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Is one post in a row the limit for you logic?

lee wrote on Dec 24^th, 2024 at 7:29pm:


Would you like to have another go at making sense?

We should not be subsidising electricity Lee.

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Are you suggesting the government would tax electricity with a carbon tax and use the revenue generated from that tax to subsidise electricity?

freediver wrote on Dec 26^th, 2024 at 6:45am:



Are you suggesting that hasn't been done in the past, that it won't happen in the future? Look to history.

From UNSW -

"Carbon emissions would be taxed at $50 per ton, with the proceeds returned to ordinary Australians as carbon dividends.

The dividends would be significant — a tax-free payment of about $1300 per adult."

https://businessthink.unsw.edu.au/articles/A-carbon-tax-that-would-leave-househo...

Or from Ross Garnaut -

"Part of that increased revenue could support payments to power users to ensure there was no increase in power prices to users until expansion of renewable generation and storage had brought costs down – along the lines of the A$300 per household introduced in the 2024 budget, but larger."

https://theconversation.com/lets-tax-carbon-ross-garnaut-on-why-the-time-is-righ...

Now the thing is IF electricity costs are not brought down and they haven't anywhere in thw world that has some carbon pricing mechanism, then those payments must continue.

We do have something to fear from nuclear—huge costs, 10x what Dutton is spruiking.

I am not against some nuclear in the mix BUT cost is a HUGE obstacle. Waste can be managed—store it in the old Mt Painter, SA, uranium mine.

Need good sites: no major earthquakes so on craton* (ruling out the Eastern states apart from  Broken Hill etc) and plenty of water for cooling—so has to be the coast without some heroic redirection of water from northern Australia.


*Craton:
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Can explode etc—from your link.

Water cooled be betterer.

Frank wrote on Dec 26^th, 2024 at 1:12pm:

The crucial point is this.

As Frontier Economics admits, under the opposition’s blueprint, “renewables continue to dominate the provision of electricity to consumers”, with wind and solar accounting for between 50 and 60 per cent of electricity generated in 2051 and nuclear between 38 and 29 per cent (depending on the demand scenario chosen).

Given that wind and solar currently account for 32 per cent of electricity output, their system-wide share will rise significantly under the Coalition’s plan. This is a recipe for still higher power prices. It means that subsidies for renewables must continue to rise, new transmission networks built, and expensive system back-ups must be put in place for the inevitable renewable droughts and gluts.

Make no mistake, this amounts to an escalating negative supply shock to the economy, lowering living standards and growth rates. We are already experiencing this.

As their policies currently stand, both Labor and the Coalition want this to be our energy future, with the latter’s nuclear twist making only a marginal difference. Both parties’ adherence to net zero means they must ditch low-cost coal, which currently provides 60 per cent of our power.

But this need not be our fate.

As I have argued in these pages before, Donald Trump’s election has effectively killed off the Paris climate agreement and net-zero agenda. As John Maynard Keynes would say, “the facts have changed”. Regardless of your view on climate change, it therefore makes no economic or environmental sense for Australia and other small economies to cling to net zero: it’s a pointless act of economic self-harm.

As Bjorn Lomborg has pointed out, there are better – less anti-growth – ways to deal with climate change. Our “road to Damascus” moment may still be some way off, but I dare say we are closer to it than our political elites realise.

David Pearl is a former Treasury assistant secretary.



If not nuclear for that 40ish % then build new coal or gas power stations on existing sites. Sorted.