I plan to do a new post tomorrow, if one of the other LP bloggers doesn’t beat me to it.

Tonight I have to watch the Bunnies v the Broncs!

vrbpower.com

Jebus! Is that all?!

Where do I hand over the extra money?

In today’s AFR it’s clear that the Government is finding it’s normal MO in tackling the political problem of climate change. An article by Angus Grigg and David Crowe, Scare tactics on power, petrol has Costello telling us that he’s been watching the evil Europeans and what they do is use the excuse of climate change to increase excise on petrol. Of course, under Rudd, elecricity prices will also go through the roof.

The Energy Supply Association of Austarlia is quoted as saying that :

cleaning up the power sector [whatever that means] would cost about $40 billion and lead to a 25 per cent rise in electricity prices over the next two decades.

$40 billion is meant to impress, but over 20 years it is a quarter of one per cent of GDP, or thereabouts. As a comparison, Chris Richardson tells us that new spending and tax cuts announced since 2002-2003 will cost us $58 billion in the single year of 2007-2008.

THE Government will gazump Labor’s proposals to make people’s homes greener in next week’s federal budget by offering extensive rebates for rainwater tanks, solar panels and other initiatives to combat climate change.

The current $4000 rebate for installing solar energy is expected to be doubled, Fairfax newspapers reported.

At last weekend’s conference, Labor offered low interest loans of up to $10,000 for households with incomes of up to $250,000 but the Government’s rebates would not have to be paid back.

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,21669730-5005361,00.html

To speculate, I very much doubt in the current climate that having solar panels on the roof would devalue your house (unless they ruined the aesthetics of some Fallingwater-esque architectural marval). I’d expect, at a minimum, the value of the house to go up by whatever the reduced cost of electricity is worth - though that’s a lot less than what the systems cost to install.

You might also get some premium for the warm fuzzies some people get for living in a solar-powered house.

That said, don’t kid yourself. As Brian says, stick that money in the stock market and you’ll almost certainly be financially better off than if you buy solar panels for your roof.

I’m really interested in the Solazone (grid-connected solar power system) mentioned earlier, and looking through the site and the costs, I’m very likely to consider it as an option when building a new house as I may well be doing in a year’s time.

In all the discussion above that I managed to get through (about the first 2/3), one factor, in relation to the kinds of private-domestic decisions about whether to install solar, etc., hasn’t been considered. It’s a fact that’s got nothing to do with the efficiency or otherwise of the systems and everything to do with perceptions of market value.

Simply, if I installed a Solar Energizer for around $20K (minus $4K rebate), how would this affect the market value of my house? If you consider the possibility that those people most inclined to consider such a system (because they’re concerned, whether for economic or environmental reasons, their energy use AND because they can afford the initial costs) are also the most “mobile” in the housing market, it would seem that such people are likely to move on from their super-green houses before they reap the economic benefits.

Now that wouldn’t be an issue if the cost of investing in a solar power system were reflected in the market value of the house, but is that likely? I wonder whether that maybe there’s a whole set of concerns here (about aesthetics, preconceptions about the reliablity of solar power, ignorance about the up-front costs and subsequent power savings, etc.) that would lead, if anything, to a reduction in the market value of your house.

Or am I wrong here? This is a round-about way of asking what people think may be the general, public perception regarding the “appropriateness” or “value” of a domestic solar power system.

I loved this exchange…

TONY JONES: As you know, there’s a lot of opposition to nuclear power stations in the states.
We recently had the head of your nuclear task force, Ziggy Switkowski, he told us the best outcome would be for the Commonwealth to take over the power to control, regulate and site nuclear reactors. Do you agree?

IAN MACFARLANE: That’s Ziggy’s view. Right now what we want to do is have a debate on whether or not nuclear power stations are part of our low emissions future. We would like not only -

TONY JONES: Everyone wants to know and they’re going to want to know before the election who has the power to site nuclear reactors. Ziggy Switkowski, the head of your task force, is saying it should be the Commonwealth Government?

IAN MACFARLANE: At the moment we’ve got state governments - despite what happened on the weekend which was all an interesting bit of theatre - we’ve got state governments saying that despite the fact that the Labor Government has agreed to expand the uranium industry, they’re not going to allow uranium mining in their state. On that basis I assume that the state governments will block any attempt to have a debate on nuclear power stations, let alone site any in their state.

TONY JONES: Indeed that goes back to Mr Switkowski’s point. He says it is ultimately a federal responsibility, is he right?

IAN MACFARLANE: Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the people and you can’t have that decision. Well let me finish. You can’t have that decision if you don’t have a debate and you can’t have a debate while half of the politics or the other side of politics are not prepared to have a discussion based on science, common sense and economics.

TONY JONES: If it’s a decision for the people would you be prepared to put it to a referendum?

IAN MACFARLANE: Let’s have the debate soon.

TONY JONES: Would you be prepared to consider it?

IAN MACFARLANE: Everyone wants to get the cart before the horse. Kevin Rudd is good at it, I know that. Let’s have a debate.

TONY JONES: We’re trying to have a debate and find out what the Federal Government’s power will be in all of this. Ziggy Switkowski, the head of your task force, says the Federal Government has the responsibility and the power to control, regulate and site nuclear reactors. Is that true or not true? That’s part of the debate, isn’t it?

IAN MACFARLANE: Well no. The debate is do we want to use nuclear energy as part of Australia’s overall strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

TONY JONES: I’ll put it another way - do you want the power to site nuclear reactors?

IAN MACFARLANE: I want to have a debate. No, I don’t want that power in the debate.

It went on and on and on, but the gist of it was:

JONES: Will the Feds have the power to site nuclear reactors?
MACFARLANE: Lets have a debate.
Repeat 10 times.

The mood was: action, action now, action on things that we can do with what we have now. Not pie in the sky fantasy stuff way off in the future. Tim Flannery summarised it very well in his message that you are hearing today on News Radio. Efficiencies, full implementation of renewables, then if there is still a shortfall, as a last resort, nuclear.

Priceless.

Brian, quite right with regards to McKibbin’s comments there. He also got it wrong in his claim that you can’t run Gen III nukes with minimal water. You can use dry cooling towers, at an additional capital cost and possibly marginally lower efficiency.

Difference of opinion was on the whole CC/GW issue. Warwick McKibbin said that we would only be doing Gen IV nukes in this country, which according to just about everyone in the room would make it too late if it was the only shot you had.

Bear in mind there’s been both a huge amount of work, and investment in this technology, starting in 1984! So 20 years down the track, millions spent on it, reputation of one of Australia’s premier universities tied to it and, and, and… what? Phhhht?