Turn Off Your Air Conditioners!

Power Cuts Looming
The headline news of the SMH this morning is this piece.

NSW faces blackouts and skyrocketing electricity prices within five years unless it increases supply, the national energy market regulator has warned.

In a report to be released today, it forecasts that demand for electricity in the state could outstrip supply by 2010-11, causing the network to fall below its tough reliability standards.

The forecast for NSW and other states will again focus debate on how Australia should meet its power needs in the face of mounting evidence about the effects of climate change on farming, tourism and other industries.

Today the federal and Victorian governments will announce funding to help build one of the world's biggest solar power stations, a $400 million project that will be a key part of the national strategy to fight climate change.

The federal Treasurer, Peter Costello - who has previously dismissed the prospect of Australian nuclear power as commercially unviable - shifted his position yesterday. He said a nuclear plant would be built as soon as it became commercial, and that was possible within 10 years.

Australia's greenhouse emissions are among the worst in the world - 3.41 tonnes of CO2 per capita - according to a report released yesterday by the conservation group WWF.

NSW's energy demand is being fuelled mainly by air-conditioning - a standard feature in new homes - which leads to bigger and more frequent peaks in demand in summer, according to the report by the National Electricity Market Management Company.

NSW's demand is projected to grow by 0.2 per cent in the year to June 2007, but the number of summer days with a 10 per cent or more likelihood of exceeding the network's reliability standard is forecast to rise by 2.7 per cent.

Oh joy. How dumb are we? We burn fuel to power our generators. The burnt fuel contributes to global warming. So we turn on our air-cons. The demand for more fuel-burning goes up as do the greenhouse gasses; so what do we do? we turn on our air-cons harder. The positive feedback loop is obvious as daylight but you don't see us as an aggregate population stopping.
At least it's front page news. Turn off the airconditioners folks! :)

Meanwhile, the logical thought to follow up all of this is: "what do we do with all this carbon in the air?"
Which brings me to this other article:

The global carbon markets, set up in response to the Kyoto Protocol and other carbon-limiting arrangements, could offer the way. The markets - where polluters pay for allowances that let them exceed their limits on carbon emissions - may be able to put a value on the carbon locked up in jungles and savannahs, said a report by the bank published on Monday.

When carbon is stored in trees and other plants it is not emitted as the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, which holds heat close to Earth and spurs global warming.

Farmers might clear half a hectare of prime rainforest to create a pasture worth $US300, in the process releasing 500 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the air as the trees burn and rot, said Kenneth Chomitz, the lead author of the bank's report.

Meanwhile, the European Carbon Exchange on Friday paid about $US15 a tonne to offset carbon dioxide emissions, Mr Chomitz said.

"That means that Europeans are paying about $US7500 or $US8000 to avert the emission of the same amount of carbon dioxide that the rancher is releasing," he said. "In other words, the rancher is destroying a $US7500 asset to create one that is worth $US300.

"Wouldn't it be great if we could get the farmer and the industrialist or utility owner sitting at the same table, figuring out how they can split the difference and make themselves both better off?"

The Kyoto Protocol, meant to stem global warming, allows member countries facing emissions targets to meet their goals by funding emission cuts elsewhere.

You know it makes sense to actively sequester carbon from the atmosphere. All there needs to be is a government-backed accreditation system.

Kazakh Diplomat Says Borat Is Sort of Okay


One of the on-going stories I like to keep abrest of is this one.

"I sincerely laughed at many of the jokes, but at the same time couldn't get rid of a feeling of being a bit insulted," Idrissov told The Times newspaper, after it hosted a private screening of the film for him.

The newspaper said Idrissov laughed when Borat - British comic Sacha Baron Cohen - was depicted pursuing a live chicken through the carriage of a New York subway train, and again when a US government official agreed to eat cheese at the beginning of an interview, told it was a "Kazakh tradition", only to be told later that it was made from human breast milk.

The ambassador did not, however, laugh when the film suggested Kazakhs have a Spanish-style festival called "the running of the Jew", in which citizens flee while being chased by people wearing caricature masks, The Times said.

Stay tuned for more to follow.