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April 2008
Queensland Feed In Tariffs controversy
There is a controversy building in Queensland around proposals to introduce Feed-In Tariffs.
Why should it be controversial, after all they've worked well in Germany and California to boost demand for solar and other renewables to get the volumes up to where they will be able to compete with Fossil Fuels (with all their hidden subsidies).
The controversy revolves around the form of the tariff. South Australia, earlier this year adopted a feed-in tariff in name only - offering 44c/kwh but only on net metered power. This means that for 99% of residential installations there is no benefit at all, because they are never producing more power than the home uses.
Queensland made an announcement on 11th March, that appeared to suggest it was going to be "Gross" metered, i.e. the owner of the solar system would be paid for ever kwh they generated, whether they consumed it themselves, or fed it back to the grid. Many organisations congratulated them for getting it right. But then the details emerged and Department of Mines and Energy are writing a "Net" metered Feed In Tariff after all.
Queensland Conservation are one such group that is more than a little annoyed at this backtracking, and have published graphs showing how most households will get no benefit.
It remains to be seen whether Queensland's government will revise this to actually have some effect rather than be just greenwashing, and now is a good time to tell any Queensland politicians you know that a REAL feed-in tariff is needed to stimulate Renewables in Queensland.
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Australia's Emission Trading - getting it right
I heard Ross Garnaut speak at the excellent Solar Cities conference in Adelaide last month, so I wasn't totally surprised when a couple of days later his proposals for Emission Trading in Australia were released.
However there is a huge difference - as we see with Queensland's Feed-In-Tariffs - between an announcement that looks great; and the implementation.
The Federal Labor government started by minimising the report, which - prior to its release - it claimed was critically important.
Since that time, the political jockeying has started. This is only to be expected, since it is cheaper to influence politicians than to fix the emissions problem.
The Australian covered Ross Garnaut's call to ignore the political fixers, and in particular not to grant free permits to the worst polluters - duh, first they trash they atmosphere then they want a free pass to keep doing it. These are the very people who need to be adjusting their industries, and if they can't find a way - as many of their competitors will - to find a solution that benefits their business then they could, and should, suffer "readjustment". The NSW government, that wants to sell off the state-owned electricity business are putting in their pitch for the money.
It is the employees of polluting businesses we should be looking to support (e.g. retrain) through the transition, rather than the businesses that we should be propping up. This is where we also have to watch for the fixers, the significant pot of money from auctioning permits needs to be used for this re-adjustment, to support the lower-income households likely to be effected by for example the necessary down turn of some industries. One of the first grabs for this money has been from Malcolm Turnbull (Opposition Treasury Spokesman) (printed in the Australian, and reported in the Melbourne Age )
Posted by at 10:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Peak Music and Global Noise
This article is to draw your attention to the twin challenges facing our culture, that of Peak Music, and Global Noise caused by the impact of Cumulative Emissions of Rhythm.
All natural resources reach a peak, and music is not an exception, after approximately half of the talent has been used up it is predicted that annual production of music will decline. While experts argue as to when this peak will be reached, few now disagree with the overall hypothesis that music is, or will soon, be in decline.
Continue reading "Peak Music and Global Noise"
Posted by at 12:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)