Saturday, June 30, 2012

Tomorrow it Begins.....

As the first move in an act of economic hari-kiri, tomorrow Australia unsheathes the big knife, ready to disembowel itself (economically).

Yep! The Carbon Tax.

Mine Host, like many, had little clue about how much damage this tax was going to do.

Then yesterday one of his suppliers drops by the office for an informal chat. This man is very worried, & with good reason.

The product supplied by this man, a non-saleable item for which there is no alternative, currently costs the Wayside Tavern $20,000 per year.

Tomorrow that price rises to One Hundred and Seventy Thousand Dollars per year.

16 comments:

JeffS said...

Good Lord. Economic suicide indeed.

Apply that to Obamacare, and I'm scared witless.

Anonymous said...

My guess is toilet paper - must be a lot of carbon released in that whole bleaching and softening process.

Maybe a prize is in order for who guesses closest?

Mick from Jan Juc

Boy on a bike said...

Guess you'll have a warm pub serving warm beer.

Yuk.

kae said...

Do you still spike kegs?

kae said...

Flat beer?

Steve at the Pub said...

Boab is bang on the money. Refrigerant gas.

Kae: Kegs haven't been spiked since Samuel Cody's flying circus were flying through barns.

Mick: We do go through a lot of dunny roll though, we buy it by the pallet.

Anonymous said...

There is no shame in being beaten by the better man on the day - congrats BoaB!

Steve, damn - that is some increase - is it likely that the cost will decrease once it is repealed?

They reckoned that the GST had the effect of adding 2% to inflation overnight and it took a long time to filter out - sounds like this rort will add 10%

Mick from Jan Juc

James said...

Even the industry with vested interests is only claiming the cost of the worst polluting gas R404A will rise at most 4 fold when it attracts a $74.98 carbon penalty. R404a is a greenhouse gas 3260 times more potent then CO2. The other three alternatives R134a, R410A and R407C have greenhouse gas potentials between 1300-1700 times CO2 which means that they will attract 0.3-0.5 the carbon tax penalty or $30-40 per Kg and will only double in price.

Me thinks your friend might want to present his supplier with some facts and suggest he rethink his pricing plan or alternatively find a new supplier. The 8 fold rise he suggests is way outside the suggested rise even by his own industry bodies.

One would also think that such pricing changes would incentivise upgrades and maintenance to refrigeration equipment to leak less refrigerant or the purchase of new higher efficiency equipment which uses gases with much lower greenhouse gas potential and therefore cheaper under the carbon tax whilst also using less electricity. But all of those things would be examples of the carbon tax actually working so I'm sure they're all folly.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/refrigerant-cost-hike-under-carbon-tax-to-hit-business-industry-warns/story-e6frg6xf-1226409566015

http://www.heatcraft.com.au/webdav/site/external/shared/Gas2Go_CarbonTaxUpdate_LR.pdf

Boy on a bike said...

...and money grows on trees. Can you supply a fridge that runs on unicorn farts?

Anonymous said...

I thought everyone knew unicorns fart rainbows - surely we can get some sort of feedback loop happening....

PeterB said...

I work in insurance and we have started increasing our client's machinery sums insured to take account of the increased cost of refrigerant.

Of course this will mean that their premium costs are going to increase.

And all for no effect on the climate.

kae said...

Awwww, c'mon, SATP - my bestie worked at ANU Bar in the late 70s and she used to spike kegs. It wasn't that long ago!

Steve at the Pub said...

Spiking disappeared sometime in the 1980's Kae.
The German style kegs with couplers, that are used now are far superior to the "spiking" method, which not only required some skill & physical strength, but should it be done improperly, had its risks.

"The keg spiking that went wrong" story was one everybody had, much like every shooter has a "the gun that could not possibly have been loaded managed to discharge a round" story.

James said...

"Mr Combet named Sydney-based refrigerant company Heatcraft on Thursday as one business that was "just taking the opportunity to jack up prices" upon the introduction of the government's $23-a-tonne pollution price.
The effective carbon price for the gas R404A was $75 a tonne but Heatcraft was hiking its price by $285 a tonne, he said.
Australian Refrigeration Association president Tim Edwards said "on the face of it" some wholesale gas suppliers were price gouging."

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/swan-dances-around-carbon-floor-price/story-e6frfku9-1226417898030#ixzz1zjqkOAAP

kae said...

SATP
I've heard some of those "spiking the keg gone wrong" stories, always pretty awful!
Check this out, AM's caught up with the refrigerant rise:
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2012/s3539213.htm

kae said...

the word verification now sucks bad