Latest Buzz...
                  

Translate

Thursday, March 29, 2012

A Tale of Two Shopping Centres

Askgerbil staff writer | Thursday March 29 2012
The Australian Government carbon tax starts in July 2012 and some of the big polluters do not have any viable alternative but to pay. In particular power companies are stuck with coal.
A great many businesses seem unaware that they do have a viable alternative to paying any carbon tax that big polluters may want to pass on to them: Big power companies might well be stuck with coal, but Australian businesses are not stuck with these big power companies.

City of Sydney

Decentralised Energy

Making it happen - clean, green energy

The City has an ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70 per cent by 2030 which can also cut electricity bills for NSW consumers.
To help achieve this target the City has appointed UK energy expert Allan Jones. His previous work reduced greenhouse gas emissions at the city of Woking by 80 per cent and produced similar results for the city of London
At the moment, 80 per cent of the City of Sydney’s emissions come from the production of electricity by coal-fired power stations in the Hunter Valley. Two thirds of the energy being used by these stations is wasted as heat from the cooling towers and on long-distance transmission over power lines to Sydney.
The City’s goal is to produce 70 per cent of its energy needs locally from trigeneration plants. These local generators are nearly three times more energy efficient than coal-fired power plants because they use the waste heat from electricity production to both heat and cool buildings.

Shopping centre management and shop-owners at the “Thick Shopping Centre” and “Not-So-Thick Shopping Centre” in nearby suburbs of any Australian city make different choices about the carbon tax that starts in July 2012.

At the Thick Shopping Centre, the shopping centre management pays for electricity from its existing supplier and passes on the cost of the carbon tax to the shop-owners who operate in the shopping centre. The shop-owners continue to buy electricity from their existing suppliers too, pay extra because of the carbon tax, and pass both this cost and the extra costs of the Thick Shopping Centre management on to their customers.

At the Not-So-Thick Shopping Centre, the shopping centre management installs a trigeneration system that generates power, heat and cooling for the whole shopping centre. It saves money on its power bills, and passes these savings on to the shop-owners who operate in the shopping centre. The Not-So-Thick Shopping Centre Management trigeneration system also generates enough power to supply the shop-owners who operate in the shopping centre.

The shop-owners at the Not-So-Thick Shopping Centre decide to buy their power at the reduced price offered by the shopping centre management, and pass both this saving and the extra savings of the Not-So-Thick Shopping Centre management on to their customers.

Customers of the Thick Shopping Centre quickly learn that they can enjoy great savings by doing all their shopping at the Not-So-Thick Shopping Centre.

Carbon tax: a lot of fuss about nothing.  
Nothing is the amount of carbon tax shoppers pay at the Not-So-Thick Shopping Centre.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Road Freight Transport Costs


Up, Up and Away

lean Air Power Tackling Road Freight Transport Costs Bi-Fuel Diesel and CNG (compressed natural gas) lean Air Power Tackling Road Freight Transport Costs Bi-Fuel Diesel and CNG (compressed natural gas)
Clean Air Power: Solving Road Freight Transport Costs Diesel/Gas Australia: Solving Road Freight Transport Costs

In December 2011 the Australian Government announced the release of an Energy White Paper.

However the Australian Government made no announcement of  a number of significant energy policy papers prepared on the on the same date.

No announcement reveals  "The cost of road freight transport is expected to increase in the next decade because there are fewer unrealised fuel efficiency gains available to offset rising oil prices...."

The impact on business, consumers and rural producers may well far exceed that of any price on carbon. Yet the Australian media ignores this serious issue and remains fixated on the "Carbon Tax". This is likely to be little more than a minor irritant in comparison to the expected increase in the cost of road freight.

The Australian media is also doing little or nothing to inform business, agricultural interests and industry of measures being taken to provide transport energy security and stable fuel prices.
Keep on truckin’ with LNG
The planned LNG fleet refuelling network will include transport company depot refuellers located at the transport company yard, and public refuellers located at selected truck-focused service stations and roadhouses around Australia. (From Keep on truckin’ with LNG, Gas Today — November 2011)

The serious problem of increasing cost of road freight is buried within the following information - available on the web site of Australian Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism -

Strategic Framework for Alternative Transport Fuels

The Australian Government released the Strategic Framework for Alternative Transport Fuels (the Framework) on 13 December 2011.  The Framework was developed in consultation with industry, government and other stakeholders throughout 2011 and is an input to the Energy White Paper development process. Information about the Energy White Paper process is available at www.energywhitepaper.ret.gov.au.

The Framework establishes a long term approach to a market led adoption of alternative transport fuels in Australia and includes 20 actions for industry, Government and other stakeholders to implement to address identified barriers to uptake, including:
  • providing leadership and certainty through the: application of Alternative Transport Fuels Principles; continuation of coordinated policy approach; the collaborative review of guidelines to remove unintended measures that could limit feedstock and technologies; and establishment of relevant advisory mechanisms.
  • ...Read More

The final document listed on the above web page is entitled "Possible Futures: Scenario Modelling of Australian Alternative Transport Fuels to 2050".

At page iv this documents includes several observations -

  • The extent to which transport fuel self sufficiency remains at this level or improves further is largely dependent on whether there are strong social and economic factors driving alternative fuel uptake. ...If no alternative fuels are developed at all, Australia’s fuel self-sufficiency will decline to 35 percent by 2030. 
  • The whole cost of road passenger transport (cents/km) is projected to be fairly stable into the future due to fuel efficiency improvements, alternative fuels and improving technology that act to prevent costs from rising.
  • The cost of road freight travel [sic, transport] is expected to increase in the next decade because there are fewer unrealised fuel efficiency gains available to offset rising oil prices, total road freight costs are more sensitive to fuel price changes and that sector is assumed to pay a carbon price on diesel. 
The paper has failed to recognise the decision of Shell to close and demolish the Clyde Oil Refinery by mid-2013. This refinery meets about 50 per cent of the petroleum needs (petrol and diesel) of New South Wales.

The Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism provides a paper "Alternative Transport Fuels Strategy – Gaseous Fuels, Summary of Fuel Forum 2" with the forlorn and clueless opinion:

A constant theme during the course of the discussions on gaseous vehicles related to the absence of natural gas refuelling infrastructure and the difficulty of investing in this infrastructure without any certainty around the timing and quantum of future demand. Essentially, this demand uncertainty means that investment in natural gas refuelling infrastructure is not able to be justified on commercial grounds given the likely substantial lag between deployment of capital and realisation of income from fuel sales.

Participants pointed to the fact that this dilemma – commonly referred to as the ‘chicken and egg’ scenario – was seriously retarding growth of the market.

This cluelessness on how to introduce new fuels makes a joke of the Department's statement on the role of the Australian Government Strategic Framework: "providing leadership and certainty".

Luckily the Australian Government that replaced leaded-petrol vehicles and infrastructure with unleaded petrol was not so challenged for ideas on how to go about providing leadership and certainty.

Nevertheless, the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism illustrates the Australian Government still has some capacity for forward-planning. This is demonstrated by the extract shown of the table below. This is from page 2 of a document on its web-site "Paper 2: Summary of current government policies and programs relating to alternative transport fuels in Australia".

Table 1: Alternative fuels excise and excise-equivalent customs duty rates

Fuel type From
1 Dec 2011
From
1 Jul 2012
From
1 Jul 2013
From
1 Jul 2014
From
1 Jul 2015
(final rate)
CNG c/kg 5.22 10.45 15.67 20.9 26.13

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Real Energy Debate

The real energy debate is not over climate change or carbon taxes or emissions trading.
The real energy debate is about MONEY - 
Recent ABC coverage such as "The quest to capture carbon", 16 March 2012, deceives the public with misinformation by two opposing and equally unreliable vested interests.
  1. Green groups spruiking renewable energy technology - solar and wind - that do not wish to see competing energy sources maintain market share. 
  2. The coal industry and the operators of centralised coal-fired power stations that do not wish to see dramatic efficiency gains in using coal energy resources in a way that cuts demand for coal by 50 per cent and dramatically reduces their revenues.


            
Ian Nethercote, Loy Yang Power Chief Executive 

             Craig Dugan, Process Group Managing Director

            
Mark Wakeham, Environment Victoria              Cr. Ed Vermeulen, Latrobe City Mayor

            
Matthew Wright, Beyond Zero Emissions 

             Michael O'Brien, Victorian Energy Minister


Dr Lincoln Paterson, CSIRO Carbon Capture and Storage Research Leader

The Victorian Energy Minister Michael O'Brien hinted at knowledge of the available high-efficiency technology in the above ABC 7:30 report on 16 March 2012 when challenged with a statement to the effect that Carbon Capture and Storage technology has not been "proven" [to be commercially viable] (at 7 mins 0 secs):
GUS GOSWELL: "You are speaking as though the technology has been proven. It hasn't."
MICHAEL O'BRIEN: "Well carbon capture and storage has worked in other circumstances."
What countries around the world have done and increasingly are doing is converting low-value carbonaceous energy resources, including brown coal, into high-quality methane ("synthetic natural gas"), separating carbon dioxide in this process, and storing it underground. Read more at Three Sides to Climate Debate, Not Two.

Synthetic natural gas can be used in high-efficiency Combined Cycle Gas Turbine power stations, in very high-efficiency tri-generation distributed energy systems, as low-emissions transport fuel in road, rail and marine applications, and as a feedstock to the petrochemical industry. Read more and see list of examples at A Tale of Two Shopping Centres.

As stated above, the coal industry and the operators of centralised coal-fired power stations have a vested interest in concealing this commercially-proven technology.

The suggestion that the industry needs another 15 years to research technology (the statement by Ian Nethercote, Loy Yang Power Chief Executive - at 2 mins 5 secs in the above ABC 7:30 report on 16 March 2012) is a blatantly misleading tactic to allow the profligate inefficient use of an energy resource to continue with large sums of money being paid for coal and energy that are vastly in excess of what is necessary. 

Friday, March 23, 2012

Nothing super about this catastrophic mining tax

A post from The Telegraph blog of Piers Akerman - original at this link

The Telegraph
Nothing super about this catastrophic mining tax

Piers Akerman The Daily Telegraph March 23 2012 (12:00am)

AUSTRALIANS are being conned big time on the mining tax.

Government figures from Prime Minister Julia Gillard to Treasurer Wayne Swan, to Assistant Treasurer and Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten and down the line have been queuing to make claims about the benefits that will flow to all Australians from this big new tax on the healthiest sector of our economy.

Their propaganda relies on three principal strands - that Australians hate rich, enterprising individuals who get off their bums, create jobs and make a profit; that Australians have been denied a slice of the benefits of mining; and that the new tax on the mining boom will fund a three per cent increase in superannuation.

All three premises are false.

Most of us don't have huge chips on our shoulders, class envy belongs to cloth-cap troglodytes and Australians have not been denied access to mining profits.

All miners pay royalties to the states in which they operate. What we're now seeing is a bankrupt and economically-catastrophic over-borrowed federal government trying to muscle in on state government territory in a desperate endeavour to find new revenue streams to meet its promise of a Budget surplus.

As for the mining boom funding the superannuation increase, forget it. Employers pay superannuation, not the federal government.

The three per cent increase will have to come from the pockets of the nation's bosses and, if you hadn't noticed, they are doing it tough at the moment and it's about to get even worse when the iniquitous carbon dioxide tax whacks them from July.

This thoroughly incompetent Labor-Green-independent minority government has ignored one of the most significant milestones in contemporary Labor history in its attempt to sell its current shameful tax regime.

Not content with lying to the public before the last election about its intention to introduce a carbon dioxide tax, Gillard and her acolytes have wiped the successful government-union accord from the history books.

The compulsory superannuation arrangement which now applies was introduced in 1992 by the Keating government but had its origin in the accord negotiated between the Hawke government and the ACTU in 1983.The union movement at that time agreed to accept three per cent superannuation as a partial trade-off for its wage demands, along with productivity increases.

Superannuation is now at nine per cent and will rise to 12 per cent under the Gillard-Swan plan but there has been no deal done with the ACTU about the effect this increase will have on future wage demands or on productivity.

Gillard, the great negotiator, who gave away the nation's greatest natural advantage of cheap energy to pander to the Greens' lunatic economically-suicidal global warming ideology, has slugged the nation's employers with a new hit to their already distressed bottom lines without getting a single concession from the trade union movement.

Worse, incoming ACTU president Dave Oliver has vigorously rejected the suggestion that the union movement should suppress future wage claims to pay for the superannuation increase.

"We have never viewed this as a salary sacrifice scheme," Oliver said this week.

The federal government giveaway of other people's money has left its own ministers unable to coherently justify their constant claim that the mining tax is paying for the superannuation increase.

The business sector says employers will be forced to find about $20 billion to pay for this extravaganza.

The ACTU can afford to laugh, it doesn't have to negotiate anything because the government has already locked-in the superannuation increase.

Last November, 26 representatives of the nation's leading employer bodies meeting as the General Council of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, took the extraordinary step of signing a resolution of protest at the government's plan to increase superannuation under the cover of its mining tax legislation.

"In hiding this levy inside the mining tax Bills, the government denied employers due process and the Greens and Independents have been complicit in that breach," ACCI chief executive Peter Anderson said.

The government is trying to claim that its business tax cut will meet the cost but that is another untruth - as small businesses will readily agree.

Take just two examples, a building supply company and a motor mechanic shop (neither wished to be identified because of the fear of retribution from this vindictive government).

The supply company has a payroll of $570,000 with a taxable income of $40,000.

It will get a $400 tax cut but a potential $17,100 hit in additional superannuation liabilities.

In the second case, the mechanic has a $500,000 payroll and a taxable income of $75,000.

It will receive a $750 cut in company tax and an additional $15,000 in additional superannuation liabilities. Just to break even it would need to increase profits by 700 per cent.

The introduction of the super levy with no offsets was a terrible political decision.

That's why it was hidden in the mining tax Bill, and marketed with spin about sharing mining resources.

The government thinks business can win no matter how much lead is put in its saddle bags but this horse is clearly stressed and the extra weight will prove lethal to struggling enterprises across the country.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Power price a nation killer

A deleted post from The Telegraph blog of Piers Akerman - originally at this link

The Telegraph
Power price a nation killer
Profile - Piers Akerman
Piers Akerman
Wednesday, March 21, 2012 (5:13am)

Another day, another carbon dioxide tax shock for Australians.

According to a frightening report in The Daily Telegraph, Australians are paying one of the highest prices in the world for electricity and that price is set to soar when the new tax kicks in from July 1 and other agreed price increases take effect.

The newspaper’s consumer watchdog, John Rolfe says Australians pay 130 per cent more for electricity than Canadians, and that will premium will rise to 250 per cent in coming months.

Research prepared by the Energy Users Association of Australia – which represents 100 big power users including BHP, RailCorp, Coles, the Commonwealth Bank and Brisbane City Council - claims household charges are already 70 per cent higher than the American average, a figure that will grow to 160 per cent in two years. Japanese, British, French, Irish and New Zealanders all pay less than we do.

It explodes the myth that Australian electricity is relatively cheap.

Rolfe also found that recent claims by Energy Minister Martin Ferguson that said Australians pay less than the OECD average, relying on a document called Energy In Australia 2012, which his department’s Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE) published three weeks ago – uses outdated figures.

The electricity prices it cites are from 2009-10.

In 2010-11 alone the national price rose by 16 per cent; the NSW jump was 23 per cent.

The numbers used to compile the document Mr Ferguson relied on put the NSW average at 18.55c/kWh – but households are actually paying regulated rates as high as 28c/kWh.

The average NSW household’s annual cost for electricity would fall from $1700 to less than $700 if our prices were the same as in Canada.

When the carbon dioxide tax is introduced from July, along with furtther network price increases and renewable energy subsidies, our prices will be challenge Denmark and Germany as the most expensive in the world, according to the EUAA.

Carbon Market Economics, which examined global prices, found Australian power prices had risen about 40 per cent since 2007 and would rise by another 30 per cent over the next two years.

It found that, even using 2007 currency exchange rates, Australian households still paid more than those in Japan, US, Canada and the average of the EU. Carbon Market Economics comparison of prices in 92 jurisdictions - including more than 35 countries, American states and all Australian states and territories - found NSW ranked fourth behind Denmark, Germany and South Australia. Victoria was fifth and Western Australia was sixth. The ACT was 21st.

This smells like another Gillard-Labor-Green-Independent cover-up.

No-one will be surprised. This excuse for a government relies on the Greens and the Greens policies insist on the use of renewable energy.

Australians are subsidising this lunacy. Green renewable energy will kill business and industry and make power unaffordable for the public.

Globally, less than one per cent of energy is produced from wind or solar because it is prohibitively expensive but the Greens don’t understand economics and the Gillard government will not stand up to the Greens.

This madness must be stopped while some industry still exists in Australia.

We have access to the cheapest coal resources in the world yet we are cutting our own economic throat by pricing our power at the highest level.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Three Sides to Climate Debate, Not Two

Miranda Devine's article "Has science become an alternative religion?" copied below equates environmentalism with science. These are not the same thing.



Science and technology show that we can halve the amount of coal needed to generate the energy we now use, cut CO2 emissions by 75 percent, and do this while delivering energy at a reduced cost:
Dakota Gas owns the Great Plains Synfuels Plant in Beulah, North Dakota that has operated since 1984.
It produces synthetic natural gas from brown coal.
Dakota Gas captures and sells CO2 produced at the plant.
CO2 from other power plants is very wet and diluted with nitrogen and oxygen and requires further processing, but Dakota Gas' process results in a CO2 stream that is very dry and 96 percent pure, so no additional processing is needed.

How to Halve Coal Demand and Cut Emissions by 75 per cent  
while Saving Money


Environmentalists oppose this technology. This group believes reliance on non-renewable energy resources must be ceased without delay. Note that this rejection of fossil fuels is quite separate from any risk of climate change that may or may not be caused by burning fossil fuels.

The fossil-fuel industry has an obvious lack of enthusiasm for this technology that gives us such a dramatic increase in energy efficiency. It results in demand for coal dropping by 50 per cent.

China on the other hand wishes to reduce its reliance on energy imports and to lower the cost of energy. It is increasingly building synthetic natural gas plants. Some examples (These links open web pages in new tabs):

  1. Synthetic gas from coal: Siemens to supply eight 500 MW coal gasifiers to China 
  2. India's coal-to-gas dream takes baby steps (Note:  "In comparison, China has some 50 coal gasification plants running and it is ploughing ahead with another 40.") 
  3. China Power Investment Corporation has awarded Haldor Topsøe the contract for a 2 billion Nm3 per year Coal to SNG plant in Xinjiang, China 
  4. GE Demonstrates Scale and Fuel Flexibility of Its Gasification Technology at Two Major Projects in China 
  5. Topsoe awarded the third coke oven gas to SNG plant in China   

For examples of savings in energy costs that result from using the technology described above, read more at A Tale of Two Shopping Centres.

Environmentalism has only a vague acquaintance with logic. This distinguishes it from science. For instance, it believes renewable energy technology is "necessary" even though it is clearly incapable of slowing growth in global demand for coal. Faced with this chronic failure, environmentalism still rejects out-of-hand available technology that halves the demand for coal. Logical thinking is not in evidence here. Environmentalism would prefer making no progress at all than get halfway to the "necessary" goal if this involves any use of despised fossil fuels.

Enter the climate change sceptics

Just as the environmentalists do not rely on climate science to justify their dislike of fossil fuels, the marketers of fossil fuels do not need climate science scepticism to justify their dislike of energy-efficiency technology that reduces the demand for fossil fuels.

However, it is logical to change a debate to a subject that cannot be quickly answered.

A debate in which the coal industry argues we should reject the available technology to reduce the cost of energy would be over very quickly.

The climate sceptics view of the world contains clear indications that it is an illogical invention of the fossil fuel industry. The clearly false assertions below serve only one purpose: To avoid engaging in the argument that we can create energy more cheaply with less fuel:
"The Kyoto Protocol, if implemented, reduces emissions by a mere five percent among industrialized nations only. But this would have a devastating effect on the economy of our nation."

"It is not possible to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, much less to stabilize or reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, without severe restrictions on the use of coal, oil, and natural gas. This means a global regime of severe energy rationing, because it is not possible to replace these essential fuel sources with technology that is currently available and affordable."

"The use of coal and hydrocarbon fuel has another, more obvious effect: fueling the agriculture and industry that lifts billions of people from poverty and misery. Without abundant, economical sources of energy, millions of people would die and millions more would be reduced to dire poverty."

Has science become an alternative religion?


THE three wise monkeys of Australian climate science, professors Will Steffen, Matthew England and David Karoly, posted a self-justifying report on the Climate Commission website last week linking recent floods, heavy rain and low temperatures to global warming.
Historian Geoffrey Blainey, suggests science has become an "alternative religion". AFP

"The science behind southeast Australia's wet, cool summer" is their explanation for why the much-ridiculed predictions of endless drought by fellow climate activists, such as Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery, failed to materialise.

"The wetter conditions experienced in southeastern Australia in the last two years are consistent with scientists' knowledge and understanding of how the climate is changing in the long term," they write.

It's just the media that got it wrong.

"Most parts of Australia have experienced exceptionally heavy rains over the past two years, filling many dams around the country ... There has been much confusion in the media about what this means for climate change."

It's a pity these scientists weren't so proactive when the media was lapping up Flannery's Armageddon forecasts.

And no, contrary to Malcolm Turnbull's claims last week, Flannery wasn't "verballed".

It's a matter of public record that Flannery has warned of endless drought for years.

In 2007 he predicted, "rainfall across eastern Australia will reduce until a semi-permanent El Nino-like (drought) state is induced".

"Blind faith in alarmist predictions has serious consequences"
He urged desalination plants be built within 18 months.

He claimed, "even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and our river systems".

He was wrong.

But through his best-selling book The Weather Makers, the Climate Commissioner influenced a lot of Australians.

Blind faith in alarmist predictions has serious consequences.

In last year's floods in Brisbane, for instance, we now know that engineers at the Wivenhoe dam chose to believe the doomsayers rather than the evidence of their own eyes and the actual weather forecast that told them the drought had broken and Dorothea Mackellar's "flooding rains" were back.

Conditioned to believe permanent drought was the new reality, the engineers hoarded water.

Instead of releasing it slowly and early, they waited until it was too late, and huge volumes of water escaping from the dam flooded Brisbane, engulfed 15,000 homes and businesses.

The hapless engineers, now facing criminal charges, are the scapegoats.

But the real culprits are opportunistic politicians and mad greenies, whose apocalyptic warnings supersede prudence and common sense.

With just four months left until the advent of the carbon tax, the alarmists have regrouped.

Without admitting any errors of the past, they blithely explain away the inconvenient truth of all that rain and ramp up Armageddon scenarios that justify the tax.

With the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report due next year, the hyperbole meter is set to screech.

Historian Geoffrey Blainey, speaking last week, suggests science has become an "alternative religion".

Research into his new book, A Short History of Christianity, leads him to think our attitude towards science in an era of technological advances is akin to religious faith, with gods to worship, a vehemence of belief, good and evil, heretics and saints.

He says alternative religions have taken the place of Christianity, including communism, and nature worship.

The third alternative religion is "science, its cousin technology and its god, reason".

"Science has become incredibly powerful and influential, which is understandable.

So much of our increased standard of living in the last 150 years has come from science and technology and understandably science is worshipped by a large number of people."

MIT atmospheric physicist Professor Richard Lindzen also views climate alarmism as "quasi-religious".

Climate alarmists want science to act as the servant of politicians pushing for carbon control.

That is not the role of science.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Warmer Climate Good For Singer

Debate Over Climate Science of Academic Interest Only -
Policy on Climate Change Resolved by Energy Technology


The debate that has raged for over a decade on climate science has turned out to be a fizzer.

The final answer to the question:
Do emissions from burning fossil fuels cause global warming?
turns out to be:
Apart from climate scientists publishing academic papers, no-one cares.
Where did we go wrong in elevating this unimportant question into a major political debate?
These two assumptions created the perception that climate science was important:
  1. That effects of climate change caused by human activity will be beneficial.
  2. That any efforts to limit climate change caused by human activity would have dire consequences.
We now know the second assumption was wrong. Academic climate scientists may continue to debate the first assumption for years to come, at their leisure.

Dr Fred Singer correctly describes policy formulation in circumstances where scientists disagree over important issues:
This is a problem that people will have to ask themselves. They'll have to say: What happens in the worst case?
The policy answer to this so-called "problem" is surprisingly simple:
  1. Energy generation with low emissions of carbon dioxide will NOT have a devastating effect on the economy and result in millions of people dying and millions more reduced to dire poverty. 
  2. Energy generation with low emissions of carbon dioxide will reduce the cost of energy, boost economic activity, create jobs growth and help to reduce poverty. This is THE RIGHT policy response. 


Interview, Dr. S. Fred Singer


If people can't rely on statements like "most scientists agree" and so forth, like that, with an issue of this complexity, how are they supposed to come to an opinion on it?

How should people come to some conclusion when scientists disagree? I think this is a problem that people will have to ask themselves. They'll have to say: What happens in the worst case? Supposing the scientists who say it will warm are correct, is that good or bad? And the answer is: If it warms, it will be good. So what is the concern, really? Even if the warming should take place, and the warming will be noticeable...if that should be the case, if it is measurable, that does not mean that it is economically damaging. In fact, the opposite is true.

But you might get, for instance, flooding in Bangladesh or in the [Maldive] Islands, or in southern United States. Those have to be scenarios. If you have a warming up,four or five degrees, those are possibilities, aren't they?

We have to ask, what is the impact of a warmer climate? It's not the warming itself that we should be concerned about. It is the impact. So we have to then ask: What is the impact on agriculture? The answer is: It's positive. It's good. What's the impact on forests of greater levels of CO2 and greater temperatures? It's good. What is the impact on water supplies? It's neutral. What is the impact on sea level? It will produce a reduction in sea-level rise. It will not raise sea levels. What is the impact on recreation? It's mixed. You get, on the one hand, perhaps less skiing; on the other hand, you get more sunshine and maybe better beach weather.

Let's face it. People like warmer climates. There's a good reason why much of the U.S. population is moving into the Sun Belt, and not just people who are retiring.


Moscow death toll soars as heat wave persists

"She could have been dead for two to three days, doctors suppose," said the psychologist, who had rushed back to Moscow from vacation in Croatia after she couldn't reach her mother by phone. "The windows in her apartment on the sixth floor were wide open and every piece of furniture in the apartment smelled of burning" from the thick white smoke hanging in the air outside.
...

Revich said the heat and smog were hardest on the elderly and those suffering from lung disorders. "Even after the heat is gone these people will be suffering from the consequences and we will see more and more deaths in the coming weeks," he said.


An Acceptable Solution for Fred Singer and his Antagonists 
(or, How we can have our cake and eat it too) 

If you want CHEAPER, RELIABLE energy the answer exists, and is repeatedly demonstrated on real projects:

Distributed energy generation produces energy at SUBSTANTIALLY lower costs than central power generation - either fossil-fueled or renewable.
BASIX Multi-Unit Residential Cogeneration Demonstration Project
Mirvac’s Cambridge Lane development is saving its occupants around $1,000 a month on power bills.
...cut its greenhouse emissions [at an annual rate of] 120 tonnes of CO2, equivalent to greenhouse emissions from around 35 cars.
Smart Energy Zones - Case Study: Glenfield, Australia
In most locations in Australia delivered grid power costs between 17 and 18 cents per kwh. ...It is projected that the GridX power system will cost less than 10 cents per kwh.
Immediate GHG reduction 33% - CO2 reduction per annum 250 tonnes.

If you want to reduce CO2 emissions:

Distributed energy generation cuts CO2 emissions at a LOWER COST than renewable energy.
Distributed Energy Delivers Big, Green Results in London
...distributed energy delivers greater carbon emissions cuts for every dollar spent than centralized renewable energy

Note that distributed energy generation can be fueled by fossil fuels, renewable fuels, or ANY COMBINATION of both.

Fred Singer and his supporters do not realise that cheap energy with low CO2 emissions is available -

Hot Topics, Cold Truth
The Kyoto Protocol, if implemented, reduces emissions by a mere five percent among industrialized nations only. But this would have a devastating effect on the economy of our nation. It’s part of the anti-technology, anti-energy, anti-growth philosophy of the extreme "greens."

Scientists Urge Rejection Of Kyoto Agreement
It is not possible to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, much less to stabilize or reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, without severe restrictions on the use of coal, oil, and natural gas. This means a global regime of severe energy rationing, because it is not possible to replace these essential fuel sources with technology that is currently available and affordable.

The use of coal and hydrocarbon fuel has another, more obvious effect: fueling the agriculture and industry that lifts billions of people from poverty and misery. Without abundant, economical sources of energy, millions of people would die and millions more would be reduced to dire poverty.