Carbon Tax and Food Prices

[Graingrower]

While we are waiting for Sundays carbon tax announcement I'd encourage you all to read this report. It is about how carbon pollution reductions schemes will affect agriculture. It also covers the ramifications of these schemes in a broader sense.

http://www.nuffieldinternational.org/rep_pdf/1259891736David_Drage_Report_2009_.pdf

An interesting point is that there is very little that the agriculture industry can actually do to decrease their emissions. Another point is that the science of climate change is irrelevant as people have already made up their minds.

IMO: Whatever policys are undertaken the outcome will probably be an increase in biofuel production at the expense of food production. Coupled with the problems the world already faces as to how we are going to double food production in the next 39 years, the most likely result will be astronomically higher food prices.

 

[NedKelly]

I wish they would stop calling it a carbon pollution reduction scheme. It's not carbon it's carbon dioxide, it is not a pollutant it is an odourless gas essential for life and the proposed carbon tax will have no effect on Australias emissions of carbon dioxide.

 

[tom32]

Now they have said they will exempt deisel and petrol I assume it would have less effect on agg including no push toward biofuel?

I must say though after all the moves to electric cars, heck you can even buy hybrid heavy plant now like hydraulic excavators. You would be pretty dirty to find out now that the government is now penalising you with your super new green fleet agaisnt those who use good old diesel...

I cannot see that decreasing emmissions, only increasing dependence on fuel over mains power.

The Labor government just cannot win a trick.

 

[NedKelly]

The Labor government just cannot win a trick.

They can if they can con the sheeple into thinking they will be better off with the compensation they are going to get from the carbon tax spoils.

 

[locko24]

Interesting that they are now going to subsidise coal fired electricity producers. What was this tax about again?

 

[HiEquity]

IMO: Whatever policys are undertaken the outcome will probably be an increase in biofuel production at the expense of food production. Coupled with the problems the world already faces as to how we are going to double food production in the next 39 years, the most likely result will be astronomically higher food prices.

Which is why agriculture is likely to be exempt but yes we have to wait for Sunday to be absolutely sure.

The problem I have with this debate is the lack of perspective. In the face of peak oil and general oil price fluctuations out there in the international market, the impact of any possible carbon price, if it was applied to farming and transport, is like comparing a tank with a walnut. Diesel, Petrol and Gas, in descending order of carbon intensity, just aren't that carbon intensive in the first place for a carbon price to matter much.

Which is why transport is only circa 13% of our carbon footprint ie close to irrelevant - so either exempting it or including it hardly matters. It certainly makes only a small difference in the price of fuel in comparison to the price gyrations we have seen in recent years out there in the market.

 

[tom32]

Which is why transport is only circa 13% of our carbon footprint ie close to irrelevant - so either exempting it or including it hardly matters. It certainly makes only a small difference in the price of fuel in comparison to the price gyrations we have seen in recent years out there in the market.

What the Labor party does not understand is that good taxes are universal.

We had the GST to get rid of multiple sales taxes. This is good reform.

We are now introducing a carbon tax which has exemptions all over the joint. Why not just give a credit for anything that is exported?

I agree the impact is minimal around petroleum fuels less as you do get good bang for your buck out of petrol and diesel in the carbon stakes but still it should be taxed if they are going to have a tax. i.e. if you are going to have a tax at least make it univesal in application!

Cars are one place more expensive fuel will actually make a difference as there are options, electric and public transport as well as smaller cars. It is the one place where fuel use is over time elastic so by extension carbon pollution, and they want to exempt it!

The next tax revue that will no doubt be ignored by Labor will fill a whole bookshelf with taxes and subsidies which should be scrapped in favour of simple universal taxes.

 

[HiEquity]

What the Labor party does not understand is that good taxes are universal.

I'm sure they understand that - what they want to avoid is a situation where every time the petrol price rises the opposition screams Carbon Tax, where the real blame lies elsewhere.

I probably should give some figures.

Carbon intensity of petrol = approx 2.3kg CO2e/l
Assumed price of carbon = $23/tonne = $0.023/kg

Therefore impact of that carbon price on the price of petrol = .023*2.3 = $0.0529/l

An increase of 5c per litre of fuel, or around a 3.5% increase in the retail price for drivers. Less than the price of petrol fluctuates at my local servo every week. Wow!

It helps to keep a sense of perspective to all this... it doesn't really matter whether petrol is in or out. For a brown coal power station OTOH...

 

[tom32]

It helps to keep a sense of perspective to all this... it doesn't really matter whether petrol is in or out. For a brown coal power station OTOH...

Kudos for doing the calc!

I guess it is higher for remote areas where transport is a large cost component in the mix, it will be higher but I get your message it is not significant.

Over a year using say 2000 litres (assuming 10L per km and 20,000km per annum and 5c a litre impact) of fuel only pay $100.00

I still think it should be universal. They are falling into the same trap Hewson did with the GST. Making something that should be simple into something complex.

 

[wobbycarly]

Kudos for doing the calc!

I guess it is higher for remote areas where transport is a large cost component in the mix, it will be higher but I get your message it is not significant.

Over a year using say 2000 litres (assuming 10L per km and 20,000km per annum and 5c a litre impact) of fuel only pay $100.00

I still think it should be universal. They are falling into the same trap Hewson did with the GST. Making something that should be simple into something complex.

Wasn't it Meg Lees and the Democrats (who? ) that made the GST more complex than necessary by wanting the exemptions on fresh food?

 

[tom32]

Wasn't it Meg Lees and the Democrats (who? ) that made the GST more complex than necessary by wanting the exemptions on fresh food?

The later one under howard, yes.

It was not Hewsons fault on liberals first attempt that it was complex either. It was only his political downfall that he could not explain it to the Australian people without turning it into rocket science...

The fatefull question, would a cake be subject to GST to which Hewson asked a series of questions I think including, does it have fresh cream it it?

 

[Sunfish]

Now they have said they will exempt deisel and petrol I assume it would have less effect on agg including no push toward biofuel?

Aren't they reducing the REBATE to primary producers and miners by 6c/L?

The devil is in the detail.

 

[pieman]

The only problem with the tax is that petrol is exempt. Bring it on Julia!

 

[BayView]

I wish they would stop calling it a carbon pollution reduction scheme. It's not carbon it's carbon dioxide, it is not a pollutant it is an odourless gas essential for life and the proposed carbon tax will have no effect on Australias emissions of carbon dioxide.

Exactly.

Have a look at The Bolt Report every sun morning at 10.00am to hear his take on all this and other Gubbmint disasters which are glossed over in the media generally..

Very funny, and it's a common theme how he keeps asking those pollies who are disciples of the scam to come on and debate it with him, and many won't.

 

[charlieandkath]

I wish they would stop calling it a carbon pollution reduction scheme. It's not carbon it's carbon dioxide, it is not a pollutant it is an odourless gas essential for life and the proposed carbon tax will have no effect on Australias emissions of carbon dioxide.

Good point Ned. In my readings (happy to be corrected) one tonne of carbon equals 3.67 tonnes of carbon dioxide. If they put a price of $23 on this what are they putting it on. Are they putting it on carbon or carbon dioxide???

If they are putting it on carbon they are being clever as this would take the price of carbon dioxide down to $6.27 per tonne.

Any comments welcomed.

 

[Aaron Sice]

Good point Ned. In my readings (happy to be corrected) one tonne of carbon equals 3.67 tonnes of carbon dioxide. If they put a price of $23 on this what are they putting it on. Are they putting it on carbon or carbon dioxide???

If they are putting it on carbon they are being clever as this would take the price of carbon dioxide down to $6.27 per tonne.

Any comments welcomed.

Good point. Considering carbon is only one third of CO2, is co2 pricing one third of carbon pricing?

 

[topcropper]

In my readings (happy to be corrected) one tonne of carbon equals 3.67 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
.

Atomic weight oxygen 16.
Atomic weight carbon 12.

CO2.
Oxygen 32, carbon 12.

I'd have thought a tonne of carbon would be 2.666 carbon dioxide?
I only did high school chemistry though.


See ya's.

 

[topcropper]

The department of ag did a big trial on my place many years ago to help determine whether grain farmers were net emitters or not. They took soil samples, measured all sorts of things, grain yields, vegetable matter, all sorts of rotations, measured soil water use, measured fertilizer inputs and diesel inputs and everything else. Compared it to a small piece of native grass, as close as they could find to what it might have been 220 years ago before white man.

I was confident we would be made look good. The native grass is very unproductive. It gets all rank and without fertilizer, doesn't grow a real lot. The fertilized and improved pastures, and intensive cropping like we do grow much more material, so I thought farmers would be shown in a good light. The pasture and cropping is many times more productive, so I thought that would more than make up for the fertilizer inputs and such. The more productive, the more carbon is being taken in by the plant.

Turns out the scientists reckoned we were heavy CO2 emitters


Oh dear? Anyway years later I realised what the problem was. The scientists concluded the trial and measurements and calculations at the farm gate! That is nuts!!

You see, we have all this fertilizer and diesel and other stuff coming onto the farm, and the end product is grain that leaves the farm. This grain is about half or a bit less carbon. It gets sequestered all through the environment when it leaves my place. It gets eaten by animals, and ends up as meat, sequestered in humans, or it ends up as manure, which is then used later for organic fertilizer on an organic farm, or it's turned into compost and put onto gardens, or it's sequestered into the soil when the animal dies. Or my grain gets fed directly to humans, and so gets sequestered into the environment in much the same ways as if it was eaten by animals.

In summary, I'd reckon if the scientists looked at what happens to the 7 to 8 thousand tonnes of grain that leave my farm every year, and accounted for that, and the thousands of tonnes of carbon in that grain, there would have been a very different outcome.

I mentioned this years later, and they said it's never accounted for, as it's impossible to work out. So basically, no one really knows what effect agriculture has.


See ya's.

 

[charlieandkath]

Atomic weight oxygen 16.
Atomic weight carbon 12.

CO2.
Oxygen 32, carbon 12.

I'd have thought a tonne of carbon would be 2.666 carbon dioxide?
I only did high school chemistry though.


See ya's.

You are spot on with your atomic weights. Well remebered.

The way I worked it out was

CO2
Oxygen 32, Carbon 12 = 44

44 divide 12 = 3.666 of the total.

I failed chemistry badly at school though.

 

[topcropper]

The department of ag did a big trial on my place many years ago to help determine whether grain farmers were net emmiters or not.
See ya's.

Hmm. A quick google search bought this up.

http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/SR08104.htm

This trial was done on my farm. I must see if I can find all the old papers.


See ya's.