A billion dollars from housing, schools, hospitals and health programs was drawn into solar subsidies to provide electricity that could have been produced in far cheaper ways.
Posted on 11/30/2010 10:33:04 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
A billion dollars from housing, schools, hospitals and health programs was drawn into solar subsidies to provide electricity that could have been produced in far cheaper ways.
There is no sunnier first world country than Australia. If solar was going to be a raging success anywhere, surely it would be in the land of the Sunburnt Country. Instead the Australian government has poured in more than a billion dollars to install solar panels on the roof tops of private homes. It’s a text book case of misdirected spending.
Solar power is clearly not viable yet. So that billion dollars could have been spent on research to make solar power economic (in which case no subsidies would be needed). It could have made us world leaders with a product to patent and sell (or it might not). Instead governments of both major parties chose to pour a billion dollars into a program that never had any chance of helping the environment, or our export industry. Mere feel-good window dressing.
The program gifted up to $8,000 dollars as a rebate to encourage people to install solar panels on their roofs, but it had to be canceled suddenly last year because the bill for the overly generous scheme was blowing out. Another different rebate for solar generated electricity promised to pay 60c a kwhr (compared to the usual 20 c/kwhr) and met the same fate. It too was suddenly canceled. In both cases the local solar industry had to deal with rapidly changing rules and rewards, leading to bubbles and overnight busts. It makes a mockery out of the “free market” driving small businesses to the wall, and discouraging long term planning and employment.
Renewable energy makes up only 6% of Australia’s energy needs, and fossil fuels, 94%. Solar PV panels provide 0.1% of all our electricity. There is no nuclear energy industry here, despite Australia having one third of the worlds uranium. Roger Pielke, Jr. has looked closely at Australia’s emission targets and calculated that it would need 35 nuclear plants, or 8,000 “Cloncurry plants”, finished and operating in nine years time in order to meet the targets. Ponder that the single Cloncurry “plant” those numbers are based on, has been beset with set-backs. After three years in development, when I last looked, the project had only 4 mirrors of the 8,000 it was supposed to have. It was due to be finished in early 2010. Possibly not the raging success it was hoped to be.
Having a solar panel on the roof used to be a badge of pride for the green-minded. But as people realize the panels took money from the poor to give cheap electricity to the wealthy and achieved almost nothing for the Australian environment or economy, surely they will become seen as the mark of the parasitic, the selfish or at best, the silly…
Even progressive activists know that this doesn’t make sense. D. Brady Nelson explains that a left-leaning group at the ANU, which accepts all the assumptions of the man-made global warming (government funded) “science”, just can’t justify the exorbitant waste for so little gain.
Solar power subsidies are under attack from an unexpected source, as the Australian National University’s Centre for Climate Law and Policy (CCLP) released a November 15 report criticizing the government’s efforts to subsidize solar energy.
In its report prepared for the activist Australia Institute, titled The Australian Government’s solar PV rebate program: An evaluation of its cost-effectiveness and fairness, the likewise left-leaning CCLP documents more than a billion dollars wasted on costly power systems that economically benefit wealthy consumers while producing few if any environmental benefits.
Out-of-Control Subsidies
The report notes the Australian government between January 2000 and June 2009 administered a program that provided rebates to households and owners of community-use buildings who acquired solar photovoltaic (PV) energy systems. Originally called the Photovoltaic Rebate Program (PVRP), it was rebranded to the Solar Homes and Communities Program (SHCP) after a change in government in November 2007. It was discontinued in June 2009.Little Return on Investment
Even though CCLP did not question the asserted scientific justification for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, CCLP criticized the fairness of the distribution of the rebates; the limited extent to which the program increased the use of renewable energy; the modest emissions reductions achieved by the program; the high cost accrued per unit of emissions reduced; and the extent to which the program assisted the development of Australia’s renewable power industry.
CCLP’s report directed its sharpest criticism at the program’s high costs and limited emissions reductions. According to the report, the program by 2008 had reduced the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions by only 0.015 percent, at an average social abatement cost of $257 Australian to $301 Australian per ton of reduced carbon dioxide emissions. CCLP noted if a primary object of PVRP-SHCP was to increase public awareness and acceptance of renewable energy, it could have been obtained at a fraction of the cost through other strategies.
Dr Alan Moran, director of the Deregulation Unit at Australia’s leading free-market think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), explained how money was wasted in the program.
“Victorian energy retailers have to pay households … tenfold its worth. Other state governments require even greater payments. In New South Wales that price must be paid even for the electricity the consumer uses in their own house,” Moran said. “The costs of this are paid for in the electricity bills of consumers without solar panels.”
Source: Heartland Institute
The Australia Institute (ANU)
Image adapted from A solar panel in Marla, Cirque de Mafate, Réunion, David Monniaux
My wealthy Southern California customers love all this taxpayer subsidized stuff when they improve their homes, or buy the new PC crowd’s fashionable new car.
The Chinese have a planned state-driven economy, tied to the most efficient manufacturing capabilities and a incredibly low-cost work force. Some time in the past decade, the Chinese decided to focus on the technologies that they saw dominating the future: alternative energy production, high-speed rail, and telecommunications.
They have managed in that time to develop some of the most forward-looking technology in the world. By subsidizing it from the central Treasury (which is flush with cash from their trade imbalances) they have managed to successfully undercut every manufacturer of alternative energy hardware in every country. That’s why Australia went with Chinese solar panels: great bargain at the price. But it destroyed their domestic production and research.
The same thing has happened in this country.
High-speed trains being installed all across Europe and the Pan-Asian rim? Chinese.
Now they have practically cornered all the mine and production facilities for the rare minerals that are a necessity for modern computers, networks, and cellular devices. The Chinese control the copper mines in *Afghanistan,* if you can believe it.
We can scoff at the current viability of solar all we want. But the Chinese believe that there is a future in them for major energy production. They are practicing on the West in order to develop the best products - which they will keep for themselves. It’s probably not smart to think that they don’t have a plan in mind.
In 50 years, when we are still paying top dollar for oil, and drilling with all its attendant environmental problems, the Chinese will be running their country on a wind/solar/nuclear mix. They will be completely self-sufficient energy-wise. And they can use the spent nuclear fuel to make bombs to threaten the rest of the world.
We’ve thrown billions of dollars into a sandpit to fight no more than a few thousand jihadists when this started back in 2001. Terrorists strikes are horrible - but we’ve been so focused on that threat that we’ve ignored the biggest one of all.
The Obama administration is falling down on BOTH fronts, even as they have elevated the DoD budget by more than a third since Bush left office. Does Obama really want us to accept our new Chinese overlords?
fyi
Well, it’s like Rand Paul says: “We are all either rich people, or work for rich people.” Don’t knock your wealthy customers - they pay your bills, right? The theory of trickle-down is that the more wealthy they are, the more they will buy home improvements or cars.
At least that’s the theory. Isn’t that why we want the Bush tax cuts made permanent?
“We are all either rich people, or work for rich people.”
the government, by virtue of 90 years of “progressive taxation” is now owned by the wealthy.
They will lease a half an acre for 20 years and supply use with electricity at the same rate we are buying it now for.
It has caused quite a buzz in our area as many of the folks out here have empty parcels just growing weeds.
Oh, I'll knock them and the system that they support, sometimes they annoy me enough that I just dump them.
They will lease a half an acre for 20 years and supply use with electricity at the same rate we are buying it now for.
It has caused quite a buzz in our area as many of the folks out here have empty parcels just growing weeds.
I used to work for a leading solar power company (won’t tell you which one). Begging for government subsidies was an open business strategy, even while they were saying the goal was to make solar affordable in the open market. Meanwhile the top brass were making money hand over fist. Made me ill listening to the quarterly financial calls.
Every body wants to live off of the government teat...it seems!
If I lived on a huge piece of hot, sunny, sandy land out in the desert, I’d cover it with solar panels and use it for energy production. But then I’d have to hire a few full-time technicians/cleaners/maintenance men to keep it working at tip-top capacity. Not much savings for me... :(
It gets me that people think that they can install a single solar panel on their roof and suddenly start making their electric meter go backward. It is not that simple.
There was a panel on the roof of a house we bought in California. It was totally useless, and when it started leaking, we had it removed. POG.
And since the upper tax bracket over the past 50 years to 35%, the government has been completely taken over by millionaires - who insist that it’s only by lowering the top marginal rates on them *even more* that we can bring opportunity and prosperity back.
I’ve been hearing this since the late ‘70s, when the top marginal bracket was 70%. I’m still waiting for it to work.
And since the upper tax bracket was lowered over the past 50 years from 90% to 35%, the government has been completely taken over by millionaires - who insist that it’s only by lowering the top marginal rates on them *even more* that we can bring opportunity and prosperity back.
I’ve been hearing this since the late ‘70s, when the top marginal bracket was 70%. I’m still waiting for it to work.
“Subsidized” would be a great name for a sandwich place.
Warren Buffet...raise my taxes...
Bill Gates...raise my taxes
http://www.advisorone.com/article/warren-buffett-and-bill-gates-talk-taxes-and-philanthropy
The top 1% of income earners pay 50% of all income taxes...the top 5%...60%...the top 10% ...pay 70%
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/22652.html
Progressive income taxation is how an oligarchy is created...progressive income taxation is the ONLY way the very wealthy, who otherwise can buy anything they want...buy a government.
We the People sold it to them. Now “they” , the Rinocratic Oligarchy...have run out of minds ...and ideas.
Both Gates and Buffet understand that in a country where taxation was even and equitable...regardless of income...they and their pet projects would be treated like everybody else.
Same position, by the way, the European oligarchs/monarchies were on the eve of WW1. Out of minds...and out of ideas. Should scare the bejeesus out of everybody.
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