Cross-posted from The Conversation. The bankruptcy of Chinese solar energy company Suntech Wuxi is being depicted in the media as a sign of chaos in the solar industry. The industry is said to be suffering from disastrous price falls created by over-capacity, and harmed by the US imposition of tariffs. These were justified by the US as punishing
From the AFR: …In advice released to clients today, Norton Rose partner Elisa De Wit said if it won the election the only way the Coalition could stop the carbon price scheme from operating would be to have parliament pass amending legislation. Options to alter or amend the carbon tax include increasing the threshold for
Careful what you wish for. Tony Abbott’s fanatical resistance to a carbon price cops more flack today from the power industry and it’s looking pretty ridiculous on a number of fronts. The first is the investment uncertainty generated by Dr No. From the AFR: National Generators Forum executive director Tim Reardon said…“It is not helpful
Find below another fantastic video of Jeremy Grantham on global warming, Malthus and other doomsday scenarios. It really is disturbing when such an eminently smart guy gives it to you straight. Not to be missed.
From the AFR: China has outlined plans to introduce a carbon tax, but the mooted starting price is likely to be a fraction of that under way in Australia. The Ministry of Finance indicated a starting price of about 10 yuan ($1.50) for each tonne of carbon dioxide emitted, rising to 50 yuan a tonne
From the AFR: Unsubsidised wind power is now cheaper than new coal and gas fired power stations due to the carbon price scheme, rising fuel prices and banks’ reluctance to invest in fossil fuel projects, says new research from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Even if the carbon price scheme were to be repealed, it would
From David Uren at The Australian: CARBON emissions from the electricity sector have dived in the first six months under the carbon tax, with much greater use of renewable energy and cutbacks in consumption. …Total emissions from the electricity sector in the December half were 7.5 million tonnes lower than in the same half of
Do ‘green’ household choices really make a difference? This is a question I couldn’t quite give a straight answer to, and which provided the motivation to begin research in this area. The main problem in determining the net environmental impact of consumption choices is the rebound effect. When households reduce their driving or electricity consumption
One of the most important fundamental reasons why Chinese equities under-performed for the last year or two has been the fact that Chinese companies are seeing falling profits despite seemingly “strong” economic growth. While GDP growth has only slowed to 7.4% year on year in the third quarter, corporate earnings have been recording negative growth on a
Late yesterday, the Conference Board released its Leading Indicators for China in September with a small increase following some big jumps in prior months: As you can see, there has been much movement in the index all year. There LI things have some questions to answer, though China’s offical version seems to work quite well.
Back in August the government announced its intentions to join Australia’s new emissions trading scheme (ETS) with the EU ETS in 2015. Houses and Holes commented at the time that the decisions could be interpreted as a political cop-out. While the long run goal is surely an integrated international scheme, the Clean Energy Amendment Bill
The removal of the carbon price floor yesterday is essentially placing the carbon tax on idle. The price floor notion was designed to prevent the kind of price collapses that have plagued the European carbon price market. By instead linking to that market, the Gillard government has ensured that the price for local credits will
With today’s sudden media focus on the “gold plating” of electricity infrastructure driving excessive retail price rises, it seems the Federal Labor government has finally woken up and read its own carbon policy blueprint. From the Garnaut Review: There is a pressing need to revisit the state-owned distributors. There is an unfortunate confluence of incentives
The AFR leads today with an examination of the current brouhaha surrounding the Renewable Energy Target and the carbon price. The positions of the political parties on this is a nice illustration of how our politics gets in the way of good economic policy. Apparently: Labor and the Coalition have signalled they are prepared to
A guest post from reader and commenter “Pellicle” on the Electric Car. MacroBusiness welcomes interesting submissions on economic and related topics, subject to edit and less than 1500 words. Please use the “Contact” item on the menu above for your submissions. Lately it seems that with increasing frequency the idea of Electric cars comes up
The Property Council of Australia (PCA) is one of those lobby groups with a blatant disregard of the facts and a history of political influence – the kind you love to hate. For example, the PCA made a submission to the Queensland government outlining how planning laws that promote densification are likely to increase greenhouse gas emissions
The IPA, predictably, continues its attack on the pricing of carbon with pieces this week in The Australian and the Australian Financial Review. However, much of the analysis is based on falsehoods that need to be pointed out. Firstly to Tim Wilson’s piece saying that “carbon trading will fail because property rights cannot exist for
I should start by stating that the following is not intended as partisan political comment. I have consistently supported a carbon price policy regardless of the Party of the politician proposing it (eg Howard, Rudd, Turnbull and now Gillard). Much has been said of Gillard’s mandate, or more pointedly, lack of mandate to introduce a
The word efficiency carries a meaning immersed in all things positive – you never hear that being more efficient could possibly be detrimental. In fact, if you can bear the evangelical fervour, you may have read about achieving ‘Factor Four’ or ‘Factor Five’ gains in energy efficiency, as part of a ‘Natural Capital’ revolution comprising a ‘decoupling’ economic growth
In the wake of the NSW Budget, which justified increased royalties due to the supposed hit to its bottom line from the federal carbon tax, it is useful to examine the actual impact of carbon pricing on coal-fired generators. As a starting point, one needs to reflect that the methodology upon which compensation (in the
There seems to be a lot of confusion around on this “carbon tax” and a lot of it seems to be due to the terminology that we’re using. I have been asked a few times “what is carbon pollution and how do you measure it”. I’ve also seen a variety of commentators pointing out (as
Nuclear doyen, Ziggy Switkowski, must be quite frustrated. Why doesn’t everyone get it? His beloved solution to climate change and energy security is not just a political hot (dare I say radioactive) potato, and the recently announced $10b Clean Energy Finance Corporation won’t be allocating a single dollar to funding it. His most recent piece on
At the risk of stirring up the howls of protests and calls for another election (if you don’t accept the outcome of the last one) or an early election (if you do), I thought I’d put forward a case for why I think the PM has a mandate to introduce the package she announced on
With the announcement of a Carbon Pricing policy by the Government recently, combined with the formation of ARENA, a $3.2 billion agency to consolidate renewable energy industry support and given that the purpose of MacroBusiness is to give you the bigger picture, here is a (non-exhaustive) list and short summaries of renewable energy companies that
I’m glad we finally have a carbon price. My guess is that the roll out of the tax will be less contentious than currently appears. The leader of the opposition may want a referendum on the issue but in my view, but once it’s in place, the tax will give way to famous Australian pragmatism
OK, so I was surprised on the upside and the starting price is $23/t. The Greens have indeed exerted their influence through the negotiation and what has emerged is a surprisingly strong package, which when implemented will perhaps be the most comprehensive carbon scheme in the world. You can see the influence of the Garnaut
I’ve wandered off the reservation again this morning and am strolling around Carbon E Coyote’s turf but I hope he doesn’t mind too much because as we Australians await the Prime Minister’s “Carbon Tax” announcement tomorrow I thought it is worth a quick post and link that is related to this issue. It is important to note I
A month or so ago I suggested that there was “a deal to be done”. It sounds this week that it’s pretty close if not already done. A few people have asked me where I think the starting carbon price will be, so I thought I’d make a prediction. My money’s on a starting price
Judging by comments on the net and the press and in general public discourse, it appears that there’s still confusion between the role of the carbon price signal and the role of the distribution of proceeds from revenue raised. The latter has derisorily been referred to as a great big merry-go-round. Here’s an example of
When we talk about methane emissions, we tend to think about farting (or burping, more accurately) cows. But another strong contributor to methane emissions (yes, odourless and colourless like CO2) are fugitive emissions from extraction of fossil fuels, particularly coal mines. Every tonne of methane released is the equivalent of 21 tonnes of CO2 released,
