Doomism is unhelpful. We owe the kids of today and future generations a lot more than just throwing our hands in the air and saying 'sorry we're out of ideas'.
Renato:
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Originally Posted by Renato1
dubious claims that renewables will lower the cost of electricity which has been soaring for the last decade to the highest in the world as cheap coal fired power has been destroyed.
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The dubious claim was always that renewables caused the highest power prices in the world. It was always a lot more complicated than that (including privatisation and lack of investment in the grid etc). Coal fired power isn't cheap - it's costing us our environment, our farms and our safety.
The good news however is that renewables have already lowered the cost of power. South Australia has now had the cheapest wholesale power in Australia for consecutive months!
https://www.theguardian.com/australi...id-audit-finds
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Originally Posted by Renato1
I point out that if Australia closed down all its power it would have had zilch effect on CO2 level in the atmosphere given Chinese output.
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1.5% is not zilch no matter how many times you say it. If you add our exported emissions then we're responsible for somewhere between 3.3% and 4.8% of global emissions (depending how you measure them) which would potentially put us into the top 5 or 6 emitters in the world. Definitely not zilch!
The combined emissions of all countries who emit less than 2% individually, combine to roughly equal the US and China combined so we clearly all have to do our share.
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Originally Posted by Renato1
You claim that my statement about China's increasing coal-fired power output is simply wrong and link me to an article saying that China is buying less coal, and digging more up themselves
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Sorry yes I should have read the article I referenced more thoroughly.
The news is still not quite as gloomy as you imply however. In 2017, renewable energy comprised 36.6% of China’s total installed electric power capacity, and 26.4% of total power generation.
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Originally Posted by Renato1
You seem to not know that the Paris Accords allow for China and India to keep building the coal fired plants that they are building.
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That is simply an argument for stronger and more binding global agreements.
I'm pro-nuclear as well as being pro-renewables. New nuclear designs hold great promise along with/as-well-as technologies such as molten salt storage. The reality is, however, that nuclear is still a way off (at best) for our country and emissions reduced today are worth considerably more than emissions reduced in 25 or 30 years time.
