Grendel wrote on Jan 18^th, 2009 at 12:10pm:


Yeah - Geothermal resources are making good progress there - from the latest report:

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http://www.geothermal-resources.com.au/

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There are plenty of other options that are also available now and which are much cheaper and more reliable. It's another silly vote buying handout, that's all. Even if we were to go with solar, it would be far cheaper to build large plants than lots of little ones on our roofs. The extra cost is absurd and makes no economic or environmental sense. It can only be motivated by vote buying.

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There are plenty of other options we could also take advantage of immediately. In fact, by taking advantage of this, you are chewing up valuable resources that could have been used to make far greater reductions in our emissions. Double the reduction in 12 months time is almost twice as good. By accepting the handout you are effectively telling the government that you are gullible and your vote is up for grabs by the highest bidder. By taking the route that maximises the harm to the economy, you are icnreasing the risk of a backlash against environmentalism. Youa re creating a tradeoff between the economy and the environment that does not need to exist. You are creating another reason to oppose reducing our emissions.

Does $8000 cover the full cost? What does your annual electricity bill come to, if you don't mind me asking?

I suspect that even if you ignore the costly government handout and factor in the money you save by producing your own electricity, you could make a bigger dent in your carbon footprint by purchasing green energy with your out-of-pocket expense for panels. Obviously there will be even cheaper ways to reduce your carbon footprint by reducing electricity consumption. Panels only appeal to people because they get to see something being built in their own backyard. Simply paying the money for green energy does not give the same warm glow because you don't see the result.

I call it 'ecoparasitology', where you suck the blood out of your community by first injecting a clever little green anaesthetic.

freediver wrote on Jan 18^th, 2009 at 4:22pm:


FD, I guess it's a question of who do you trust. If the Petroleum companies can pull a swiftie by giving us ethanol bought from China on the spot market that is manufactured from Natural Gas, what is the Clean Energy subsidy being used for?

I pay the extra for clean energy, but do I think that it's being apportioned to pay for a clean source of energy? No. I suspect that it may be going to some kind of slush fund for whatever passes as clean energy research, including some half-hearted sequestration projects that don't have a snowflakes chance in hell of working out.

The overheads may be higher for PV panels, but at least the householder can see and measure the tangible benefit for themselves. The real benefit is that it generates interest in sustainable energy production.

Apart from any of that, it's the only real alternative in some parts of the bush. When you're faced with a $45,000 connection charge to be part of the grid, a stand alone Solar PV system is the only real alternative if you want to be part of the 21st Century.  Many people are living in the bush and teleworking. I know a design engineer who lives just North of Alice Springs. He still has to travel from time to time, but his projects are on both coasts and in SE Asia, so his location is sometimes an advantage.  

I'm not sure if you live in Qld or not, but have you tried to buy Clean Energy lately? The best you can buy is 10% of your total. I think it's the same in NSW.

People in our parts of the bush were using all types of solar including  PV for over 20 years now. They reckon they started save money after less then 10 years.
I have build my first solar hot water system 25 years ago from old sheets of corrugated iron soldered together for less then $10.

Personally I don't give a damn as long as we are mining Uranium and selling it to countries that can use it to generate Electricity and contractually can't use it to make nuclear weapons.

The more  we can displace coal fired energy generation by any other low footprint generation worldwide, the better off we'll all be in the long run.  If that has to happen in countries where the population don't have their head up their collective arses, then so be it. Sweden is a good example.

There are three factors in this - small footprint, long term (including environmental) cost effectiveness and speed of implementation.

Sometimes we have to settle for energy generation that has a higher long term cost but we can implement it faster. A lot depends on how much we can do in the next 10 years.