Conservative Behaviour

Two articles from The Conversation. The first looks at recent trends in Australian power consumption, admittedly from a small sample of years, suggesting that consumers are using less electricity and exploring some of the likely causes.

The second, is a damming dissection of climate change denial in The Australians ongoing campaign against reality.

Powering down – has Australian electricity consumption hit its peak?
A number of recent reports have documented an unprecedented decline in electricity consumption. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Research Economics, in its 2011 Energy Update, shows a decline of 5.4% in 2008-09, followed by a 1.2% decline in 2009-10.

Event horizon: the black hole in The Australian’s climate change coverage
The problem is that on one side of the debate you have 97% of the world’s published climate scientists and the world’s major scientific organisations, and on the other side you have fools.

Excuse my bluntness, but it is past time to acknowledge that the science underpinning anthropogenic climate change is rock solid. The sceptics have had the time and opportunity to come with up a convincing case, but their best efforts read like arguments that NASA faked the moon landing.

The Australian’s anti-science campaign takes many forms. One is the inflation of the credentials of their fake experts. For example, OpEd writer and member of the Outdoor Recreation Party Jon Jenkins was referred to as an “Adjunct Professor”. Bond University wrote to The Australian informing them that this was not true.

Howard Brady was called a “climate change researcher from Macquarie University”; in fact, Brady is a 70 year-old retiree who has published just seven scientific papers (on Antarctic sediments, not climate), the most recent one in 1983, following which he worked for 17 years in the oil industry. Macquarie University contacted The Australian to set the record straight.

In neither of these cases did The Australian publish a retraction or clarification.

One feature I really like at The Conversation site is the ability to vote down comments as unconstructive. For some trivial childish reason I take great pleasure in voting obvious stooges down - and take heart that all is not lost when others appear to share this sentiment.

Queensland to be left in the dark ?

The Brisbane Times has an article on possible electricity shortages emerging in Queensland - Queensland to be left in the dark.

Warnings that Queensland could experience power shortages in two years proved the need for a carbon tax, according to the Climate Institute. But the state government and energy provider Origin have denied the state is at risk of power shortages as argued by the Australian Energy Market Operator.

Its Electricity Statement of Opportunities report found Queensland would be the first jurisdiction in Australia to experience shortages if it failed to attract more investment in power stations.

Climate Institute CEO John Connor said the report warned uncertainty over the carbon tax could deter or distort energy investments costing electricity consumers up to $5 billion in higher bills.

"It's clear that the best possible outcome for electricity consumers is decisive action from our politicians to cut our carbon emissions by putting a price on carbon," Mr Connor said. "Without a pollution price and the clarity of the renewable energy target, investors will try and second guess government policy, make inefficient decisions or delay investment and this will increase electricity costs. A pollution price will be a green light for the electricity sector to get on with the job of building the infrastructure needed to provide clean energy power for Australians." ...

Energy Minister Stephen Robertson also said Queensland was "well placed" to have the electricity generating capacity to meet the energy demands of a fast-growing state. ...

“These include ERM Power Ltd’s 500 megawatt Braemar 3 gas power station, Origin Energy’s 500 megawatt Darling Downs Stage 2 gas-fired project and the 44 megawatt solar thermal project at the Kogan Creek power station.’’

IPCC renewables report out soon.

Reuters has had a preview of an upcoming IPCC report on the impacts of renewables on climate change mitigation.

Renewable energies to leap, costs fall: U.N.

Renewable energies such as wind or solar power are set to surge by 2050, and expected advances in technology will bring significant cost cuts, a draft United Nations report showed on Wednesday.

The most comprehensive U.N. overview of the sector to date said renewables excluding bioenergy, which is mainly firewood burned in developing nations for cooking and heating, could expand by three to 20 times by mid-century.

"The cost of most renewable energy technologies has declined, and significant additional technical advancements are expected," the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a draft obtained by Reuters, based on a review of 164 scenarios.

In 2008 renewable energy production accounted for about 12.9 percent of global primary energy supply and was dominated by bioenergy with 10.2 percent, followed by hydro power, wind, geothermal, solar power and ocean energy.

The projected expansion is likely to continue even without new measures to promote a shift from fossil fuels as part of a U.N.-led fight against climate change, it said.

Happiness and Power

One of the common assertions around is that no combination of renewables can power a consumerist society. This may be true. Its a testable hypothesis. But is that the point? Surely the question is are we happy? And in fact Economics is (or should be) about the study of happiness, not just the study of GDP growth (consumption), its just that among some punters GDP/capita is equated with happiness. The "invisible hand" will "lift all ships on a rising tide" (or some such). In the past few years research suggests that above a certain threshold, increases in GDP/capita have a negligible effect on perceptions or feelings of happiness.

The Economist had a little graph late last year displaying this very phenomena, although they couldn't help but change it to a form more aesthetically pleasing to them.

It could have been worse!

Amid the tragedy of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, another tragic drama continues to unfold.

Updated at end - it is worse

In a nut shell, the phrase “it could have been worse” seems to be the defense adopted (in the press at least) by those still willing to defend the almost certainly critically tarnished PR sheen of nuclear power. Yes, it is remarkable that the six reactors located on the coastline facing a geologically active tectonic plate survived the initial earthquake and impact – and it was probably lucky that three of them were temporarily shut down prior to the event for maintenance. But this does not “prove” the inherent safety of the technology. It does prove that concrete of sufficient thickness and mass does not get washed away by a 5-7 meter tsunami.

The Sydney Morning Herald has a useful graphic.

The ever ready Ziggy (Neutron) Switkowski hit the press early:

Threat from meltdown only minor: Ziggy Switkowski (13th)

The impact of any meltdown in Japanese nuclear reactors damaged by the recent earthquake will be small compared to the devastation caused by the quake itself and the subsequent tsunami, Australia's best-known nuclear power expert says.

Talk about shifting the Overton Window…

"The contribution, if any, to this [disaster] from the nuclear fleet, I expect even under worst case scenarios is going to be small," he told Fairfax Radio Network today.

"That's not to deny that people are always concerned and justly concerned about the integrity of the nuclear reactor network," Dr Switkowski said.

"The Japanese reactors are probably as good as you can find around the world, but this magnitude 9 earthquake may well have tested the limits of their design."

"It could then over time just settle in and the reactor would be irreversibly damaged, or if there was an explosion - and it would be a chemical explosion, nuclear reactors can't have atomic explosions - then there would be both physical damage and the release of radiation."

The risk of an uncontrolled loss of containment of the core, releasing large amounts of radiation, was very, very small, and the radiation would probably not spread very far, he said.

Noting that people had been evacuated from a 20-kilometre exclusion zone around the reactors, he said, "I would think that the possibility that there would be significant build-up of radiation outside the zone would still remain low."

And the next day…

Japan nuclear health risks low, won't blow abroad, experts say (14th)

Health risks from Japan's quake-hit nuclear power reactors seem fairly low and winds are likely to carry any contamination out to the Pacific without threatening other nations, experts say.

"But there are obviously serious concerns about ensuring that the core of one of these reactors where the cooling isn't working remains under control and does not melt and does not create radiation leaks."

Describing this as the worst case scenario, he said the melting would effectively destroy the core of the reactor.

"It could then over time just settle in and the reactor would be irreversibly damaged, or if there was an explosion - and it would be a chemical explosion, nuclear reactors can't have atomic explosions - then there would be both physical damage and the release of radiation."

And the next day…

Ziggy predicts nuclear Australia (15th)

The immediate past chairman of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation said he anticipated Australians would be apprehensive about adopting nuclear power after the unfolding crisis in Japan but he believed Australia would eventually use it as an energy source.

"I remain convinced that in our future we will see nuclear power," he said on ABC-TV last night.

"We do need clean energy, we are an energy-hungry nation."

The lack of thought in that throw away line beggars belief.

Dr Switkowski, who is a nuclear physicist, said what was happening in Japan was unlikely to occur in Australia.

"We are not geologically active, we aren't in the path of typhoons and hurricanes and tsunamis," he said.

But environmentalists said the problems in Japan proved nuclear power was never safe.

"Japan's nuclear plants were built with the latest technology, specifically to withstand natural disasters, yet we still face potential meltdown," Greenpeace spokesman Steve Campbell said.

I'm sure this face time with the press is all out of a dear love of his subject, but we already have other opinions;