OK, the stimulus arrives.
The big-ticket items? School maintenance and building construction, new public housing, free insulation for owner-occupiers, and a general showering of cash on anybody with a pulse.
Initial thoughts – a big tick for the insulation plan (though the implementation does seem to leave huge scope for it to be rorted). Home insulation is the Christmas gift that doesn’t stop giving.
Please post links to further analysis in comments, and we’ll update periodically.
Update [by MB]: New post on the politics of the package.
Update [by MB]: John Quiggin reacts.
Update 2 Tim Colebatch points out that the unemployed miss out again.
If there isn’t some $$ for the Barton Highway in there, that’s it I’m voting Liberal. Not that those bastards did anything about it when they were in power. I might have to start the ‘Duplicate the f’ing Barton Highway’ Party.
gawd, what do i have to do to get free money these days?
Hell, is Kevy going to finally release his piccies from the NY srip joint?
Barry – the net’s spread pretty broad. I think even I get $950 this time around.
Will help cover the cost of the new bike quite nicely.
What about insulation for Merkel Manor, Robert?
We have sweated in hell for days and will have our hands out gladly for the joe2, bungalow fix.
The question is : Should I enrol in
a) a post-graduate certificate.
(b) a postgraduate diploma.
(c) a Ph. D.
Just to get $950?
(Assuming I’m capable of a)getting up to uni. b)walking to lectures and tutorials or to see my supervisor c)walking around UNE Dixon Library to find books or just standing for hours photocopying articles) Which I’m probably not.
Missed out this time.
950 bucks! I’m going to run $20 through the pokies out of God damned principle! F### you, Xenephon!
PS How do you actually play the pokies?
Yep, Merkel manor will get its dose of new insulation.
Insulation isn’t that helpful for us, though; we’re in a townhouse, and the biggest problem we have is that the heat escapes up the staircase in winter. Insulation won’t help with that.
Go Open University Paul. Everything on-line.
Joe2,
There is one negative with insulation during a lengthy period of heat as we are experiencing now and that is once the house absorbs the heat, the insulation stops the cooling of the house at night.
Well the insulation part is a good start – but why only ceiling insulation and why only 3 million homes?
I doubt there’s a house in Australia that wouldn’t benefit from better insulation, and in most cases it would pay for itself within 10 years (too long for the typical home owner to bother, given the average amount of time they remain in the same property for).
High quality insulation should be compulsory for all dwellings, full stop.
Subsidise it heavily by all means, but there’s no excuse for anyone living in a poorly insulated house in this day and age.
As anyone estimated how long it would take to retrofit every house in Australia with suitable high quality insulation? And what sort of labour requirements it might mean?
god, that was close, I was literally just about to pay for ceiling insulation myself!!!
Required, first you get a poker…
Seriously, nice to be part of the stimulus this time around.
I have the same problem as yourself Robert. Townhouse is cool downstairs in summer and warm in winter.
Upstairs is hot in summer and cold in winter.
Is it really $950 for every single-income family, regardless of income?
I’m not going to say no to it, but I can’t see it boosting our spending at all (mind you, I could hardly say we’ve cut back since last year – despite having some good reasons to that are nothing to do with the GFC). I *should* spent it on insulation (assuming we don’t qualify for the free insulation), but I can see convincing the wife of that will be a challenge…
As everyone’s rubbing their hands with glee at what they’re gonna get, aren’t we seeing a continuation of Howard’s handout mentality?
Aussies seem to be getting used to handouts now and will only expect more and better ones from future governments.
wizofaus – they have reasonable minimum insulation standards these days, but there are lot of older houses out there that don’t have any at all.
I was surprised to hear someone from an insulation company on the abc radio news complaining about the subsidy. He was saying it would probably lead to a boom-bust cycle for insulation installers and manufacturers as well as attract a lot of dodgy people into the industry.
I think its a pity that it doesn’t apply to rental houses – thats probably more important than home owners, as landlords rarely care and renters don’t know how long they’ll be in the house for.
Nothing in it for me, but then I don’t really need anything. What I would have like to have seen would be some decent rail-infrastructure spending, preferably to expand the metropolitan networks. No mention of that, though.
wiz: from what I can see, most people with older homes (that is, with none or minimal insulation) should qualify.
The tax rebate is for just about everybody. From the press release:
.
There’s a number of other categories of people who get it too.
Sans Blog @ #15 – exactly, this is why recently I proposed ditching Australia/Invasion Day and replacing it with annual Stimulus Package Day. WOOT
You lefties are a miserable lot. The Milky Bar Kid gives you $950 (no lefty earns over eighty grand), and you’re blabbering away about fat batts. Take a break from worrying about climate change and think about yourselves for a minute: this means you can buy all kinds of cool stuff.
FREE MONEY! WOOOOO!
Does anyone know how you prove you don’t have insulation in your roof? I know that sounds like a strange question but the background is that I’m about to have my whole (asbestos) roof replaced and insulated at the same time. The contractor has been telling me that I shouldn’t bother about trying to qualify for the (now superceded?) insulation rebate because it is too hard to prove that the new installation meets the minimum requirements.
I should also add that in my roof cavity there are some remnants of the loose fleecy fill used in insulating low pitch roofs in the 60s. Technically then there IS ‘insulation’ in there but it’s not doing anything. Maybe I should just go up there and scrape the rest out.
Well our house was built in 1970 – it does have basic ceiling insulation, but I’ve no doubt that the insulation could be improved dramatically with $1600 to spend on it. However that press release seems to indicate that only houses with no insulation at all qualify. If I knew I’d qualify, I’d ring today to get it done and pick up the reimbursement in July.
I checked that link, and it doesn’t appear we will qualify for the rebate, given we’re not eligible for FTB part B. But I’m not complaining.
Required, you probably don’t live in Melbourne or Adelaide….
Another grab bag – with thankfully a couple of good ideas (schools and insulation). The insulation will of course provide additional opportunity for high polluting industries to pollute more under the CPRS – so no net gain there.
Not much that is strategic or visionary – like a move towards a 21st century integrated passenger and goods network. Or how about some investment in research, development, commercialisation and deployment of renewable energy sources. Our leading edge scientists would be able to bring forward much needed research and outcomes with even a fraction of this largesse that is being so freely distributed in a mad panic.
Sadly for what was an “evidence based” government, there will be nothing left in the kitty for reforms in areas such as health when the inquiries established in the early term of government finally report over the next year.
Laura,
I’m in Melbourne, and even though it was hot last week, I still find free money WAY more interesting than talking about insulation. Plus, I have air conditioning.
Patrick,
Your last point is interesting. I’m reminded of the government saying that they may not be able to fund paid maternity leave now that times have changed. With this much money going out the door, it’s pretty hard to see that they won’t fully fund whatever the Productivity Commission recommends.
Hmm, latest ATO calculator seems to indicate we are eligible for FTB part B, even though my accountant had said we weren’t.
More generally, Patrick, there does seem to be a very oldy-worldy focus on “bricks and mortar” infrastructure.
Sending teachers out on a training course might be just as good an investment as repainting the classrooms.
True for me, but unfortunately I married a RWDB so no stimulus for us.
Yeah but Required, if you got the free insulation, you wouldn’t need to run the aircon so much, ie. free money. Also, the insulation still works even if the power companies decide to do some load shedding and your aircon stops working for four hours.
What with $950 for single income families, $5,000 baby bonus and an estimated extra $124/fortnight FTB A and B there will be more govt money flowing into Casa del Hybrid Vigour this year than ever i got while on the DSS. and not one trip to that hellhole Centerlink.
Lino in the kitchen and a watertank are at the top of our list of possible expenditures.
Every single school gets a building! how cool is that. At least one building for each school, no matter if it’s Geelong Grammar, or built last year, or anything.
My wife’s comment to me just a minute ago “they are pretending 2 be a money tree. gotta love economics. they should really send economists to botany classes for a
reality check sometimes.”
We’re going to look harder at solar hot water, even though we’ve got 5 star instant gas, and putting a reservoir in would likely be impossible.
Any hand outs should be means tested. How can it be justified giving $950 to a multi, (multi, multi) millionaire just because he’s fathered a couple of suspect sprogs and nothin’, zip, zilcho to an utterly deserving your’s truly? Why couldn’t they have done like the Japanese and given $500, to every man woman and child, or better still to everyone over the age of 18 and avoided alienating anybody, well anybody who votes. Why make such things conditional on being a breeder?
What is this fucking obsession with families? The root of all evil!! Grrrrr
Required, not that I take you particulr seriously but
a) it makes sense to have good insulation regardless of climate change. Our house is poorly insulated and somewhat drafty, and on top of of all the unnecessary extra money we spent on central heating, the house never heats consistently, so you can quite easily be hot in one room and cold in another. And it was so unbearable last week that we stayed in a hotel for 3 nights. Spending a few grand on fixing this would probably pay for itself within 10 or 15 years, but realistically we’re looking to move within a year, and at this point it still makes no measurable difference to the resale value of the house, so it’s a few grand that I haven’t quite been able to justify.
b) “Worrying about climate chnge” and “think(ing) about yourselves” are hardly mutually exclusive. Thinking about myself includes thinking about the sort of world my kid and eventually his kid’s kids might grow up in. If I didn’t care about myself and my family, I wouldn’t worry about climate change particularly – the human race will survive one way or another.
Ohh as a PhD student – if I end up getting $950 I might put it towards going to a conference – somewhere nice, maybe Honolulu! That sounds very stimulating indeed
Hmmm, I’ll take the free insulation. Not means-tested then?
Woohoo!
I wonder what silly tricks the other government departments have up their sleeves for that $950. The last lot of bribes evaporated for a lot of people we knew as the ATO suddenly discovered they owed $1000 in back taxes – the letter explaining why was sent (surprise!) the same week the “bonus” payments went out. We received a reminder about my unpaid taxes in the same week the payments went out last time as well.
So now, the money that went back to the govt. is bouncing back again to us as a tax bonus or something silly. Which means the same $1000 has been quadruple handled in the space of about 3 months.
It is a parade of stupidity that boggles the mind. Worse than that, the morons in town that run the hardware/building places are now going to be stocking up on the most overpriced ceiling insulation in the history of mankind, easily soaking up a large chunk of the money.
Seriously, what’s the point? It’s the perfect opportunity to make lasting changes in behaviour (by, say, making roads cycling friendly by insisting councils don’t just make those pathetic 1000:1 gravel:tar roads they love that are like riding on marbles) but they decide to make the local owner of Mitre 10 richer instead.
Enough!
I’m getting worried: this government seems to be becoming a stereotypical ALP government (regardless of the GFC or whatever) – big spending, deficits, & high unemployment.
The only positive at the moment is low interest rates.
I hope they know what they are doing.
I think there’s some confusion here.
First: Only 500 schools are getting new labs/language centres. The rest get $200,000 for maintenance.
Second: The only students getting the $950 are those on Aus Study or youth allowance. I don’t know how many PHD’s that includes…
@ Caroline – it’s not all about families.
from SMH
What Caroline said. If I hear the word ‘families’ used to describe the entire population one more time, I’m going to start voting for Basement Cat.
Ooops stand corrected. I see I could get something, if the tax department can find me–er . . . if I tell them where I am (not that they’re looking of course). Hey! I could spend the money getting an accountant to work out my tax returns for the last four years, might almost cover it.
yee har.
“Ooops stand corrected. I see I could get something, if the tax department can find me–er . . . if I tell them where I am (not that they’re looking of course). Hey! I could spend the money getting an accountant to work out my tax returns for the last four years, might almost cover it.
yee har.”
Good lord! You stoled my finances!!! Maybe it’s five years for me though…
Its not just singles getting marginalised – what about bludging families? Who’ll ease the squeeze on these?
“The only students getting the $950 are those on Aus Study or youth allowance. I don’t know how many PHD’s that includes…”
I had a feeling that this was the case. Still it was nice to dream…
I’ll get my $950, and have struggled all day to decide what to spend it on. Oh. the decisions!
In the meantime, still nothing for newstart. Not enough for hot-water heater upgrades. Renters screwed, the incentive to upgrade still relies on them taking action “for the greater good”. Come on Kevvie, just make them do it!
Here’s a thought. All rental properties must be insulated to x standard by 2011. In the meantime, we’ll give you a rebate if you do it before July 2010.
Possum demonstrates which electorates win:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/02/03/kevvie-cash-rewards-who-wins-where/
BTW anyone else think that the announcement today was a conspiracy to bog down the Climate Action Summit in Canberra?
Predictions were that the government would wait until tomorrow, given the Reserve Bank meeting today.
Insulation is a great idea. But why owner-occupiers who could get a return on the investment, and not rentals, which don’t.
It should be illegal to install airconditioning in an un-insulated building.
I’m really disappointed with this package. For starters, why is ok to give out free insulation to millions of homes and yet they had to reign in solar generation rebates because they were worried about creating an artifical boom!!! Gads, the hypocracy is astounding!!!
And I hardly call roof insulation “Nation-Building” – where’s the inspired projects that will generate long term productivity and stimulate confidence by their sheer expance? That’s what I expect from “Nation-Building” infrastructure, not some wet rag thrown over the current heat wave in Southern Australia. God knows what we’d have had if you’d been in the middle of a flood (like we’ve got up here).
If you want a project, why not throw a few million at digital TV and hand out free set top boxes to the poor plods who’ve been too slow to take up digital. This could happen quickly (over 6 months) and would allow them to shutdown the analogue spectrum sooner and boost the digital signal. That alone would apparently save gazillions in transmission costs.
I never expected they’d turn this into an episode of The Hollowmen so quickly …
Well indeed. Or dysfunctional ones, as in ‘This family just isn’t working.’
Building on #49…
I’ve done some quick calculations showing that if the government put it’s $13 billion in cash handouts towards putting a solar panel on every roof and backed that up with another $13 billion every year for five years it would achieve that goal, save Australian’s $600 a year in energy bills, create thousands of jobs, guarantee the development of the solar industry in Australia and cut Australia’s GHG emissions by 6%.
Not to mention that direct infrastructure investment by the government has a stimulatory effect in terms of boosting GDP up to twice as much as handouts. Not to mention the $600 a year, per household, pumping at least an additional $3 billion into the economy every year.
I realise that last point is a bit weak, considering that money was already being spent.
The figure is actually $1000 of savings annually per household.
Oz, Gotroppo: if you wanted to spend $13 billion a year on greenhouse mitigation, there are more effective ways to do it than putting solar panels on roofs. Roof insulation is the classic example, but there are heaps more on the list, including just about every other form of renewable energy generation out there.
See any one of the numerous threads where this has been discussed to death.
Seems silly to subsidise roof insulation but not double glazing. My house already has roof insulation but new windows would smarten it up.
Free set top boxes would seem beyond a government who’s communications minister can’t even plug one into a television.
Robert, the point is not simply to talk about mitigation but to demonstrate that this strategy would not only save Australian’s more money per year than the government is giving them and cut GHG but have a bigger stimulatory effect than the handouts.
Greenhouse mitigation aside it’s still sounder policy.
The CSIRO are developing a new nifty air-conditioner that runs on the sun. Some quotes about a system that they hope to be production in three years.
Kevvie could do well to sling bucks at developing it earlier when it could save money on more power stations, drop emissions and end the cool greed. No link because spaminator will kill my comment.
“Solar cooling utilises heat from solar thermal collectors to generate cooling for building air-conditioning,”
“Most conventional mechanical air conditioners use high-emission electricity derived from fossil fuels to provide the energy to compress a refrigerant and cool a building. This typically accounts for 20-30 per cent of building energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.”
“The figure is actually $1000 of savings annually per household.”
Wow, because that’s the average household electricity bill. Saved. Even though the sun doesn’t shine all day long. Your figures are amazing, where did you get them?
Oz,
Sorry about my last post, the sarcasm was a bit unfair.
“Robert, the point is not simply to talk about mitigation but to demonstrate that this strategy would not only save Australian’s more money per year than the government is giving them and cut GHG but have a bigger stimulatory effect than the handouts.”
But didn’t you say that they would have to contribute $13 million for an additional 5 years? Meaning the task would cost six times as much as the handouts. Does this come out cheaper when you include the suggested $1000 a year saving?
Did anyone notice this nugget of genius on the cash hand-out?
The hand-out is available to those who paid tax in 2007/08. Meaning that if you are unemployed now, but were employed in 2007/08, (i.e. most of those who lost their job as the crisis hit jobs) then you are eligible. If you are unemployed now, and were also unemployed 2007/08 (i.e. long-term unemployed), then no payment for you.
We no longer have a debate about the deserving poor and the undeserving poor, but now the deserving unemployed and the undeserving unemployed.
Evil hides his tracks well.
All this job creation seems to be construction jobs – that takes care of male tradesmen but how will this stimulus package create jobs for women or knowledge workers or doesn’t it matter if they lose their jobs.
I would like to see all level crossing removed from the Melbourne metropolitan rail network, well at least those level crossings that cross major arterial roads. I would like to see the rail tracks realigned to take advantage of the BEST of twenty-first century technology. I would like the rail network global warming proofed so that it operates in temperatures of 50 degree
hrgh, the original figure of $600 is the one that should stand.
Based on a 3kW system with the sun shining for 6 hours a day and factoring in losses due to clouds, seasons etc. All my figures were from different sources, so there’s probably a decent amount of inaccuracy.
“But didn’t you say that they would have to contribute $13 million for an additional 5 years?”
5 years total, but the dollar for dollar amount of stimulus is what I was comparing, not the total cost. If you like, make it a one off $13 billion spend in targeted areas. It’s still a better way to spend the money. I just got carried away and figured if we can spend $20+ billion on handouts in the last few months we could afford to double that for something that would have a profound effect on the economy as well as the environment and the lives of individual Australians.
Oz,
Still, $600 is six tenths of the average yearly electricity bill. From a 3kw system, when the sun gather is only 6 hours a day, mostly when people aren’t home to use the electricity. What about all the electricity use in the other hours? I would assume it to be much greater than four tenths of all electricity use.
Mine is based on (educated) assumptions, happy to be refuted, if you can show me.
the energy efficiency also includes an increase in the solar hot water rebate, and an increase in the rebate for landlords who insulate their rental properties
so, good to see that renters didn’t entirely miss out even if this is not enough, obviously.
Laura and others might also want to take note that if you install insulation between now and June 30 09 you can get reimbursed up to $1600 for the insulation – or wait until after July 1 09 and make a phonecall.
The increase in the solar hot water rebate is also welcome.
I get nothing, as always, and so I should. Although I’m not sure why my tax dollars should be paying for Rob Merkel’s salary and his new bike! Friggin’ hell!
My business earns all its money overseas, employs people in highly-skilled, highly technical work, with near zero greenhouse impact, but I will never get a bailout or assistance of any sort, apart from the R&D tax concession. I reckon that sucks. Why do car manufacturers and commercial property developers get showered with money?
The kids school gets $200K, the home insulation thing is good, but apart from that, it will just delay the inevitable. Personal, corporate, and eventually, government balance sheets need to adjust to a post credit-bubble world. Its going to painful, and its going to take a long time. The lost decade is just beginning.
Hrgh, have you heard of grid connect solar systems?
Carbonsink: for what it’s worth, neither am I.
I suppose that donating the money to a (domestic) charity would have pretty much the same stimulatory effect, and would probably salve my conscience.
In fact, I’ve gotten involved in such a charitable project which I’ll be letting LP readers know about in due season (and, no, it’s not a charity for the sufferers of Kevin Rudd Cliche Syndrome).
Hmmm
I started Uni the year they started HECS.
We bought a dodgy project house just before the first home owners grant kicked in.
I popped out a baby just before the baby bonus started.
We put in a water tank one year before they were free.
We put a pool cover on our pool just months before the subsidy.
And guess what…just a few months ago we finally saved up enough dough and rip off the asbestos roof …..
This isn’t a condemn thread, but I’ll condemn anyway: my employer from last year who still haven’t given me a group certificate, waiting for which I’ve put off doing my tax return for last year, which (as I understand it) means I’ll miss out on $900.
I condemn you in my bones.
FDB FYI–Having been hit by a bill from the ATO for about $250 once–I had been working as a casual waiter, (70 hours one week, 5 the next–that sort of flexible arrangement), while the dole supplemented my earnings. I got hit with the highest tax bracket for whichever was my second income.(hard to choose they were both fairly pathetic) Anyway I did it again a couple of years later, then lost the group certificate and not wanting to cop another bill etc or suffer the injustice of getting a bill from the ATO (quite galling actually when you think of someone like Kerry Packer) it was just a whole lot easier not to file a tax return –ever. At this point the tax man probably owes me. I am currently paying tax and supporting one and half people on the dole. I don’t mind one iota.
#67 Sublime Cowgirl – It’s called Generation X. Cursed by history.
“I popped out a baby just before the baby bonus started.”
Ditto.
Baby that is, not the popping part.
I see the ABC News couldn’t help itself, heading the projected deficits as a “black hole”. When are we going to get over this “black hole” crap? I seem to remember the so-called Beazley black hole grew in size unaccountably with each telling. Maybe this one will do the same. It’s a budget deficit – hardly earth shattering given the current world situation.
caroline “what is this obsession with families?” Well, caroline, it’s something about how we humans reproduce = produce young. On which planet did your own entity come into existence??
sublime cowperson: doesn’t it make you feel proud that you did all that off your own bat, with nary a handout? A grateful nation salutes you! Go you terrific cowperson!
Mr Rud’s address to the populace: clear, brief, direct. Lacking in high-flown rhetorical excess a la American cousins. And, as far as I noticed, not one “y’know” or “I’ll level with you”.
I much prefer serious-Kevin to faux-folksy-Kevin. My bet: someone’s had a little word in his ear.
Oz,
You don’t get free electricity at night just because you have a solar panel on the roof.
Unless you are talking about feed-in tariffs? So if you’ve got a feed-in tariff, why do you need the rebate as well??? That’s just damned greedy.
I’ve heard of them. I’ve contributed to the policy development.
“I see the ABC News couldn’t help itself, heading the projected deficits as a “black hole”. When are we going to get over this “black hole” crap?”
allan, I bet they wheel out Tip, next, to remind us all, again, of what a terrible thing we have done.
[Unless you are talking about feed-in tariffs? So if you’ve got a feed-in tariff, why do you need the rebate as well??? That’s just damned greedy.]
No, feed-in tariffs pay a premium.
Are you denying the existence of grid connect solar systems that feed surplus energy back into the mains?
http://www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-energy/solar-power/grid-connected-systems/how-solar-power-works.php
http://www.turnonthesun.com.au/solar_systems/gridconnector.htm
http://www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-energy/solar-power/grid-connected-systems/school-solar-overview.php
http://www.realestate.com.au/renovate/building/energy/solar-shop-australia-grid-connect-solar.htm
Thanks y’all. I’m not complaining really, merely venting.
I’ve seen enough in various locales and situations to know i’m eternally thankful for this first world life i lead with healthy kids, an education, access to clean water, social security, healthcare, a free press – you get my drift.
Though it just would have been a little easier if, well, you know
“There is one negative with insulation during a lengthy period of heat as we are experiencing now and that is once the house absorbs the heat, the insulation stops the cooling of the house at night.”
Sans Blog, maybe the go is to install an exhaust fan high up near the ceiling but on the wall linked to the outside, to clear out the trapped hot air when you have had a long period of heat.
New post on the politics of the package:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/03/the-politics-of-the-rudd-essay-and-the-stimulus-package/
Update [by MB]: John Quiggin reacts.
Robert Merkel:
Not quite everybody. *Sigh* I’m so ready to be stimulated.
For those in Queensland, Troppo blogger and economist Nicholas Gruen is going to be on Lateline Business in a sec.
Along with some market economists using jargon like:
“Why do car manufacturers and commercial property developers get showered with money?”
Property developers are not being showered with money, carbonsink.
And a recession may be inevitable but that doesn’t mean you do nothing to lessen its impact.
“If the ship could not steer her course, because she was being headed by the wind, she reached her goal by beating to windward, making a series of zig-zags or ‘boards’, first on one tack, then on the other. At the end of each board she was ‘tacked’ or ’stayed’, going about head to wind on the other tack.” [John Harland, 'Seamanship in the Age of Sail'London, 1984/85.]
Alright Paul! Harland’s ‘Seamanship and Sail’. I’m looking at a copy of it on my bookshelves right now – next to Smyth’s ‘The Sailors Word-Book’ which is full of choice and salty idiomatic terms to describe the current situation.
Since women, children and supernumeraries read this blog, I will refrain from quoting from Smyth.
Tho’ I still believe this is the best advice for those at peril anywhere.
“The worst plight of a vessel is to be caught in strong winds on the lee shore. When this happens, observe the following rules.
Firstly, never allow your vessel to be caught in such a predicament”
- Callingham’s Seamanship: Jottings For Sailors.
As to the stimulus package, I see that once again us wealthy single white male renters get the short end of the twig. Oh well, back to drinking 10 year old Glenfiddich instead of the teeny Islay single malts. I’ll guts it out I guess.
And re the insulation thing – installation’s gonna stimulate a lot of building trades work. Just the kind of blue collar worker Kev’s trying to draw back to Labor.
Every problem is also an opportunity. Until some fuckin’ twat spells it out in powerpoint anywhere with aircon.
The CSIRO are developing a new nifty air-conditioner that runs on the sun. Some quotes about a system that they hope to be production in three years.
I had this idea ages ago, too bad I never wrote it down. I see free-standing solar-powered thingies sometimes- street light poles, that sort of thing – and think how easy would it be to incorporate a solar panel with an aircon unit? The hotter it got, the harder the aircon would work. Sweet. And the naysaying “Wot about when it’s cloudy and raining” brigade would surely have nothing to say on that one, although I don’t think that argument holds much water any more since Germany! and WALES!!! are going ahead with solar while Australia twiddles its collective thumbs.
There’s a guy in the AGE letters page today saying that the thousands of aircon units all working away at the moment is a disgrace (true) and that owners of such should have to have solar panels to off set them. I think my idea would just make it more seamless and bypass the Net Feed-in tariff stupidity.
apart from that, it will just delay the inevitable. Personal, corporate, and eventually, government balance sheets need to adjust to a post credit-bubble world.
Wordy-wordy-mcWord, Carbonsink!
“There’s a guy in the AGE letters page today saying that the thousands of aircon units all working away at the moment is a disgrace (true) and that owners of such should have to have solar panels to off set them.”
Helen, the fun term doing the rounds is ‘load shedding’.
I have it on good authority that a low income suburb in our area was blacked out for 6-8 hours recently because of the drain on the power supply caused by their wealthier neighbours who have installed air-conditioners en masse.
There is a huge equity issue when it comes to the effect of air-conditioners on peak power that is not being addressed. A solar panel off set would just be a start.
Helen @ 87 – I think the innovation here is that they don’t convert the solar energy to electricity at any stage. Just slapping a solar PV together with a regular R/C AC unit and would get horribly expensive.
Indeedy, Chris.
I will have a go at posting a CSIRO link without being spaminated.
http://www.csiro.au/news/Keeping-cool-using-summer-heat.html
I wonder about this insulation business and its effects on rewnters. Here’s a question I bet never occurred to Rudd or his advisers. How many renters will suddenly find their leases terminated (with appropriate two months notice or whatever it is) so the landlord can take advantage of Rudd’s insulation subsidy, and then re-rent said flat/house etc at a higher rent?
You saw it first here on Larvatus Prodeo.
Oz,
“Are you denying the existence of grid connect solar systems that feed surplus energy back into the mains?”
I support solar PV (for it’s deferring of network augmentation) and support feed-in tariffs (until the CPRS provides enough incentive on it’s own). A feed-in tariff relies on grid connection, so get over your little fantasy.
Cut the false arguements, I’m asking you to show that a 3kw system will provide six tenths of the average household energy use. It is counter-intuitive, but I am happy to concede if you show me.
It would also be interesting if you could show that $13 bilion over five years would not be better spent on wind farms, or biomass, or energy efficiency (insulation and appliances such as hot-water systems), etc.
Helen – yes, solar power is an abundant source on hot, sunny days. You may have seen a Californian (?) power utility person on a TV doco a year ago, making the point that their huge solar photovoltaic arrays in the desert matched the summer peak load (due to air con) very nicely.
So this can be achieved in a decentralised house-by-house way, or on a large, centralised power supply scale.
joe2 @ 89 – I think the primary factor is poor house design and poor insulation. A/C systems are so cheap these days that lots of people are installing them. But in a well insulated house (think double glazing, high levels of ceiling/wall insulation) even with very hot (>40C days) a/c is not needed during most of the day if you have enough thermal mass inside. Just run the a/c at night when electricity load levels are lower to flush out the heat accumulated during the day.
So lots more insulation installed should make a significant difference. Perhaps a subsidy for awnings will be next
WRT connecting a solar panel directly to an electric air conditioner, you’d be spending all the money to install the solar panel, and only using the energy it generates when the A/C is on. That’s why grid-connection makes sense – virtually all the energy generated ends up being put to use.
I’ve been feeling the effects of good design and good position this summer. We moved across the road a few months ago into a really well designed, town-house style apartment. The upstairs living/dining/kitchen goes right across the building, NE to SW, meaning that on any day under say 30 C there is enough breeze going through to counter the heat of the sun. On hotter days there are external shade-cloths to keep sun off the windows, and the place can be shut up effectively until evening. All that is required to keep downstairs cool is to shut the windows and blinds against afternoon sun. I’ve felt the need for air conditioning maybe twice this summer, and more for the sake of the guinea pigs than for myself.
By contrast, the old place with its westerly aspect and glass running along that whole side of the apartment was ridiculous on sunny afternoons, there were no awnings, shade cloths or anything like that. It was very badly designed for its position, seemed to lack any insulation worth mentioning, and had it had air-conditioning I would have been running it regularly last summer. As it was, I put the animals in the coolest corner with frozen water bottles and took myself to the library.
As it turns out, the landlord will be installing air-conditioning here for next summer, but I intend to use it as Chris @ 95 suggests, to flush out heat after particularly hot days, or for rare hot nights. A single unit upstairs will suffice.
As a stone-broke undergraduate on a Youth Allowance pittance, do I get anything? I’m assuming not – I didn’t get anything last time, and I’m not rich enough to qualify for a hand-out under this Howard-style welfare regime.
my mum just insulated her house at considerable expense (given her meagre nurse’s salary) about a year ago. Looks like she should have spent the money on air-con.
yeti: you might get $950 through the “training and learning bonus”.
Be me.
Less than $80k? Yep. Qualify for part A and B of family tax thingo? Yep. Kids in school? Yep (2). In the process of installing solar how water? Yep.
Feckin’ showered with money me. They gave us $5k for the baby last year and then we were stimulated with $3k. AND they give us $200/week in family payments.
Madness.
I know this has been done to death … BUT … with the current transmission problems in Melbourne in rather sharp focus, does the distributed where it’s needed, peak-load matching capabilities of solar rooftop panels give it an edge over parrot killing wind farms in Gippsland? Or at least make the bottom-line price difference somewhat less? Anyone done any studies?
Paul @92, that’s a scary thought, but won’t people trying to get insulation have to prove they are owner-occupiers? I’m vaguely imagining the massive hassles involved with disarranging negative gearing etc arrangements. Hopefully it won’t be worth it. Also many landlords seem very much against doing any improvements to the property simply upon principle.
Also, Liam @68: that’s just unbelievably fncked up, I condemn like crazy, can you get revenge somehow? Surely witholding GCs is not legal?
Agree about distributing generation widely, aidan, but “parrot-killing”? Joking? A review of the first report on the Bald Hills project estimated there might be one (1) parrot death every 50 years or so. Hardly a significant impact on the parrots, in absolute or % terms.
That particular objection to that particular project is deceased sir, gone to its maker, passed on, no longer with us, dropped off its twig, etc.
Am on the phone to them now, Laura. Obscene shouting may ensue. $950 buys a lot of cuss words where I come from.
aidan: in principle, it might reduce the cost gap somewhat, but there’s other, possibly cheaper ways to skin a cat.
For instance, there’s a heck of a lot of emergency generation capacity in places like hospitals and data centers. It’s not that hard to set up a aystem where they can be switched on and feed back power into the grid, without posing any risk to the safety net they provide (in essence, if the grid goes down, they disconnect from it and provide power to the institutions they were designed to protect).
This is not a new idea, but as I understand it there are a lot of such generators which aren’t set up to do a grid feed, and could do so at not a huge amount of extra cost.
Amby: I might have been joking about the parrot killing bit.
To be clear, I favour alternative energy proposals. Just that Robert is very anti home PV panels based on their cost. I wondered (aloud, some might say too whimsically) if they had some other benefits that might offset that large difference in cost. Like, say, providing their peak electricity at a time that the peak load from R/C aircon units all whirr into action. PLUS they generate this electricity locally, where it is being consumed, which takes some load off the creaking distribution infrastructure.
Clearly mentioning a bird was something of a red
parrotherring …Liam
Sympathies to you. Isn’t that employer breaking a law by not providing you with a group certificate? Wouldn’t Mr Plod c/- ATO be interested to hear of your plight?
“Am on the phone to them now”
Liam, you can lodge your return with estimates of the income and tax deducted and include a “Missing PAYG Summary” declaration with the return.
wow, I thought the training and learning bonus was only for post-grads, but it turns out that undergrads get it too. This is good timing, because I know that centrelink is planning to cut me adrift in june for having studied too long (they count years when you weren’t receiving centrelink as going towards your study ‘limit’).
hmm… the good old missing group certificate. good luck.
Liam @ 104 – if I heard correctly on the radio today apparently people have until June 2009 to submit their tax returns in order to qualify for this bonus – but they obviously will end up getting it later than everyone else.
Laura @ 102 – apparently there is an older some scheme for landlords as well, though probably not as generous. And I doubt the cost and hassle of giving notice to one tenant, installing the insulation, leaving it unrented for long enough to demonstrate that its owner occupied and then finding another tenant would be worth it. Especially when landlords eventually can get a bit of a deduction for the cost of insulation anyway.
Robert @ 105 – and its probably even worth paying companies who are willing, to reduce their usage during peak times when full generation capacity gets reached. Cheaper than increasing peak load capacity.
But will they do it? It’s not like these sorts of brown-out issues haven’t happened before. The PV panels by design produce peak power when it is most required**. Seems like a better engineered design to me.
I guess I just wanted to point out that the simple $/kg of C02 number might not tell the whole story with PVs. I wonder how much the power supply companies would be prepared to pay for 50MW of peak power capacity when they need it. Not only that, but the fact that they don’t then need to build more transmission infrastructure to carry it from the entirely parrot friendly wind farm.
** Actually they probably don’t. They are fairly sensitive to temperature and will output less electricity the hotter they get, but maybe only 10-20% less …
Grid-connected solar photovoltaics? incentives?
http://www.feedintariff.com.au/tariff-faq.php
There’s a petition there too. Cheers.
“But will they do it? ”
Poor question. You like solar PV, “but will they do it?”?
Aidan: given that, at peak times, the spot price for grid electricity is actually far higher than what it costs to run a diesel generator, I’d imagine that it could be a financial win/win situation for everyone.
I agree that $/CO2 doesn’t give the whole picture, but that cuts both ways with renewables.
Huh? They are doing it where I live.
Hey, aidan.
You actually have an elected representative by the name of Gentleman … golly! And he’s a Labor member !! Canberra really IS different, eh?
Amby,
Not anymore, he was tossed out in the last election, or should I say out-campaigned by Joy Burch (also ALP — we have multi-member electorates).