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the carbon tax works...
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Carbon tax contributes to emissions drop
THE carbon tax has helped drive a sharp fall in the carbon emissions of Australia's power generation as coal-fired stations are closed, mothballed or sell less into the electricity market.
As Victoria's Yallourn brown coal-fired power station became the latest to announce a production cut, experts said falling electricity demand, more renewables like wind farms and solar and the carbon price were all pushing Australia's coal-fired stations out of the market, making generation cleaner.Electricity sold into the east coast market in the three months since the tax started created on average 7.6 per cent less carbon dioxide for each megawatt hour of power, an analysis of figures compiled by the Australian Energy Market Operator shows.
Compared with the same three months last year, the decline in emissions is around 6.3 per cent.
The Climate Change Minister, Greg Combet, talked up the role of the new $23-a-tonne carbon price in the shift.
''It is significant that the emissions intensity of the electricity generation system has fallen in the first quarter of the carbon price,'' he said.
''It is also significant that … about 3000 megawatts of high-polluting electricity generation has closed or phased down. The carbon price is a key driver of these changes, although it is not the only factor at work.''
The Coalition resources spokesman, Ian MacFarlane, said the cost of the shift in generation was being paid by workers.
''The carbon tax might be causing people to cut back on usage and it is certainly slowing manufacturing, combined with the renewables energy target that means coal is being taken offline,'' he said.
But the energy analyst Hugh Saddler said that, at its current level of $23 a tonne, the carbon price was ''more important as a statement of intent''.
The big reasons black and brown coal generation were being ''pushed out of the market'' were falling demand and the renewables energy target.
The chief executive of the Energy Supply Association, Matthew Warren, also said the decrease had more to do with lower demand.
The decline in emissions-intensity was sharpest in South Australia (16.1 per cent) and Victoria (8.7 per cent). In NSW it was 4.3 per cent.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/data-point/carbon-tax-contributes-to-emissions-drop-20121017-27rl6.html#ixzz29dCbc3Gf
Power demand has dropped across the national electricity market, prompting one Queensland distributor to slash 500 jobs and one of Victoria's biggest generators to close one of its units.
Both Ergon Energy and EnergyAustralia's Yallourn power station are facing demand down about 10 per cent from their average highs of several years ago, according to analysts and an Ergon spokesman.
[E]lectricity consumption and peak demand are well below levels forecast in our regulatory determination," Ergon's Chief Executive, Ian McLeod, said.
"Demand for customer network connections is also expected to remain suppressed throughout the remainder of the current period to 2015."
Yallourn's owners may have blamed the carbon price and the renewable energy targets for their decision to shut one of its four units, but analysts such as Professor Mike Sandiford at the Melbourne Energy Institute (MEI) said the main issue is that big utilities have not adjust to the market.
- By Gus Leonisky at 18 Oct 2012 - 5:54pm
- Gus Leonisky's blog
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tony predicts or is he promising?...
Abbott predicts 'filthiest' election campaign
Tony Abbott has seized on comments made by former Labor leader Kevin Rudd to predict that next year's election campaign will be the "filthiest and most personal" in living memory.Mr Rudd said the public was "deeply disappointed" with the way MPs on both sides of the political divide have behaved recently, and it was time for more civility in the national debate.
The former prime minister was himself the target of a fierce attack on his character by fellow Labor MPs earlier this year after he launched a leadership challenge against Julia Gillard.
The Opposition Leader has leapt on Mr Rudd's latest criticism to continue his attack on what he describes as the Prime Minister's "politics of personal destruction".
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-18/abbott-reax-to-rudd/4320702
Note Tony Abbott called the Prime Minister a sexist and a misogynist, before he got fired back at by Julia Gillard... Tony is a little precious hypocritical prick... Prediction or promise?
Remeber this:
And Miranda Devine has the gall to advisel us that Tony never saw the sign behind him!...
NO-ONE IN THE LIBERAL PARTY PRESENT here saw the sign? No-one advised Tony that the sign was behind him? ... AND WHAT WHERE THE DIRTY FILTHY WORDS he was using to define our Prime Minister then...?
The carbon tax works... Tony Abbott is an iddiott...
meanwhile on mars...
Computer models have accurately forecast conditions on Mars and are valid predictors of climate change on Earth, according to a team of US and French astronomers.
They say the computer programs accurately predicted Martian glaciers and other features on Earth's planetary neighbour.
"Some public figures imply that modelling of global climate change on Earth is 'junk science,' but if climate models can explain features observed on other planets, then the models must have at least some validity," says lead researcher William Hartmann of the Planetary Science Institute.
The team's findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's planetary sciences division in Reno, Nevada.
Some climate change sceptics dismiss human-spurred global warming as a hoax. Others accept that Earth's climate is changing, but discount a human cause or maintain the science is inconclusive.
The science of climate change prediction is dependent in part on complex computer models that take into account multiple factors that influence Earth's climate, including the level of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Many such models have forecast the globally averaged temperature will rise by 2°C this century if greenhouse emissions continue at current levels.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/10/17/3612753.htm
Other models based on observation of the last 500,000 years of the Earth's past would place the increase as up to 9 degrees for this century... Who knows... But warmer it's going to be... Observations on planet Venus comfirm this somewhat...
the murdoch network struggles with the fact...
Mr Combet also seized on AEMO figures showing the emissions intensity of the power generation sector was declining.
The amount of carbon pollution released in the September quarter was 2.4 million tonnes lower than it would have been if emissions intensity had remained at the previous level of 0.92 tonnes per megawatt hour.
But Mr Abbott said that had nothing to do with the "toxic tax", pointing to a major flood that knocked out capacity at Victoria's Yallourn power station in early June.
Mr Combet said the opposition was contradicting the facts.
"The statistics show the emissions intensity of electricity generation has declined in New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania as well as Victoria where the Yallourn power station was impacted by flooding," he said.
He said the carbon price was a key driver in cutting the amount of pollution but it was not the only factor at work.
NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell said prices wouldn't go down in NSW until the prime minister allowed a wage cap for electricity workers.
Electrical Trades Union NSW secretary Steve Butler said blaming wages was a "cheap shot" and the NSW government should reduce the dividend it took from electricity to bring prices down.
Climate change lobby groups said the proposed reforms would allow consumers to make better decisions on when and how they used power.
Business groups also supported the proposed privatising of state-owned networks, saying it would create further competition and efficiencies.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/electricity-report-sparks-carbon-brawl/story-e6frfku9-1226498665555#ixzz29dzPGxxj