 | The Bullroarer - Monday 4 February 2008 | TOD: Australia/New Zealand | The Bullroarer - Tuesday 5th February 2008 |  |
User login
Contact
- anz at theoildrum dot com
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Archives
GAIA Host Collective
I broadly agree with Gav's top 5 suggestions, but when it comes to reducing Australia's carbon emissions I believe there is far too much emphasis put on the residential and transport sectors, while the biggest emitters (heavy industry) escape attention.
The residential and transport sectors account for just ~30 percent of Australia's emissions (and any increase in residential electricity and fuel prices will hurt pretty much everyone). On the other hand a few heavy industries such as alminium smelting, electrolysis, metal working, brick firing and cement manufacture account for a much larger percentage of Australia's emissions and are often supplied with cut-price electricity from very dirty sources such as brown coal. These industries employ relatively few people and a tiny fraction of Australia's GDP.
So the smart politician would start by imposing higher energy costs on heavy industry first. The economic and electoral damage would be minimal.
Well - the proposed MRET target and carbon tax would hit heavy industry just as hard (or perhaps not so hard) as it hits residential and transport.
I'd rather have a truly level playing field for all instead of trying to whack particular sectors.
The ideal outcome is that as we scale up wind and CSP usage the price trends towards that of coal anyway (especially once the initial investments are amortised away).
True, but what annoys me is all the focus on residential/transport solutions (rooftop solar PV and hotwater, home insulation, energy efficient lighting, hybrid cars, public transport etc) when all of these gains could be achieved by shutting down a few smelters. Would anyone miss them? Not me!(yes I know they'd probably just move to China)
Of course that's the ideal, but I'm trying to come up with something that's politically possible, and I don't believe an across-the-board carbon tax that actually hurts consumers (read electors) to the point where they start conserving is politically possible.
Whacking heavy industry OTOH doesn't lose you many votes and has very little economic impact. They should at the very least get rid of the subsidised electricity to heavy industry.
BTW, did you see Robert Rapier has given up all hope of any real action on global warming?
Whacking heavy industry would provoke just as much bad press as a carbon tax - the same people will wail.
If you offset carbon tax with income tax cuts then the consumer isn't hurt - and they get to feel good about themselves too.
What subsidies to the smelters get ? I thought they just had long term forward sales contracts...
I hadn't seen RR's comment (I don't have time to track all the comments in Drumbeat - or even the first one sometimes :-). I hope he is wrong.
Huh?! How can a carbon tax that raises electricity and fuel prices for everyone possibly have the same impact as closing smelter or two? That's like saying Rudd raising the fuel excise by 10c/L would have the same impact as Mitsubishi closing. No-one really cares about Mitsubishi apart from the people who lost their jobs, but you'd have 10 million irate motorists if petrol jumped 10c/L because of a new tax.
I agree, I think a well thought out income-to-carbon tax switch could have very little impact on most consumers. However, I doubt we'll find a politician with the courage to try it. After all, Howard almost lost the GST election in 1998 after winning a landslide two years before.
They get electricity at a much cheaper rate than most industry, and a fraction of the residential rate. They'd all be off to China in a flash if they were asked to pay anything like the residential rate.
Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is politicians are desperate to come up with a way to reduce carbon emissions without any electoral damage. I caught Tony Blair on CNN at Davos saying this in a roundabout way a few nights ago. They know in their heart-of-hearts a carbon tax is the right thing to do, but they also know it will probably get them kicked out of office.
So, in the extraordinarily unlikely event that Kevin invites me to his summit, my suggestion to him would be hit heavy industry with higher energy prices. If they fold, or go to China, then he can wipe a few megatonnes of CO2 off Australia's slate. If they can afford the extra cost (like the miners) then we might see some conservation.
I believe that ALCOA is responsible for ~20% of Victoria's electricity consumption... I think.
Transport is an issue.The gravy train of highway construction has got to end (to mix some metaphors). Every dollar sunk into more roads is also a huge maintenance commitment for each and every year thereafter.
Perhaps Gavs Carbon tax, coupled with at least the threat of or actual reduction in diesel fuel rebates for trucking firms, might see the emergence of interest in the national rail network. Here, perhaps government could maintain ownership of the network while private interests run the services, renting competing routes, the rent used to maintain, upgrade and expand the system.
Otherwise we have the Telstra Scenario. Where competitors are renting (bits of) the network from their main rival.
Aluminium smelters are usually the largest single power consumer in a region, so your Alcoa factoid is probably true.
I agree about government owned railway tracks and private services operating on them - the network is just another natural monopoly that there are few benefits in privatising and lots of risks...
I dunno, I think today's highways will serve as transport corridors well into the future. Whenever I'm driving on a shiny new freeway I imagine light rail on one side and horse-and-cart on the other :)
When I look out the window of the train that runs along the freeway I imagine that a whole lane for push bikes or electric bikes would be handy if energy got really expensive. Come to think of it, that's how my great-grandad got to work during towards the end of the depression.