Effective Government In Australia Held To Ransom By The Greens

While this post concentrates on the political situation in Australia, the overall intent could be translated to any of the major Countries in the World where green politics are starting to take hold. The ramifications of the green agenda have not been fully explained to the vast populace who are voting for them without understanding the full facts of what those ramifications really mean for the long term.

Australia recently had a Federal election which will result in a Minority Government cobbled together between one of the two major political parties and what could amount to any combination of Independent Representatives and the sole Green Party member in that House Of Representatives.

However, amid the turmoil of what might happen in that lower House, the result in the Senate was completely different.

The Greens Party have a major problem getting members elected to the House of Representatives, because effectively, they have to garner half the vote in any electorate, be that outright or after the distribution of preferences. It actually happened this last weekend at that federal Election and one member from that Greens Party was elected to the House of Representatives.

However, in The Senate, it’s an entirely different ball game altogether. Because each of the 6 States has 12 Senators, with the 2 Territories having 2 Senators each, then, in those States a candidate only needs to garner a tick under 17% of the overall vote to gain a quota, hence becoming elected as a Senator.

This is where the Greens Party concentrated their campaign, and in fact they gained one Senator from each of those States. This now means, that with a total of 76 Senators, neither of the major Parties has a majority (39). When added to half the Senators who were not up for re-election, (Senators serve for 6 year terms) these 6 Greens Party Senators add to the 3 that were existing giving them 9 Senators in all. This gives them what is called ‘the balance of power’.

Now, what this effectively means is that no matter what legislation does pass through the House of Representatives, as soon as it reaches The Senate for ratification, those Greens Party Senators will pass their brand of fine tooth comb through that legislation to impose their brand of politics on that legislation.

What it also effectively means is that deals will be done in order to ensure any legislation appeases those Green Senators. It also means that The Greens can actually have major input into legislation, and even to introduce their own legislation, and this is where it becomes a worrying thing, especially on one major front.

THE CARBON TAX.

How I hate that title.

The correct title should read Carbon Dioxide (CO2), because that is what this (supposed) problem really is, that of CO2 emissions causing what they tell us is catastrophic Global Warming, now called Climate Change. We are told that the problem is a Science based problem, and yet those Greens, and virtually every other person discussing the matter, always refer to it as Carbon. Now you may think that I’m ‘nit picking’ on this, but if they seriously want us to accept the most complex Scientific arguments that they bombard us with, then you would surely want them to get it right on the most basic part of the Science, the actual correct title.

What those Greens want to do is to impose a tax on that CO2, their thinking being that this will then hit those emitters in their hip pocket, hopefully resulting in them lowering those emissions, which would then slow down this catastrophic Global Warming. This is wrong on nearly every front, and while they concentrate on that complex Science, they have not even bothered to check the simple Science, and what the ramifications of what they are asking, (and now probably demanding) will ultimately lead to.

The imposition of that tax on CO2 will raise enormous amounts of money, and that is something quite easily calculated. Those Greens would like that tax to be in the vicinity of what Professor Ross Garnaut’s White paper called for, an amount of $26 per ton. This actually sounds on the surface to be a relatively small amount, and possibly something that people might actually be able to live with, because elsewhere in the World, amounts of $50 per ton and even higher amounts have been bandied about, so lowering that amount actually seems reasonable.

Even so, this will raise an amount of $24 Billion, keeping in mind I said earlier that it was quite easy to calculate once you know what to use for the criteria involved.

$24 Billion.

That’s each and every year.

See now the problem I have.

That figure is actually not small at all, and in fact is an immense amount for a small Country like Australia. For some perspective the figure for the U.S. would be around $280 Billion, each and every year, and that’s only at the Australian rate of $26 per ton, and amounts speculated upon in The American Power Act range as high as $50 per ton.

The problem I have is the actual figures that I use in all of this argument. Because those figures are so astronomically huge, (as they are for nearly everything concerning this whole debate) then people just cannot believe them, hence I might be looked upon as a bit of a crackpot who has blown everything totally out of proportion. Even I had trouble at the start believing those huge numbers, and to actually make those original posts stating some of these facts caused me some consternation because of those huge numbers that even I found hard to believe. However, having done this now for nearly two and a half years, those figures are borne out in everything I look at and refer to. Having said that, trying to make people actually believe it is a complete other thing.

I am trained in the electrical engineering field, so for me to accept those huge figures is just confirmation of things I already knew. I can quite easily see how the average person just cannot believe, because the numbers are so huge that it just seems unbelievable, hence when I do try and tell people, they look at me skeptically, and no matter how much logic and proof I show, it still is in the realm of the unbelievable.

So then, how do I come at that total of $24 Billion for Australia that could be raised from the imposition of a $26 tax on CO2?

Let’s work from one absolute known fact and work it up from that.

Just to generate all of the electrical power that is consumed in Australia, we currently burn 90 million tons of coal.

There’s the first Wow! factor, making it unbelievable right from the outset.

For some verification, let’s look at the process and then the facts from just one of these coal fired power plants.

The coal is crushed and then fed into a critical furnace. This furnace heats huge quantities of water to high pressure steam. The steam then drives a multi stage turbine, and this turbine then drives the generator itself. The generator can weigh anything from 250 to 400 tons, and must rotate at a constant 3000RPM, or 50 full rotations each second (3600RPM in the U.S.) and there can be anything from 2 to 4 generators at the one power station. To physically drive that huge weight at that speed requires a lot of steam to drive the turbines which also add weight to the complex. Of necessity then, a huge amount of coal has to burned to generate that steam.

An average large scale coal fired power plant will burn anything up to 5 to 6 million tons of coal each year.

As an example the information at this link is for the Australian plant at Eraring in New South Wales. This shows that this plant burns 5.2 million tons of coal each year, or on average one ton of coal every 6 seconds. For U.S. readers see the information at this link (PDF Format) for the Bruce Mansfield plant, around the same generating capacity but of older style, hence it burns more coal, around 7 million tons a year. Incidentally for all those Australian coal fired plants, that coal burning information was readily available two and a half years ago, but has since disappeared from nearly every one of those sites which now reflect the cleaner greener attitudes expected, or would that be trying to hide that information from eyes who might be offended by it.

So, for just the one plant in Australia, Eraring, we have 5 million tons of coal a year being burned.

In Australia, there are 6 of these larger sized coal fired plants similar is size to Eraring, and another 7 around half that size, and added to that another number of smaller coal fired plants as well. On a scale basis some plants burn more coal per output than others and overall, an amount of 90 million tons of coal is being burned each and every year to produce 85% of all the electrical power consumed here. In the US they burn 940 million tons of coal each year to produce 46% of all their power.

Now comes the most difficult thing of all to believe.

As each ton of coal is burned, that one ton produces 2.86 tons of CO2. Read that again and then understand exactly why people look at me sideways when I say that. The first time I actually committed to putting that down in hard copy, I took my heart into my mouth. I had incontrovertible proof from a number of sources, (none of them Wikipedia) but it was just so unbelievable. Then, later I composed a whole post of its own on just why that fact was true, and that post takes you to a link showing proof from another source other than hearing it from me.

It’s not complex Science that is difficult to understand. In actual fact, it’s Science we all, every one of us. learned in Grade 7 or 8, the early years at High School when we first saw the Periodic Table of Elements.

For any chemical reaction, then one element combines with another. In this case, Carbon combines with Oxygen. The atomic weight of Oxygen is slightly more than that of Carbon, so as each atom of Carbon combines with 2 atoms of Oxygen to form CO2 during the burning process, then it virtually triples the original weight of the Carbon. As coal is basically all Carbon with some other elements in there as well, then the multiplier is in fact 2.86.

So back to the Australian total of 90 million tons of coal being burned. This now gives us a CO2 emission of 257 million tons of CO2.

That’s not the end of it for power generation though.

There are also Natural Gas Fired power plants and some smaller plants that burn oil based products. These also emit CO2, and on the basis of around one third the rate Watt for Watt as coal fired plants. The CO2 emitted by them is also easily calculated. They emit CO2 at a rate of 122 pounds weight per mcf of Natural gas being burned. mcf is 1000 cubic feet of natural gas.

When you add the emissions of CO2 from Natural gas fired power plants to that of coal fired power plants, just here in Australia, the total CO2 emissions come to 300 million tons.

See how the figures are so huge as to be almost unbelievable.

Now at Ross Garnaut’s $26 per ton cost for CO2, we see now that the total money raised from just the electrical power generating sector comes to just under $8 Billion.

Now the next multiplier.

Electrical power emits one third of all CO2 emissions.

So now you can see that the total amount raised from CO2 emissions in Australia comes to around $24 Billion.

THE GREENS PARTY.

The two main spokespersons for the Greens Party in Australia are Senators Bob Brown and Christine Milne. These two have had a lot to say about the imposition of a Carbon Tax (Carbon Dioxide, Bob and Christine, Carbon Dioxide). None of what is written above even approaches what they have already had to say.

They will now be telling Australians that the reason they did so well in the Senate at this election is proof that Australians want to see this new tax on CO2 introduced, and you can bet that they will be raising the rhetoric about that, and now even introducing their ow legislation to impose this huge new tax at every opportunity a camera is pointed in their direction.

Bob and Christine have waffled on about how this will not be a new tax on the people because what they want to do is to make the polluters (as they refer to them) pay.

So, let’s look at that.

Just for Eraring Power Plant, which emits nearly 15 million tons of CO2 each year, that plant will now face an extra cost added to their bottom line of nearly $400 Million. If they are not allowed to pass that down to consumers, as most assuredly will be what happens, the bean counters there will add it up, and decide it’s not worth staying in operation. They’ll close down the plant removing huge amounts of power from the grid, which will never happen, but if it did, that would cause absolute chaos, because there is no replacement power for that amount. That’s not the end of it because every coal fired plant will be doing the same. Close them all down and there goes 85% of all Australia’s electrical power.

So, that’s not going to happen at all. The cost WILL be passed down to consumers.

Electricity is consumed in three sectors, Residential (38%), Commerce (37%), and Industrial (24%). So your household electricity bill will increase, and increase exponentially, but that’s not the end of it. Those other 2 sectors will also pass on the increase in increased prices for everything, across the board.

Bob and Christine from The Greens say that they will give part of that take back to consumers.

Gee! What’s the point of imposing the tax in the first place if you’re going to give it straight back to the people who will now be paying for it. Bob and Christine also say that some areas will be exempted from the cost.

Gee! If it’s $24 Billion, you can afford to give some of it back.

So, with electrical power emitting one third of all CO2 then the other two thirds will also have huge costs imposed upon them as well, and they also will pass that cost directly onto consumers.

So, when some people say that this is nothing but a great big new tax, they are not just saying that to speak the opposite of what emissions tax proposers are saying. A great big new tax is all it really is.

That is what The Greens Party has in store for all of us.

A monumentally huge new tax for every family in every sphere of everything they do. Everything.

Have Bob and Christine told you any of this?

Not on your sweet life.

And just how do Senators Brown, Milne and their other blackmailers fellow Senators propose to spend this absolute fortune that will be coming in every year if they get their way?

You can bet they will be looking at their other Green policies to divvy it all up, foremost among them, Renewable Power.

For those two and a half years I have been contributing here, I have gone to inordinate lengths to tell you how Renewable Power fails miserably to deliver the power that is required absolutely. Bob and Christine will be ramping up the rhetoric on this also, telling us again that this is why the people voted them in.

This most recent post at this link is one of hundreds detailing how ineffective any form of renewable Power is.

So, when Bob and Christine and the rest of The Greens tell us that the imposition of this huge new tax on the people will result in the reduction of CO2 emissions from those coal fired plants, is that true?

No – They’re wrong on that front too.

A large coal fired power plant burns exactly the amount of coal it requires to keep that turbine turning. If they even attempt to burn less, then the steam required to turn that huge turbine/generator complex will not be generated, and the whole plant will just stop.

That’s why Cap and Trade does not work where the amount of CO2 emissions is capped, and then lowered each year.

That’s why Bob and Christine and The Greens are calling for the direct imposition of a tax on the total CO2 emissions.

CONCLUSIONS.

The Greens, without telling you anything of what is written above, will waffle on about airy fairy things in general and say how good this is going to be for the Environment. They make it sound like they are actually doing something that is good. What they fail completely to tell you about is the ramifications of what their proposals really mean. They are relying solely upon the fact that everyone except an infinitely small number of people will know where to look for the real facts behind what they are calling for, and the fact that people just will not understand those facts, even when they are proved as conclusively as I have shown above.

In fact , I’m willing to bet that all but a few of those clueless Green Party Senators even know or understand any of the above. They will just say that I am lying outright.

The main reason that they can actually get away with this is that the figures and statistics are so high that they ‘seem’ to be outrageous, and, consequently, not to be believed.

This is a con of the highest order, and now that they have The Balance Of Power in The Senate, all of Australia will be held to ransom, not just the elected Government, whoever that might be.

Their plan is to suck out of every Australian, man woman, and child, an amount of $24 Billion each and every year, and for what?

A total emission of 900 million tons of CO2, around 1.5 to 1.8% of the whole World total, which only amounts to 389 Parts Per Million of the whole Atmosphere or 0.0389% of that Atmosphere, and any reductions that might actually eventuate will be infinitesimally small as to not even change that figure.

THIS IS NOTHING BUT GREEN BLACKMAIL, NOT JUST ON THE GOVERNMENT, BUT UPON ALL OF US.

Tagged: Australian Federal Election, Australian Politics, Carbon Cap And Trade Legislation, Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Emissions, carbon tax, Climate Change Religion, Climate Change Scaremongering, Coal Fired Power Generation, Global Warming Alarmism, Global Warming Hype, Green Agenda, Green Politics, Senator Bob Brown (Australian Greens), Senator Christine Milne (Greens-Tasmania), The Australian Greens Party

Posted in: Australia, Climate Alarmists, Climate Change, Conniving-Lying-Sneaky Politicians, Democracy, Environment, Environmental activists, Fanatics, Fear-mongering, Fraud/Waste, Global Warming, Infrastructure Problems, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Spine Donor Politicians