Anything that’s not renewable is a dead end.
Whether coal, gas, or nuclear.
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That’s worked perfectly for the last 75 years.
My idea will never happen for the very reason in your post. But it should. And because it will never happen, mass amounts of harm around the world are inevitable.
Actually, that’s more about the amount of cloud experienced in most parts of the UK, except the West Country.
They do not burn coal there anymore unlike Australia, the steel industry is pretty much cactus, whilst some of our key political people are like Manchin clones
I don’t think Australians can lecture the UK ( or Boris for his part in it ) on energy and greenhouse gas emission policies.
The UK renewables is ~45% of total energy
Ireland is ~14%
while Australias renewables is ~10%. The vast majority of our energy comes from coal and gas ~
Ironically HAP is right, the Iron Lady closed the coal mines about 40 years ago. Since then the UK has become a world leader in use of non fossil fuel sources and nuclear power, ( non greenhouse gas sources)
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Firstly the new approach to nuclear is, and will be small scale plants. Small scale systems with better fail-safety and security ( and small scale accidents , if any)
As to disposal, burying it deep under ground in geographically stable regions is OK. There are lots of deep mines that can be used, the main problem is secure transport to the burial site,
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Around the same time France Germany FDR and Belgium withdrew subsidies ( including for steelmaking). Riots in northern France.
Norway well positioned with North Sea oil.
Following German reunification, all those lignite mines in the east …
Post Chernobyl, a move away from nuclear power commitment to eliminate in some countries.
Rise of industrial China and sourcing from there, shifted much of the carbon problem offshore from Europe.
This data suggests UK is around 40% renewables, and around 20% nuclear.
Australia is now not quite as bad as you suggest, up to 20% renewables.
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I’ve been hearing that for 20 years. Small modular reactors, like 4th-gen thorium pebble-bed, seems to be one of those things that’s always going to happen in the next decade and revolutionise the nuclear industry, but never does.
The central problem with nuclear in Australia today is cost. Of course, this would have been different 40-50 years ago, or if we’d invested in nuclear enough over the long term to drive costs down, but it’s simply not economical now.
CSIRO’s data from earlier this month (see CSIRO Research Publications Repository) has small nuclear reactors producing power at an estimated $134-326/MWh in 2030, with the lower end of that range relying on technological improvements that will bring costs down to Australia.
Wind, by comparison, is $39-55/MWh, and solar $28-60. This goes up to $51-72/MWh when you incorporate other costs to support incorporating renewables into the grid, such as additional storage and transmission.
So even if you take the most generous assumptions for nuclear and the least generous for renewables, you’re saving 46% by going with solar and wind.
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Close to two decades ago, trusted Australian experts told me wind was the most efficient and environmental friendly , in terms of output , manufacture and maintenance ( including total environmental cost)
Wind and solar are also easily scalable - you can, within reason, make a new development as large or small you want capacity wise, providing you have space and wind / sun. So each investment can be scaled based on how much money you want to spend.
Current nuclear needs to be quite large capacity to work, which means a LOT of money in a single investment.
Mooted main outcomes from the AUKFTA when it comes into effect:
- Exporters will benefit from immediate elimination of tariffs on over 99% of Australian goods exports to the UK, valued at around $9.2 billion.
- Farmers will have improved access to more than 65 million UK consumers who value safe, sustainably produced foods and beverages with the strong provenance Australia offers.
- Wine - Around $43 million in annual customs duties will be removed from Australian wine
- Beef - a tariff-free quota of 35,000 tonnes at entry into force will expand to 110,000 tonnes in year 10. Tariffs on beef will be eliminated after ten years.
- Sheep meat - a tariff-free quota of 25,000 tonnes at entry into force will expand to 75,000 in year 10. Tariffs on sheep meat will be eliminated after ten years.
- Sugar - a tariff-free quota of 80,000 tonnes at entry into force will expand to 220,000 tonnes in year 8. Sugar tariffs will be eliminated after eight years.
- Australian businesses will save around $200 million a year as tariffs on British imports into Australia, such as cars, whisky, confectionery, biscuits and cosmetics, are phased out within five years, with tariffs on almost all UK goods being eliminated on entry into force.
Yes, probably it depends on the source of information, the date and the accuracy that’s why I used the tilde. to indicate an approximate value
In any case the values I picked up referred to energy in total, not just electrical energy, so it includes petroleum etc. Focusing on greenhouse effect, renewables ( not including “blue” hydrogen and its need for CCS which is yet to work economically ) nuclear clearly does not produce greenhouse gases, so the UK scores very well.
Why does it take 10 years for tariffs on Australian (low value) products to be removed, but tariffs on Pommy high value products get removed immediately?
You need a good solid walloping from a black sausage
I suspect that the UK is trying to protect their domestic farming industry. Bulk Australian commodities would cause an immediate shock to the local economy, wiping out already struggling farmers.
We probably gave up the immediate incoming tariff to secure a higher value win over the long term. Negotiations have give and take.
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All a trade off in negotiations, work on the basis of a balance in existing trade in products, assess what a tariff reduction will deliver in terms of overall trade and trade related concessions ( including services), how competitive you might be in the market, sometimes a phasing in might benefit in the time to develop a product and get investors, identify potential buyers Each side would have priorities. Inevitably there are winners and losers. I dreaded being the bunny having to explain to losers from such negotiations.
Do you know what the tariffs are for the same products in the UK/EU FTA - I guess zero, maybe they have some funny side deal which would preserve their privileged access for an odd item for a prescribed period.
To note also that each side would be working from the WTO bound tariff rate item by item or a tariff group.
The WTO bound rate is the maximum tariff rate bound by treaty. Also, a WTO bound tariff, or a tariff bound in an FTA cannot for the future be undermined by a subsequent measure which would debase the value of the binding, for example a domestic subsidy to local producers or some new internal tax which would favour the domestic supplier, or a technical standard that only the domestic producer could meet (
- the non violation nullification or impairment rule). That rule is helpful to longer term investment.
In practice, Australian tariff levels give little protection, as the Australian applied tariff rate is usually far below the WTO bound rate, often at 5% or less.
This FTA , as with all other FTAs will need to be examined in the WTO for compliance with WTO rules on FTAs and Customs Unions.
BTW, don’t think for a minute that this was an FTA whipped up between Boris and Scotty and polished off by Dan Tehan. They take painstaking years to negotiate and involve just about every agency and industry body and environmental groups…
They also have to go to Parliamentary scrutiny. If legislation is required to give effect to some of the treaty, so be it, but it’s often bipartisan.
If you don’t like what you got out of the tariff deal, you should write to your Fed MP and or Senators.
There is a bit of that, but to bear in mind also that, while are a big exporter of some agricultural products, we are a small producer, some of our products are sold globally under long term contracts, in some cases time is needed to invest in production capacity ( including for processed dairy products. In some cases we have a quarantine status edge, which keeps the lower cost Latins out of the market( particularly for beef), sometimes it’s a freight rate advantage.
We already have some WTO bound tariff quotas on beef, sheepmeat and I think some dairy.
We are a raw sugar exporter and would have to compete with UK and EU beet sugar for a slice of the market. Last time I worked on sugar issues, there were only two UK cane sugar refiners , who were being supplied from Africa the Caribbean and Pacific (Fiji) under a special WTO quota deal for developing countries. Our sugar cane production levels are largely driven by world sugar prices ( we have won two WTO cases on that score against the EU and Indian subsidies)
Maybe also there is something in the deal with the UK that binds the level of domestic agricultural subsidies, which would be more value than a tariff.
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I will defer to your knowledge on the issue. I’ll admit that most of my gut feel on the issue comes from Clarkson’s Farm. Recommended viewing by the way.
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Thanks. I think I have seen some of Clarkson. I preferred to work on agricultural trade issues in negotiations and disputes as it involved dealing with farmers through to big agribusiness, covered just about every part of Australia and I could relate back to it being about someone’s livelihood , it also had to accomodate competing political interests ( very scary around election time). At the international level it was great working with other agricultural exporting countries, often developing countries and accomodating different cultures. Sugar was the most engrossing, given the slavery history ( except for Thailand and India) and the fact that so many of us were from former colonies, dealing with former colonial powers in Europe .i don’t do it any more have moved on but had a great, if stressful time. Quarantine related trade issues was about the worst.
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