By Andrew Bolt
While some Countries in the rest of the World are ditching this madness, the Australian Government is pushing ahead with plans to impose a cost on CO2 emissions, a cost that will be crippling to every sector of business, industry, and to the residential consumer of electrical power as well. The people are not being told the truth, and the fact is that the politicians seeking to impose this huge new tax do not even understand the implications themselves. It is a blatant grab for the huge amounts of cash that will flow into Government coffers from this iniquitous new tax…..TonyfromOz.
So how much is this green madness going to cost you, even without a carbon tax? Plenty, says Rod Sims, head of the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal, in his submission to the Gillard Government’s warmist-stacked Muti-Party Carbon Price Committee:
Looking forward, at least four factors will drive increases in future electricity prices WITHOUT a carbon price. The first two are not driven by Australia’s response to greenhouse issues, the latter two are
- Continuing increases in network costs
– Rising coal and gas prices
– The fact that the market is already accepting that very few if any further coalfired electricity generation plants will be built, yet base load gas plants are difficult to make economic without a carbon price
– There are many current non market driven greenhouse schemes which result in high cost outcomes e.g. measures to support household solar in particular as it is an extremely expensive form of energy, but also the LRET and many others…Electricity prices in future will, however, even without a carbon price, now reflect high cost household solar schemes, and much more wind generation (due to the LRET) and the accompanying peaking plant, which are higher cost sources of generation.
Australia’s current main greenhouse response has so far been to provide incentives for household solar and wind generation in particular. These are high cost measures and ones where the additional cost is added to the bills of all electricity consumers
So the next time you hear a politician promising you more solar or wind power, be very, very afraid. And when Premier John Brumby promises to make Victoria the “solar capital of Australia”, now that this is a promise of suicidally high bills.
In the meantime, note that Labor’s threat of a “carbon price” has killed investment in our cheapest source of electricity generation, while its failure to actually impose one has blocked investment into the higher-cost alternatives. Meanwhile it’s papering over the cracks by subsidising the most insanely expensive form of power you could possibly think of.
It’s hard to think of a more comprehensive stuff-up, and one more damaging to our future.
If I were in charge I’d of course give every guarantee I could – through legislation, if possible – not to impose any “carbon price” until at least 2020, when the science of climate change might give us a clearer picture than it does now. But if I were a warmist like Gillard I’d abandon the promised emissions trading scheme as too complicated and prone to rorting, and unable to give industry a certain carbon price around which to plan. I’d instead impose the simplest possible carbon tax, set as low as I could get away with for as long as I could spin it out. I’m thinking of $10 a tonne by 2020, and $20 by 2040. I’d bank on people caring more about seeming to do good than actually achieving it – and preferring a symbolic fight against global warming to one that’s going to really hurt as much as it should if Gillard were serious.
Meanwhile I’d start to do a huge backtrack on nuclear power, our only serious option in cutting emissions by evne the minimum the Government wants – which Sims helpfully explains works out to a quarter of what we emit right now, per capita, and within just 10 more years:
Australia is currently targeting to reduce emissions by around 30% on a business-as-usual basis, or around 25% per capita, by 2020. This is usually described as a 5% absolute cut from 2000 levels.
What do you think the odds are that we’ll get within cooee of that? Now think how deceitful the Greens are to pretend their own much higher targets are achievable in this or any other world.
Andrew Bolt is a journalist and columnist writing for The Herald Sun in Melbourne Victoria Australia.
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Andrew Bolt’s columns appear in Melbourne’s Herald Sun, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and Adelaide’s Advertiser. He runs the most-read political blog in Australia and is a regular commentator on Channel 9′s Today show and ABC TV’s Insiders. He will be heard from Monday to Friday at 8am on the breakfast show of new radio station MTR 1377, and his book Still Not Sorry remains very widely read.
