We’re going to see a lot more of this in the next few years. It is just waste. At some point citizen-taxpayers are going to have to draw the line at this sort of thing. Hopefully wasteful green policies such as this will start to receive more scrutiny.
TEC today congratulated the NSW Government, householders, and the solar industry on the outstanding success of the Solar Bonus Scheme which has triggered a rush of consumers to install roof top solar power.
“The tariff which is both generous and effective, has so far paid 30,000 householders 60 cents per kilowatt hour to sell their energy back to the grid, which is four times what it costs to buy energy,” said Mr. Jeff Angel, executive director of TEC. “This has meant that householders are able to pay off their investments in record time. It’s a win-win for all.”
Everyone wins except the taxpayer and perhaps future consumers of electricity.
The problem with this sort of thing – beyond the immediate waste – is that it undermines incentives to provide cheaper energy. If inefficient home-producers get subsidised that means that efficient mass producers don’t face the same cost-pressures and market tests to perform well. We’ve seen this in water provision already. Water is under-priced – now paying more money to government won’t make it rain – but paying more money to government would give them the incentive to earn more by letting people consume more. Water restrictions occur because the government doesn’t earn enough from selling water to ensure that they have a ready supply of the stuff (that means building dams).
(HT: Kevin)
I find it offensive to associate Greenies with my beloved pork – king of meats
[No vulgar interpretations of this declaration, please].
C.L.
29 Aug 10 at 3:22 pm
I’ve heard and read and written the word ‘pork’ so many times in the last few weeks, then just yesterday noticed the subliminal effect on my shopping – pancetta, sopressa, ham, chorizo, pork chops, shoulder roast and pork fillets have all been in my fridge in the last fortnight.
King of Meats indeed.
FDB
29 Aug 10 at 3:27 pm
Good there is something both left and right agree on
But Bob Katter said that Australia has become a net importer of pork. Doesn’t this bother you?
Boris
29 Aug 10 at 3:30 pm
” paying more money to government would give them the incentive to earn more by letting people consume more.”
The main harm from underpricing water is that people do not have sufficient incentive to economise.
Boris
29 Aug 10 at 3:34 pm
“Bob Katter said that Australia has become a net importer of pork”
I’m confused. Who does that mean I should vote for? Denmark?
FDB
29 Aug 10 at 3:36 pm
I don’t know if water is underpriced. I would say city water could be underpriced if the cost at my tap is less than the cost of capturing, storing, treating and transporting. But then should I have to pay more for water that is super expensive cause the dicks won’t build a new dam? In that instance full pricing at the tap would be a transfer to people who value the non-construction of dams.
As for farm water, rights should be auctioned.
pedro
29 Aug 10 at 3:48 pm
“Bob Katter said that Australia has become a net importer of pork”
Yes, because our pig farmer lack efficiency.
pedro
29 Aug 10 at 3:49 pm
my beloved pork
Get thee behind thee Jezebel. What temptation… no I won’t. I’ll be strong.
Adrien
29 Aug 10 at 3:53 pm
I think, because water is essential for life there might be some justification for its socialization?
The energy thing is totally correct. If you put a price on carbon and ensure the set-up’s for an open, competetive energy market you’ll get better solutions to the oil junkie jag.
Adrien
29 Aug 10 at 3:55 pm
FDB
If you weren’t so bloody self indulgent and selfish, you’d be able to afford some decent vittels for your new pussy!
Peter Patton
29 Aug 10 at 3:58 pm
Pork is unclean. It doth not cheweth the cud, even though it is cloven of hoof.
Entropy
29 Aug 10 at 5:17 pm
The solar panel companies that have been flogging this pork roll also make it sound like ‘free money’.
It is almost a wonder that neither the solar spruikers nor Jeff Angel have been pinged for misleading advertising
ie the implication that this enormous subsidy to the purchasers of a particular technology are doing so at no cost to anyone else, and that unspoken is the truth of an enforced government mandate as the key to their wonderful investment.
Greenwashed bacon – the St Patrick’s Day favourite.
Myrddin Seren
29 Aug 10 at 5:53 pm
“I think, because water is essential for life there might be some justification for its socialization? ”
At some minimum level, yes. Or you may want to subsidise for the poor only and let the rest pay full price. The current system creates huge waste – and restrictions.
Boris
29 Aug 10 at 6:12 pm
I think, because water is essential for life there might be some justification for its socialization?
That’s the rationale for socialising everything, from health to schools to banks. They’re essential. Please note that if the logic worked, we’d socialise supermarkets. But even though food is essential, we don’t. Therefore, the argument fails, just as it fails for water.
daddy dave
29 Aug 10 at 7:32 pm
No thermal generator in the entire National Electricity Market has an average cost remotely close to 60c/kWh. You could run an open cycle gas turbine using jet fuel for half the cost of that. Jeff Angel is a loonie. I’ve come across his nonsensical submissions many times.
Sleetmute
29 Aug 10 at 8:48 pm
i think a better idea is to give the poor enough free monies so they can afford water. The free money can be spend on anything not necessarily water. That way we will still have correct prices and the poor can still get their water.
ben
29 Aug 10 at 8:53 pm
Sleepmute…
A gas turbine is basically a Boeing 747 jet engine, no?
JC
29 Aug 10 at 8:54 pm
I don’t think anyone is pretending that the 60 c/kw has any resemblance to cost Sleetmute.
Although I must confess that many of the plebs buying panels based on this price think it does. After a couple of years the thing is paid off and you could easily end up paying nothing for your electricity on a net basis, courtesy f the long suffering NSW taxpayer.
My father is all keen to do it, and when I ask that if real wholesale electricity prices are around 12 c/kw, and the retail is 21 c/kw, how does he think he can get 60 cents? His answer is because solar costs more to generate, so should get a higher price. He is university educated.
entropy
29 Aug 10 at 8:54 pm
The “poor” in Australia can afford to drink bottled water, which is more expensive than petrol. Sod giving them subsidised stuff from the tap so that they can cheaply flush their turds.
boy on a bike
29 Aug 10 at 8:58 pm
“His answer is because solar costs more to generate, so should get a higher price. He is university educated.”
Ask him to keep detailed records. He’ll learn the hard way.
.
29 Aug 10 at 9:02 pm
JC, yes, more or less. Entropy, my point is just to emphasise how absurdly expensive a means of generating electricity this is. And there are plenty of university educated people around like your dad – 45% of inner city voters for starters. It’s scary how many. Jeff Angel is probably one of them.
Sleetmute
29 Aug 10 at 9:11 pm
Me on Open Forum:
“Subsidy whores:
http://www.acciona.com/news/acciona-energy-to-receive-103-million-euros-from-the-canadian-government-for-the-company%E2%80%99s-fourth-wind-farm-in-canada
http://indymedia.org.au/2010/01/23/mildura-solar-power-plant-languishes-while-coal-gets-funding “
.
29 Aug 10 at 9:12 pm
It’s an absolute bonanza, Dot. I don’t know how long it will last but the money spigot never ends.
JC
29 Aug 10 at 9:25 pm
How long before the German scam of installing flood lights over the solar panels to produce subsidised electricity at full blast all day every day regardless of how sunny it is gets going.
Just remember to turn the flood lights off at night. Solar power at night made the German power authorities suspicious.
Wayneofperth
30 Aug 10 at 9:28 am
Gee Wayne, you’re gullible.
FDB
30 Aug 10 at 10:26 am
Wayne is gullible how ?
The scandal was reported. Here is one link:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/13/the-insanity-of-greenery/
Part of the confusion may lie in a German report of the Spanish fraud.
But plenty of financial inducement and lax systems leads to open slather for the shonks – much like a Pink Batt surge.
Myrddin Seren
30 Aug 10 at 11:09 am
I love those sorts of deals.
Seren, please ignore FDB as he voted Green, which makes him feel a little embarrassed in front of adults.
JC
30 Aug 10 at 11:26 am
Daddy Dave – That’s the rationale for socialising everything, from health to schools to banks. They’re essential.
Indeed. And the way you counter those arguments is by saying it’s not. Water is essential and so is air. With these two things you can get the rest if you work for them. So however essential to life they may be (food, life-saving operation) or otherwise (banks, schools) they’re not immediately essential in the way water and air are.
We’ll probably have to privatize water however. Dry continent, water’s getting scarcer. Inevitable.
Adrien
30 Aug 10 at 11:55 am
The ‘scandal’ was simple fraud if it happened at all. What’s surprising about a private partner in a PPP ripping off the government. It’s de rigeur.
Again though, unsourced, unconfirmed hearsay with no location or company named sounds like pure bullshit to me, and the fact that most of the ‘details’ (shining lights at the panels, e.g.) have been made up along the way confirms this. They’re not even convincing sounding details – put there to make the story seem more plausible, they do exactly the opposite on a moments’ reflection.
FDB
30 Aug 10 at 12:10 pm
What’s surprising about a private partner in a PPP ripping off the government.
I thought that’s what a PPP was.
Adrien
30 Aug 10 at 12:13 pm
The ‘scandal’ was simple fraud if it happened at all.
How do you assume it’s fraud? You can’t.
The deal was to sell solar power to the grid. The fact that there were spot lights focused on the panels is immaterial.
JC
30 Aug 10 at 12:16 pm
“The fact that there were spot lights focused on the panels is immaterial.”
And untrue.
FDB
30 Aug 10 at 12:20 pm
My assumption of fraud is arrived at in a roundabout way.
First, by ignoring all my critical faculties and assuming that the story is true at some level (a company connected a diesel generator to the grid and passed the power off as solar-generated).
Next, I’m assuming that a contract was signed by the (non-existent) company (in this wholly invented story) to sell solar-generated power to the grid (in some unnamed part of Spain).
Hence: explicit contract violation = fraud. Imaginary fraud, but still… we make do with what we have to hand.
FDB
30 Aug 10 at 12:26 pm
FDB
Read this. It’s left-wing safe, as the guys there are sort of leties, but they’re good guys and decent stock analysts seeing we share some similar trades
This is what happens when you end up putting forward all sorts of moronic regulations.
http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2010/08/deregulation-conundrum.html
The Marc Rich shenanigans really did happen.
JC
30 Aug 10 at 12:34 pm
[...] it, maintain it. Lots of work and the apparatus of State underwriting it. Should we give it over to the free market or should it continue to be subsidized by the [...]
DO YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO WATER? « STILL CHAOS
30 Aug 10 at 2:25 pm
“This is what happens when you end up putting forward all sorts of moronic regulations.”
Well, are you suggesting there should be no sanctions against Iran?
Some regulations are necessary evil.
Boris
31 Aug 10 at 1:19 am
” Likewise other agency problems should be strongly policed and the regulation should be of the form that allows that policing. When Elliot Spitzer found that Marsh – a large insurance broker – was participating in bid rigging against schools buying insurance that was shocking – and is precisely the sort of thing in financial markets that should be policed strongly. But it took Elliot considerable effort to find and prove his case. The rules should be established so that sort of behaviour is really difficult to hide.
And I do not think that I need to explain to anyone how much mortgage brokers contributed to the crisis by (a) deliberately misleading borrowers about conditions on their mortgage and (b) participating in the faking of borrowers income/assets/education level when they on-sold the loans to Wall Street. Agency problems were at the core of the crisis.”
I’m currently reading a text on those mortgage brokers in Wall Street. They knew the mortgages were shonky so by default must have known the CDOs were shonky. They made a fortune trading crap and cost millions a great deal of money. In other professions such behavior can put you in jail for many years. Some of these bastards should be jailed for life.
Complain about regulation all you like but when people can cause so much damage by chasing their self interest you are a fool not to regulate their behavior.
John H.
31 Aug 10 at 2:17 am
[...] two months ago we covered this press release. TEC today congratulated the NSW Government, householders, and the solar [...]
Green is was the new pork at Catallaxy Files
28 Oct 10 at 8:30 am