POWER!!!! Fortescue Future Industries, page-5999

"If the answer is yes, at what point of degradation will it become essential to include in project cost analysis recognition of further environmental damage?"

The problem with your question is that it is viewed through a decidedly Western-centric lens and fails to account for the overall global context, i.e. through the collective lens of the billions of people living in the developing world for whom just getting electricity into their homes and having access to education and hospitals, as well as cheaper food... all basic necessities of life and all which require energy to bring them into being and to sustain them.

For Mr and Mrs Magoo living in the shanty town of Lagos or for Mr and Mrs Naidoo living in the slums of Mumbai or for Mr and Mrs Chen living in the remote Chinese province of Qinghai; for billions of folk like these the environment is a deeply subordinated consideration compared to improving their standards of living.

Which segues into the question asked in your subsequent post, namely, "As we, in the developed world, produce clean, green technologies and power, is it incumbent upon us to also share our technological advancements and assist developing countries?"

The question is as endearing as it is naïve: assist developing countries by sharing our technological advancements? Heck, we affluent countries have spent trillions of dollars on renewable energy technology and we are only able to cover all points on the demand curve for less than 10% of the time.

Here in Australia, we basically have a situation wherein governments (state and federal) have been forced into a de facto, soft nationalisation of loss-making coal fired power generation assets, having to spend tax payer money to keep those coal power stations open so that the nation has power when the sun goes down! Not just coal power stations, but refineries to make diesel need to be propped up by taxpayer funds to precent their owners shutting down the few remaining refineries we still have. And the government has to continue to subsidise power bills (despite years of assurances that power prices are going to fall).

Energy policy in Australia (like many other developed countries) is in a mess.

So how can we help other nations walk, when we are barely crawling?

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