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No it hasn’t. What it has done is resulted in ridiculously high electricity prices, such that manufacturing anything in this country has become progressively l
by perpetuallunch 3mo ago
No it hasn’t.
What it has done is resulted in ridiculously high electricity prices, such that manufacturing anything in this country has become progressively less viable.
The Net Zero story sold to Australians is, and always was always will be, complete bs, as evidenced by three facts:
1) It’s no longer the narrative, because “data centres”
and
2) even when it was the narrative, it was always bs because Australia exports huge amounts of gas, and a metric ship load of coal, so other countries can have affordable electricity. So why don’t we just use it. There’s only one atmosphere.
and
3) Australia could double or triple its emissions and it would have approximately no additional impact on total atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.
We haven’t reduced our emissions, we’ve merely exported them.
In before you say “shut up Pauline”, yes I did vote One Nation at the last federal election.
And if you’re so sure I’m just drowning in koolaid, how certain are you you aren’t?
Remember the good old days when governments weren’t to be trusted and we criticised them when they laid out idiotic policy?
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- vvbull 3mo agoAustralia emits 1-1.5% of greenhouse gases. Tripling that would absolutely impact global concentrations, especially over human time scales. But agree, Australia exporting fossil fuels should be reflected. If you counted their export of fuels it would be closer to 5% of global emissions. IMO, getting to zero would knock over a whole integer percent off the global goal, that's notable. And if you stopped exporting oil, we'd be 1/20th of the way to the goal already!
- perpetuallunch 3mo agoYour argument seems to boil down to: What we’re doing isn’t working, so let’s do more of it. There’s a cost of living crisis in this country effecting the majority of Australians. So let’s make energy more scares, more expensive. I’m with Gad Saad here, in that the one thing that astounds me the most about other people is their inability to change their opinions in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
- vvbull 3mo agoAh, so you are taking the anti capitalist stance. Interesting to see that pop up here. Australia sells its fossil fuels on the global market rather than prioritizing its local market. So when disruptions (like the various wars around) drive up prices, Australia sells the gas at a higher rate. This, in turn, drives up prices locally. Combined with aging and failing coal infrastructure, which isn't producing as much or as reliably, you have a marginal rate that can get quite high. Meanwhile, Australia has retail electricity providers and not a single government owned utility. Those retailers must make a profit, and they've invested heavy capex into smart metering. So they charge customers as much as customers will tolerate. You might be right, it might be time to nationalize some of that fossil fuel usage, and remove the profit motive from energy retailing. That could drive down costs for end users. But I don't think solar is really a major input here beyond replacing baseload. Expensive marginal priced peaker plants are one of the key drivers of high energy costs. When the sun sets, those plants have to come online. Better battery storage would smooth that demand significantly, as in parts of Australia solar production is already producing negative energy prices.
- perpetuallunch 3mo ago> Ah, so you are taking the anti capitalist stance. How did you get that from anything I’ve written here, or anything I’ve written anywhere ever?
- techbrovanguard 3mo ago[flagged]
- hahahaa 3mo agoYeah every non-China nation can say "everyone else should do it, we is little, China should do it" Problem with pollution is it is easy to overpollute but in the other direction realistically zero is the limit. Unless we go wartime funding on recapturing carbon.
- benj111 3mo agoOn the other hand you could just not export the coal and leave it in the ground? Unfortunately that will piss off others who want the income. But then those same people won't plan for a time when there's no buyers for coal, so.....
- perpetuallunch 3mo agoAnd all the people who rely on that energy? What about them? Some of that coal is coking coal, used to make steel. What of it?