total government revenue is ~$1 trillion. This requires roughly 100 million tonnes of fossil carbon to be burnt (consumed) each year, emitting about 370 million tonnes of CO2.

Put another way, Australia get ~$30,000 of GDP per tonne of fossil carbon burnt; government revenues are ~$10,000 per tonne of fossil carbon consumed, or ~$2700 per tonne emitted CO2.

So let's get serious about this. We could begin by phasing out all subsidies on fossil fuel use, and we introduce a fossil carbon consumption tax. We use the revenue from the fossil carbon consumption tax to cut other taxes - exactly which taxes are cut is something for politicians to fight about.

Then we increase the rate of the fossil carbon consumption tax a bit, use the funds to continue cutting other taxes, and ask, "Have we achieved the emissions reduction we need?"

IF the answer is yes, we resume normal taxation. If the answer is 'no', we increase the rate of fossil carbon consumption tax a bit more, use the funds to continue cutting other taxes, then ask if we've achieved the required emissions reductions. Etc.

We'll have priced fossil fuel use out of the economy long before we reach our carbon tax ceiling of $10,000 per tonne.

Best of all, with zero rating of exports and border tax adjustment of imports (including fossil carbon used to ship goods to Australia), trade-exposed industry will be better off with no additional 'compensation'.

Someone should tell Martin Ferguson.

Business will only do what is the bare minimum required! Sometimes the government needs to take the lead and run the companies if they want real change. Fusion technology is the answer as everything else is just a bandaid solution!

Diana,

the symposium was held at Parliament House, Canberra on the 24 & 25 November.  

Refer:  http://www.thoriumaustralia.com.au/symposium.html

They have yet to post the papers.  I will be extremely interested in Dr Adrian Paterson’s view to nuclear power. 

Matthew,

The examples you give of nuclear costs vs solar thermal costs are quite biased. If you have objections to nuclear power on grounds other than economics, fair enough. But to pick the worst case nuclear scenario and compare with extremely optimistic solar thermal scenarios are unhelpful.

Further, I have read the BZE Stationary Energy plan and am found wanting. I was encouraged by the excercise itself, as I've always held the view that we need energy transition encouragment by costed, capable and considered plans.

BZE needs to decide whether their plan is political encouragment excercise or a realistic plan for Australia; if the latter than you must resond to your critics!

Here is one critique worthy of a response: http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/08/12/zca2020-critique/ 

Cheers,

Paul

“The carbon price is a good start but it is not enough.”

That is an unsubstantiated statement.  I have not seen a reliable analysis that has properly evaluated the costs and benefits of the carbon price.  Most of the analyses done so far seem to have been driven by an ideological belief that it is the right thing to do.  I have not seen a risk analysis that has evaluated the risk that the carbon price will not achieve what it is supposed to achieve (reduction in global emissions and measureable change in the climate), versus the costs of the tax.  For one thing, raising the cost of electricity in the western democracies is exactly the wrong policy; we need to reduce the cost of low emissions electricity if we want to developing countries to take low emissions technologies instead of fossil fuels.  Raising the cost of electricity in the western democracies is exactly the wrong policy, IMO. http://pacificclimate.org/sites/default/files/publications/Pielke.ClimateFix.Apr2011.pdf

Tony Wood,

Thank you for this op-ed.  I have a few comments:

“As a result, Australia is at grave risk of not being able to meeting its carbon emission commitments by 2050 while at the same time keeping electricity affordable.”

Not only that, but we will lock in investment in assets that have a 20 to 40 year life – assets that will not cut emissions by much.  In so doing, we waste our ability to invest in the technologies that would cut our emissions at least cost.  If we removed the impediments that are preventing us implementing the technologies that could give us low emissions, and many other advantages as well, we could have low emissions electricity at little more cost than now.  This is being prevented by bad government policy - anti-nuclear.

As held here in December.  Do you have a link for that?  There would be a lot of people interested in at least hearing what the participants have to say.  Cheers.

It may be convenient to dismiss LFTR as a pipe dream, but before such an important technology is dismissed, it should be given due consideration. 

You should be aware that it is seriously being developed in the Czech Republic and the US, as well as in China. 

The question of development time is one that can be argued, but to suggest it would take 20 years for China to develop a proto-type, give me a break. 

However, while we can press on with wind and solar, I hope that our nuclear community will take a serious look at LFTR.  

The LFTR research project in China is at the announcement stage.  Announced in mid 2011 they aim to achieve a power plant of some sort (prototype perhaps) by 2031.

By that time Solar PV would have passed grid parity in electrical grids worldwide by 2015-2020.  WInd Power would have passed grid parity by 2025,PV would have passed wholesale grid parity by 2025 and solar thermal would have come down teh cost curve to cost not much more than PV but of course provide dispatchable power so plants can be built in Baseload, Intermediate or Peaking arrangement.

Meanwhile China may or may not have come up with something nearing a commercialisation opportunity form its laboratory research program into LTFR.  LTFR is another pipedream.  The fallout from these pipedreams is that R&D money is diverted away from Solar and WInd which would give us a good payback on any money that goes to improving them.

Tony,

thanks for your article as it highlights that government policies are required to aid the development of emerging clean energy solutions.  While domestic solar and wind power is to be applauded, an emerging nuclear technology also deserves serious consideration. 

The liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) design, supported by Sorenson, appears to be the best MSR design solution to date.  This technology is being developed in China at this moment and it is reported that commercial LFTR plants will be available in 5 years.  There is also pressure in the US to develop this energy.  LFTRs don’t suffer the safety, cost and waste disposal problems of the existing nuclear reactors, which some countries are abandoning.  Sorenson and Hargraves explain the many advantages of this technology in detail. 

Fortunately, some informed debate on nuclear energy is occurring.  A thorium energy conference was recently held in Canberra last December.  I am eagerly waiting to read the papers presented, and to find out if any significant conclusions have resulted. 

Blue Planet,

Sorry I whacked that out pretty quickly.  Our Geothermal is not conventional geothermal.  It is mostly radioactivy material decaying deep under ground.  The temperature are low (exit temperatures of 190C.  Each site is different and has huge risks (ie getting the water to even return) let alone temperature.  Local drawdown much faster than recharge meaning fields become effectively depleted.

Temperature drop occurs so equipment becomes less and less effective over short life of wells. 

Organic Rankine Cycle turbines cost 3 times as much per megawatt hour versus a standard Alstom conventional turbine at 500 or 600C with standard pressures.

Seismic activity from hydraulic fracturing can cause a loss of continuity in wells, therefore necessitating redrills.

A successful field would need at least 90 boreholes for 500MW this involves the world's biggest rig operating 24x7 for 3months per well - and that's iff they do not have technical difficulty or a failure of some sort.

The location of the plants proposed are generally miles from anywhere.

The list goes on.

In conclusion Geothermal in Australia is about a proposal to use warm water in the desert far away from anywhere to generate electricicty.  The technology involved is proven only at one or two tiny pilot sites under 5MW electrical.

Mathew - Would you be able to elaborate on this please?

To even consider nuclear power as being viable in this country is ridiculous of Grattan to say the least.  Areva the world's biggest nuclear power plant technology country has just announced a further year of delays for its 6 year late Gen III nuclear reactor in Finland.  This is after the project has gone $4 Billion overcosts and forced the exit of the world's 2nd biggest power technology company Siemens as a partner.

In all Grattan's report fails to show that in the near term Solar will be competitive in the market, and in the meantime (3 years approx) should be supported by Feed-in-Tariffs, it fails to acknowledge the commercial reality of baseload solar thermal plants that include storage and it fails to acknowledge that Feed-in-Tariffs have been the most successful policy mechanism for reducing technology costs and carbon abatement demonstrated anywhere in the world to date.

Grattan's fascination with fossil gas (coal seam gas, shale gas and conventional gas) is consistent with the position of Tony Wood's (Grattan, Program Director Energy) former employer Origin Energy which is set for windfall profits if it can achieve its aims to develop massive Coal Seam Gas resources acros the eastern seaboard.

#3. Feed-in-Tariffs do not distort the market and are more effective than a carbon price.  The "elimination" of Feed-in-Tariffs in Australia as suggested by the Grattan Institute would be the elimination of one of only two very successful significant scale zero carbon policies.  Last year the Feed-in-Tariffs achieved over $5 Billion dollars in new energy investment, more than was spent on any other source.  The Feed-in-Tariffs have also achieved significant lowering of the country's wholesale electricity costs and real reduction in carbon emissions as well as driving down the cost of future installations of the technology.

Furthermore to the above 3 points,

Mapping of renewable resource is not the major requirment as suggested, the industry knows where the wind and solar resource is but it needs the government to legislate for transmission network extensions to reach it.

Geothermal and CCS are not natural advantages to Australia.  CCS is not a natural advantage to anyone, as it has never been demonstrated anywhere post combustion with coal fired or gas fired generation,and many experts around the world agree that it never will.  Geothermal in Australia is a sub-standard form of "Enhanced" Geothermal.  Those countries which have a natural advantage in Geothermal such as New Zealand, USA, Iceland etc have conventional geothermal resources.  Enhanced Geothermal resources such as those found in Australia are highly speculative and will likely never be proven.

Beyond Zero Emissions preliminary response to Grattan Report

The Grattan Institute is misdirecting the public debate on energy and leaving us with the wrong conclusions on renewable energy, coal, gas and nuclear in its latest report.

"No quick fix for Australia’s future energy challenge"

#1 On Rooftop Solar photovoltaic which is the only energy generation technology that has halved in price in the last 24 months, the Grattan institute misleads by providing a comparison between the cost of wholesale fossil fuel electricity and the cost of solar photovoltaic electricity which currently competes in the retail electricity market.

"We do not expect Coles and Woolworths in their customer facing supermarkets to compete with the prices at teh Footscray Wholesale Fruit and Veg market or with grocery wholesaler Metcash"  It is wrong for the Grattan institute to ignore the differences between the wholesale and retail markets.

#2 On storage, Solar Thermal (Molten Salt Power Towers with integrated thermal storage tanks) is already commercially deployed in baseload, intermediate and peaking configurations in Spain and under construction at a number of sites in the US.   This technology is commercially available, off the shelf and ready for deployment in Australia which will lead to rapid cost reductions.  Again Grattan is wrong to claim that storage technologies are not yet available.  Furthermore Renault-Nissan's CEO is claiming that its Li-On battery technology could be as low as  $190 per kilowatt hour by 2014.

Mark,

The point is that Germany is phasing out nuclear power and Japan is shaky.  I suggest the reason for this is that in both countries (Germany through an untimely storm when Chernobyl happened) large numbers of citizens have been exposed to significant radioactivity and they didn't like the experience.  The German nuclear phase out has 80% public support and the German Govt is using this to reorient the country along a renewable energy path (wind & solar).

Nuclear is too slow, too expensive (with more and more safety needing to be built in) and no clear path to handling waste.

Solar and wind are being implemented at scale now.

Face reality nuclear is not the way forward.

Why are we still talking about CCS?  Surely this is just a way of trying to delay action.

Richard Koser, you imply that there have been six nuclear catastrophes, but I submit that the term 'catastrophe' is overstating the situation more than a little.  By far the greatest number of deaths was associated with a single incident (Chernobyl), amounting to a few hundred at most after a quarter of a century.  Take that out (as is reasonable, since Chernobyl was essentially a bomb-making plant with a generator tacked on, and of a type that was never built outside the Soviet Union), and the number of deaths attributable to direct effects of civilian nuclear power can be just about counted on one hand.  Hardly 'catastrophic'.

In any case, your implied extrapolation of new reactor risk from past performance is fallacious, highlighted by the fact that (Chernobyl again excepted) no reactor completed after the early 1970s has 'gone boom', as you put it, even under the worst of circumstances (i.e. Fukushima Daiini, which survived the same quake and tsunami that took out the older Fukushima Daiichi).  The point being that nuclear technology continues to improve, at least as fast as renewables.

Interesting 'framework' article but: I don't think anyone has proved CCS can work, and nuclear plants have this unhappy habit of blowing up: since we started building them we've managed to switch 85 of them off and six have gone "boom". I'm no gambler, but that's a 7% chance of catastrophe.

And trusting the market? I thought the GFC showed us what a dumb idea that was. It's just too tempting to game the system for short-term private gain and then socialise the losses. That's why power prices will crank up over the next few years: the power companies held off on investments for as long as possible.

But we could certainly do more to level the playing field. In Oz, and around the world, subsidies for fossil fuels are worth 10 or 12 times as much as subsidies for renewables. Our governments are building coal railways and paying GM to continue building HSV utes, surely examples of governments picking losers.

And then we have the problem of democracy. No elected government can set and stick with long-term goals as you suggest because of electoral cycles. They need to buy votes, and workers in a Holden plant are easier to target than the unknown number of unknown people who will get a job in a new industry sector. So we end up supporting dying industries - as every medic knows, life support is expensive and usually only postpones the inevitable - and smothering new ones in the cradle.