we’d probably get better value for money developing enhanced geothermal power plants that extract the heat from hot rocks several km below ground, especially if they use co2 rather than water as the heat transfer carrier. the costs drop dramatically if you dont have to worry about how much carrier dissipates into the rocks 3km underground. seems like the perfect way to clean up coal power stations and extend their economic life so you basicly get the geothermal power for free from the carbon credits.

It sounds uneconomic from that point alone and how have they estimated how much oil and gas is there?

Usually you have to drill several test wells just to get an indication of the size and depth of the field.

Brooklyn Bridge anyone?

This idea is inspired by the situation in Christchurch but it should work for city including the 4 cities in Auckland. Establish a green belt around the city. Introduce a 10c a litre petrol tax to fund the purchase of this land by the city council. Plant the green belt in native forest. Use the carbon credits to fund investment in public transport or high density council housing within walking distance of the CBD or even to within the CBD if there are run down areas that need to be brought back to life. This type of inner city renewal has worked wonders in Stockholm, London and Manchester, although they had plenty of abandoned shipyards and docklands. The key thing is that it reverses the the long running outwards growth of cities which of course reverses the growth in average commute distances. It’s important to realise that ultimately we can’t public transport our way out of congestion any more than we can motorway our way out of gridlock so ultimately we’ve got to rebuild walking cities.

Incidently, if Auckland’s congestion only happens because employers insist that almost everybody starts and finishes work at the same times it means lack of infrastructure isn’t the problem and multi-billion dollar spend-ups on motorways, busway and railways aren’t the solution . A cheap, simple and radical solution to the actual problem would be to introduce a 36 hour working week, 10% increase in hourly pay rates of course, 10% reduction in break time to keep employers happy. The 36 hours must be divided into either 6hrs/6days or 9hrs/4days or 12hrs/3days. Multiple start and finish times will spread the load on both roads and public transport. Spreading the load on public transport over more hours of the day will make it very cost effective to run high frequency services all the time and not just during a few hours in the morning and evening. Then the regional petrol tax could be spent on green belts so the carbon credits are available when you do need more public transport infrastructure, ie bring back the trams or finally build the underground loop under the CBD.

The rural roading problems are quite different, because they have become lifelines to centralised services and I don’t think we can avoid spending big, at least in the short-term, ie at least one 40yr pavement life-cycle into the future.

Americans and Kiwis etc. need to decrease their consumption or pay the tax. Cambodians can increase their consumption to make concrete, and still get a refund (which could pay for schools, designed to fit the climate and not need air conditioning), because their current consumption per head is very low indeed.

If they think ahead, they may invest in renewable electricity rather than diesel generators, thus conserving carbon quota.

ROFL!!! Now that’s my kinda humour! Nice one Alistair

Suppose someone in Christchurch turns off their heated towel rails and installs some insulation or solar heating. They are *good* - they will get interest free loans and carbon credits for the energy they save.

Suppose a school in Prey Veng, Cambodia, puts in a generator and installs lighting and some computers. They are *evil* and have to pay fuel tax and buy carbon credits from the people in Christchurch. And if it gets so hot they need air conditioning …

Also - Cambodia has discovered oil. Someone wrote to the Cambodia Daily expressing the hope that the oil revenue could enable the government to get teacher:pupil ratios down to 1:50. GDP per capita is about half that of Equador’s. The people who make your cloths get around $1000 a year - and that is considered a good job.

Should Cambodia have to pay a huge resource extraction tax to fund off-set measures to soak up the carbon produced by SUV drivers in New Zealand? Or maybe just be *moral* and leave it in the ground? Would supplying sustainable energy to people who currently use almost no energy be an off-set measure or would they have to fire up some generators first? Or should they just not be able to use energy?

Like the forests - save a forest, you get no money. Cut it down and sell the timber, and you can get funding to re-establish the forest. Is Cambodia allowed to cut down the same percentage of forest that New Zealand cut down?

I don’t know. I’d like someone to fly over and drive out to Prey Veng in a 2 ton V8 white SUV (the white ones are do gooders - the black ones are Military and Government) and to explain to the Cambodians why they cannot use their oil, or, if they do, they have to pay a huge tax to the UN (to hire a few more secretaries, perhaps?). Why they will not be able to afford to make the concrete they need for schools, but are not allowed to use wood. Cannot use charcoal, but will still not be able to afford electricity. I’d like to watch. I can’t explain it. But I’ll be a long way away watching.

Nope - I can not see it without some sort of subsidy.

Of course, the school in Prey Veng needs windows and so forth first …

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dcrobertson/482436388/

Otherwise you just admit defeat and watch the planet cook. Dr Strangelove II : “How I learned to stop worrying and love global warming.”

But compensating the opportunity cost of foregoing resource extraction is not the easiest part to start with.

First, you need to set international tariffs on fossil fuels. I’m not sure if these should be paid by the resource extractor or the resource consumer. Perhaps the ideal would be a global tax along the lines of GST, where you only pay tax on that fraction of the energy you actually consume, and the rest is passed on and paid by the consumer of the finished goods.

Or something. A bit of a pipe dream. More practical : a tax on the resource extractor, at X dollars/euros/yuan per ton CO2 equivalent. This would obviously be passed on by the extractor to the buyer. The UN energy agency would administer this tax, and use the money to fund climate change offsetting measures : saving/planting forests, carbon sequestration initiatives etc. Not subsidising sustainable energy : the market should take care of that, once the fossil energy sources correctly internalise their costs.

I don’t think it’s in any way realistic. Barking mad, in fact.

No one will pay for it.

Good point. If we leave *all* our coal in the ground, can we get heaps of cash, too?

How about we conduct more exploration for gas and oil fields (the resources from which are uneconomic to extract) and “agree to leave it there, for say….um…..400m per year” (worth a shot).

Making money has never been so easy….