Democratic leaders in the US Senate said last night they may wait until next year to take up climate change legislation, jeopardising the prospect of reaching a deal to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of global warming. The delay would prevent Barack Obama from delivering on his promise of demonstrating firm US commitment on climate change action in advance of negotiations at Copenhagen next December. –Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian, 16 September 2009 [via Benny Peiser]
Archives for September 17, 2009
Energy Targets and Australian Politics: A Note from Cohenite
CLEAN coal increasingly appears to be neither scientifically feasible nor economically viable. The only real alternative for Australia is nuclear yet those most concerned about anthropogenic global warming (AGW) oppose it.
Clean coal is the process of trapping carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of coal to prevent those emissions from entering the atmosphere. Local expert John Harborne, in a recent article, notes that the energy cost of trapping the emissions is almost equal to the energy produced from burning the coal and the area required to store the trapped emissions exceeds the area of the mined coal.
For its part the Federal government has introduced the Renewable Energy Target [RET] to combat the alleged problem of AGW. The RET mandates that twenty per cent of base-load energy must come from renewable energy [RE] by 2020. The Greens support this and with the fallacy of clean coal now revealed are demanding that all base-load energy come from RE. [Read more…] about Energy Targets and Australian Politics: A Note from Cohenite
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.