Barry suspends solar energy scam

An excellent decision by the O'Farrell government. All that the solar scheme did was benefit the well off who could afford solar panels at the expense of those who couldn't.

Solar bonus scheme suspended after blow out

April 29, 2011 - 2:28PM

The NSW government has suspended the Solar Bonus Scheme due to cost blowouts.

No new applications will be considered while the future viability of the program is considered next week, Energy Minister Chris Hartcher announced today.

Mr Hartcher said the scheme would add an estimated $651 million to the budget deficit over the four years to 2014-15.
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The scheme pays householders for all energy generated by residential solar panels, including what they use themselves as well as what they feed into the grid.

But it ran into trouble last year when the government was forced to slash the feed-in tariff.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/solar-bonus-scheme-suspended-after-blow-out-20110429-1e02j.html#ixzz1L0KnTf3u

Renewable energy rorts

Those solar roof panels are no more then a subsidy to the rich: (h/t Catallaxy Files) I hope Barry O'Farrell buts a stop to this nonsense.

Meanwhile another Gillard cabinet minister (not Ferguson) told me: "Large sections of Australia's rich are engaged in a conspiracy to screw the poor in the name of saving the planet."

He was talking about feed-in tariffs, a classic rort. They are applied to a better or worse (usually worse) extent in most states and function as a regressive tax. Under this policy high income earners are subsidised to supply renewable energy to the grid from their installed solar panels.

Where is the rort worse?

Exactly where you would expect: in the Australian Capital Territory, home of income re-distribution towards the better-off in the name of clean energy. Indeed, it is calculated that wealthy Canberrans will receive a 900 per cent subsidy for every kilowatt hour of electricity they supply to the grid. Yes, this is the socially progressive Labor Party in action.

Ethanol from coal not foodstuff

I have been saying for some time that alcohol fuels are a viable alternative to oil based fuels. However on of the problems with ethanol is that making it from wheat or corn makes dubious sense. Its only survives in the US with government subsidies.   However there is an alternative make it from coal and other hydrocarbons:

 

DALLAS (Nov. 9, 2010) -- Celanese Corporation (NYSE: CE), a global technology and specialty materials company, today announced its intention to construct manufacturing facilities in China and the U.S. to utilize recently-developed advanced technology for the production of ethanol for chemical applications and other industrial uses. Celanese’s innovative process technology builds on the company’s industry-leading acetyl platform and integrates new technologies to produce ethanol using basic hydrocarbon feedstocks.

“We are very excited about our technology advancement as it allows us to address growing global demand for ethanol in industrial applications,” said Dave Weidman, chairman and chief executive officer. “The company has successfully integrated newly developed technologies with elements of our proprietary advanced acetyl platform to provide an economically-advantaged solution for global ethanol needs.” 

Of course there is another alternative, use methanol instead of ethanol.  Converting hydrocarbons and organic matter to  methanol is old tech and methanol works fine flex fuel cars.

$1.1 Billion wasted on solar power

This should not be a surprise to anyone:

MORE than $1 billion of taxpayers' money was wasted on subsidies for household solar roof panels that favoured the rich and did little to reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions, a scathing review has found.

The review of the now scrapped federal government solar rebate scheme, conducted by ANU researchers Andrew Macintosh and Deb Wilkinson, also found the rebates did little to generate a solar manufacturing industry in Australia, instead sending hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars offshore.

Mr Macintosh, deputy head of ANU's Centre for Climate Law and Policy, told The Age yesterday the rebate had been ''beautiful politics, terrible policy''.

''I can't see there is anything to be gained continuing to subsidise rooftop solar PV [photovoltaics] in areas where households have easy access to the energy grid,'' he said.

Renewable energy is going to cost us

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We are going to pay to the roof for the windmill scam:

THE chief executive of one of the country's biggest energy retailers has warned that power prices are set to increase dramatically.

Origin Energy boss Grant King said that complying with the mandatory renewable energy target (RET) and network spending would put upward pressure on energy prices.

"That's not of our making, or anybody other than policymakers," Mr King told The Australian.

"That's just the inevitable and logical consequences of the policies" that governments are implementing.

Germany's renewable energy disaster

 

Germans have been encouraging renewable energy through feed in tariffs, a scheme which allows renewable energy producers to sell electricity back to the grid at  higher cost. Certainly this provides an incentive to produce electricity, but as should have been obvious to anybody, increased electricity costs burden the economy are are a jobs killer:

The allure of an environmentally benign, abundant, and cost-effective energy source has led an increasing number of industrialized countries to back public financing of renewable energies. Germany’s experience with renewable energy promotion is often cited as a model to be replicated elsewhere, being based on a combination of far-reaching energy and environmental laws that stretch back nearly two decades. This paper critically reviews the current centerpiece of this effort, the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), focusing on its costs and the associated implications for job creation and climate protection. We argue that German renewable energy policy, and in particular the adopted feed-in tariff scheme, has failed to harness the market incentives needed to ensure a viable and cost-effective introduction of renewable energies into the country’s energy portfolio. To the contrary, the government’s support mechanisms have in many respects subverted these incentives, resulting in massive expenditures that show little long-term promise for stimulating the economy, protecting the environment, or increasing energy security. In the case of photovoltaics, Germany’s subsidization regime has reached a level that by far exceeds average wages, with per-worker subsidies as high as 175,000 € (US $ 240,000)

I note gross feed in tariffs are NSW  Liberal Party policy so I hope Barry is listening.

Government & Opposition agree to shaft us

Well, the ETS may have hit a hurdle but we are getting a RET - Renewable Energy Target. The result will be higher electricity costs:

The RET will work by forcing electricity companies to buy a certain portion of electricity from renewable sources such as wind, solar and geothermal.

Households and businesses will pay for it through higher power prices.

The Coalition has secured more exemptions for industry from the cost of the RET in the deal struck today.

That means households will pay a greater share.

Paul Kelly got stuck into the nonsense this morning:

HURRAH, the Rudd government and Turnbull opposition have agreed to pass the Renewable Energy Target, an initiative unjustified in economic terms that makes emission reduction costs three times more expensive than the price of permits under cap and trade and resurrects government planning that Australia spent half a century trying to escape.

This is an initiative driven totally by politics. In a new world of climate change tokenism it means Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull are heroes. Government support to create new renewable industries otherwise untenable has become the test of being "serious" about climate change.

Now there is a type of renewable energy that's cheap, reliable and can be produced in sizable quantity, hydro-electricity. There's opportunity for hydro power in Tasmania but that Labor and the Greens closed off that option years ago. And there's that other emission free renewable (well recyclable anyway) energy source Green and Labor don't like.