Continued carbon debate

I write in response to the letter of Viv Forbes of Rosewood (Letters November 10, 2011) under the heading ‘A step backwards’. Nowhere does Mr Forbes make any causal connection between the imposition of a carbon tax and the asserted subsequent regression to some new dark age.
There is no denying the great material progress mankind has made due to the exploitation of fossil fuels, but that does not mean further progress is impossible without them. The use of renewable energies is increasing exponentially. Breakthroughs and developments in manufacturing technology has seen the cost of typical solar panels and related technology decreasing by seven per cent pa the last few years. In a short while the cost per kilowatt hour will be lower than that of electricity generated by the most efficient coal-fired generators. Indeed some studies show that, if the hidden subsidies of coal (environmental damage, damage to roads by coal trucks, deaths and chronic health problems for those in the industry and living near power plants, loss of farm lands and the like) were counted, the cost of coal generated power would exceed that of most renewable energies already.
In the USA the production of alternative energies – biofuels, geothermal, solar, wind and water – exceeded the output of the entire US nuclear industry in first quarter 2011 by six per cent. The gap between the two continues to grow.
Rapid progress is being made in the development of energy storage systems to provide a source for base load power when there might be a shortfall in power from wind and solar. The CSIRO are actively engaged in researching the storage of heat in oil, molten salts, high temperature ceramics and as chemical reactants. Hundreds of other research institutions around the world are working in these and related fields. Human ingenuity should not be underestimated. The development of new industries and the jobs created therein will be a boon.
The science of global warming is irrefutable. As recently as the past week, even the once conservative International Energy Agency (IEA) issued its World Energy Outlook Release saying: “On planned policies, rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change.” And, “… we are on an even more dangerous track to an increase of 6°C [11°F]…Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.”
If the cost impost of the carbon tax is Mr Forbes’ concern, he will be reassured by CSIRO modelling commissioned by Choice, the Australian Council of Social Service and the Climate Institute and released on November 12 that shows households will face smaller cost of living increases under the carbon tax than they did as a result of other large economic changes such as the introduction of the GST and the recent (and for now) ongoing mining boom. The CSIRO study found the carbon price would have one-quarter of the 2.5 per cent impact on prices than the introduction of the GST. It would also be smaller than the 1.6 per cent effect of the trade and exchange rates that came with the mining boom in 2007. The increase in the cost of living for the first year would be a paltry 0.6 per cent – exactly the same as the increase in the cost of living this year directly attributable to the effects of cyclone Yasi. None of these developments sent us scurrying off to find a suitable cave.
Even setting aside completely climate change considerations, the taxing of carbon emissions makes sense when one considers that the carbon resources we have plundered for the last couple of hundred years are finite. They can only be used once – they are running out. We will have to learn to live without them eventually anyway.  Annual oil usage has for many years exceeded the discovery of new reserves. That is why filthy and expensive sources such as the tar sands of Alberta, Canada are now being tapped and why drilling in the seabed of the Arctic Ocean is being pursued. The easy to get at oil is just about all gone. Likewise it is increasingly why coal miners are buying up good agricultural and grazing lands. A carbon tax will encourage the development and adoption of less intrusive and harmful technologies and a smoother move to a cleaner, healthier future. There will be less pressure to destroy good country by open cut and strip mining and to risk catastrophic damage to our ground waters and aquifers through gas fracking.
David Stewart,
Tenterfield