What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing, is that if they get it done commercially, it’s gonna go up in price, and their own power bills as they switch the iron on are gonna go up every year, I mean…
I guess that’s ‘retail politics’, Abbott style. Patriarchy and a deceptive scare campaign all neatly wrapped up in one package.
NEWSFLASH Tony Abbott – nobody outside the top quintile irons anymore
I do my own ironing!
God Abbott is such a patronising git! I haven’t got time to iron, being too busy actually working. He should get a real job – I always thought he lived in fantasyland.
That made my daughter call him “a douche”. Such rude words the young learn from these US interweb-logs! Accurate, though!
As a wise woman once said: Muthering, im doin it rite!
One child who will hopefully never grow up to vote Librul.
Two-sided Tony, the convictionless politician mocked on THE INSIDERS yesterday for acting on climate change but only a little bit, knows it is not good whatever happens.
Methinks he is just trying to relax a bit and in doing so he figures that he may find some natural rhythm?!!?
Hey, it makes some kind of sense…..
That would make him next to nothing on both counts.
“What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing…”
My really radical, off-the-wall prediction: Abbott is toast at the next election!
He is addressing himself almost exclusively to retirees. Fool.
Mark@2: the question is not whether you and Tone do your own ironing, its why you do any ironing at all. Most working women threw away the bloody iron and those stupid ironing boards more than a decade ago (and bought a dryer).
Shocking. I’m Abbott’s age and my wife has NEVER ironed my shirts. Maybe it’s because I was educated by the (socialist) Marist brothers and he is a child of the Jesuits…or maybe he’s just talkin’ to real folks
From the Age:
“Mr Stirton [Nielsen pollster] points out that while Mr Abbott’s numbers are a significant improvement over Mr Turnbull’s final poll, Mr Turnbull had a similar start to Mr Abbott.
And Mr Abbott’s debut net approval of plus-three is ”one of the worst for a new leader in the 37-year history of the poll. Most new leaders get a net positive score of 20 to 30 per cent”
Shorter Tones’ on da lady vote: “Iron my shirt – and save!“
@8 – not sure I could afford a dryer, grace…
Oh cripes, its worser than I thought.
Ironing should be banned. Pointless carbon pollution.
It’s a strange price rise that only effects housewives. Can we beat the rise by switching to male-only housework?
I was taught to iron by my dad (and my brothers were, too). Does that mean my power bill won’t rise?
I suggest we all parcel up our irons and any other unused domestic appliances and send them to Tones/Strop/whatever at Paliament house in Canberra in protest – shall I organise a collection point? Now thats what I call direct action. What a burk.
Good job Abbott has analysed the most important contributors to household power bills. Ironing must be right out there?!!
Let me see, ahh, 1 hour/week @ 1.5 – 2 kW, equals under 100 kWh/year.
All housewives should cut their ironing by 50% forthwith. For example, by only wearing bikinis and drip-dry, or outsourcing it to Indonesia, or something. Then Abbott’s grand plan could save a whole 50 kWh/year for every ironing household.
Fran Barlow says Aussie households consume 20 kWh/day, or 7,000 odd kWh/year. So um, 50 kWh saved in 7,000 kWh must be really significant, right?
Good job Abbott has housewives focussing their minds on the really important areas for reducing emissions…
I was taught to iron when I wuz a child. I haven’t ironed anything for forty-eight years. Which means I’m one up on Abbott, since, until today, he’s probably never ironed anything. And from what I can see he did a terible job. My stepmother woulda hit him across the knuckles with a ruler.
billie/grace: one of the (lovely, so my wife says) ironies of modern life is that men who who in corporate offices have to iron their shirts, while women often don’t have to (knitwear).
My baby son thinks I iron “because that’s what daddies do”.
Haha he can’t help himself. What’s this, the second gaffe concerning women in as many weeks. This guy’s going to go off like a FIREWORK under the pressure of the real election campaign.
I’ve never ironed anything in my life and I’m too old to start. I always think of it as a con job.
But I’m surprised to realise that power bills go up only when housewives do the ironing.
RT @crazybrave I would like to iron Tony Abbot’s budgie smugglers. While he was in them.
I think Tone knows exactly what audience he’s pitching his jutting draw and nearly stuttering, hesitant shite to, every time he fronts the media. There’s been quite a few precedents to his style that we have all witnessed.
He’s talking to all those people who voted for those other babbling, non-sensical and mean spirited politicians. The likes of Bjelke-Petersen (it’s been so long since I’ve written the name, I don’t even think I’ve spelt it right!), Pauline Hanson – being 2 Queenslanders that come to mind – but they’re must be others.
The belligerent right are still there – waiting for another Saviour.
St Tone might just save them from those intellectuals who read high-brow blog sites, scientists who dream up fancy schemes about what the weather is doing, bureaucrats who would be unemployed if only there were strong minded politicians, and people who can put a logical argument without confusing contradictory messages.
Watch the jutting jawed politician who stumbles over their words!
But I was swapping ironing tips with a mate in Melbourne just this time last week!
Tony Abbott, stereotypical child of Sydney’s North Shore.
Seriously, this is as much to do with the fact he never did a hard days work in his life working with his hands as much as anything else.
He tell his daughters he wants them doing all the housework after he gets through with the maidenhead speeches?
One of the many bad habits I acquired in the Army was ironing my own shirts.
Srsly, it’s not women’s work. If you can’t look after yourself, you have no right to expect anyone else to do it.
On the rare occasions my wife irons she has to drive down to get a DVD first then stop ironing when the DVD gets too gripping – with time off for coffee breaks of course. Then she has to drive again to return the DVD. Anyone still want to claim emissions are not higher when women iron?
Grace @ 8 I’m sure you meant to add that using the fluff only switch on cold before putting on a hanger is the cheapest, most effective and environmentally friendly way to launder shirts/blouses etc. Only on best bib and tucker days is a touch-up ironing needed.
DI(nr) At least you were never at the mercy of someone like me. My adored big brother tried the “this is a girl’s job” line on me re pressing his pants well over sixty years ago. I was thrilled to be asked and obligingly and proudly did the job, ever so sharp creases neatly down the seams. A lucky accident which reminded me later how to avoid ever having to iron any male item of clothing!
I have two shirts which really look like crap out of the wash. I have to give them over twelve months of gravity – on the hanger – before I can get away with wearing them unironed. Which is fine. That’s about the frequency of funerals etc.
Ironing is zen.
Zen is left.
Jeez Elise, I’m not sure.
Where’s Barnaby Joyce when you need him?
“What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing, is that if they get it done commercially, it’s gonna go up in price, and their own power bills as they switch the iron on are gonna go up every year, I mean…”
Beautiful. Has Rudd got Abbott on the payroll?
Can barely contain my excitement as I wait for BLABBOTT’S media stunt for Tuesday. I hope that he has joined Actor’s Equity
@ 16 me too. Dad taught my brothers and I to iron.
Now there are non-iron business shirts that actually breathe and don’t feel like you’re wearing a massive film of cling wrap. Bliss.
Ouch! First she said he was “cute”. Now it’s getting hot and steamy.
The point is of course not who does the ironing but the fact thatit will cost you more per shirt to do it under the CPRS regime, and that is a message that will resonate among an electorate that has a sensitive hip pocket nerve
We all know that was the point which Abbott was attempting to make, Iain.
The point that will be remembered is that he gaffed (yet again) by revealing (yet again) his stereotyped view of women.
Tig tog
Outside the Latte belt (where nothing Abbott says will be appreciated)your perception of his view of women just does not resonate.
The point about the costs will outweigh any feminist faux outrage.
Oh dear oh dear. I get the picture of Tony Abbot as the Iron(ing) Man, stepping out of the surf in his budgie smugglers with an ironing board under his arm instead of a surfboard.
If I was a cartoonist my head would have exploded from the possibilities.
(Have to iron here but will say I was ironing since an early age. My mum taught me real men iron their own shirts, they don’t impose it on their wives, mothers or sisters.)
Nothing faux about the outrage, Iain.
It’s a cheap downgrading of the importance and responsibility of being a full-time parent (something that I myself have been – have you?) to describe that family role as simply being “a housewife”, as if the housework is the most important part of the role. The rest of the world has long since moved on to language that acknowledges the actual parenting as the primary job of women (and men!) who choose to forego paid employment for a period in favour of being at home while their children are young.
No surprise that Abbott hasn’t kept up.
Bleh, ironing. Used to do the family’s ironing for a bit of pocket money (as did my younger brother after me), and the experience scarred me enough that now everything gets a vigorous shake and put on a hanger to dry. Only weddings, funerals and job interviews are enough to tempt me to pull out the ironing board these days.
Ah Tone. Its just really contributing to a body of evidence of pure ‘dismissiveness’ regarding women’s (and men’s!) abilities. Frankly, my husband, father and brother would all have been appalled at having such shoddy ironing know-how as demonstrated by Abbott.
Tig tog
In my family my wife works and I look after our children so yes I do know all about the role of a home maker.
Razor is right; ironing is the people’s meditation.
Some people rake little white pebbles, some pray the rosary, the rest of press creases into trousers, around collars, and out of shirtfronts.
Ditto, the dishes. From chaos, through warm soapy water, into synthesis and order—what’s not to like?
I’m actually a bit sad for Abbott that he’s got no concept of the experience.
In our household, as in others here, ironing only happens when there is a formal occasion to attend — possibly twice each year though not always.
Even then the bulk of it involves no ironing by us as the stuff is largely dry cleaned.
We do have one of those presses that sits gathering dust in the laundry. From memory hubby used it last year just before Christmas to press a shirt so he could look respectable at a panel interview which he was part of.
In the years hubby and I have been together since 1982, I doubt ironing would have occupied a whole hour of our collective time.
Putting the Zen of Ironing aside for a moment, the real story here is the political strategy at work. Abbott was feeling up the vegetables in an Ainslie supermarket last week, and this week he is showing off some more of his housewifely skills in a Dry Cleaners in Queanbeyan.
As I recall it, Abbott was once adviser to failed PM contender Hewson, and was undoubtedly crushed the day that his boss failed to correctly answer the trap question about how much it would cost to bake a cake plus GST. Abbott had not done his homework, but he won’t make that mistake again.
Abbott is playing the whole global warming CPRS “crap” as just another “Great Big Tax”, so he has been up to the attic, found the dusty old box with “GST” written on it, and is now showing us how to win a tax debate. Only this time he is not going to make any mistakes about the price of milk, because demonstrably he is so very in touch with the daily life of Australian housewives.
Note that Rudd was asked last week about the price of bread and topped the class. His strategists are on the ball, and know exactly what Abbott is up to.
Next week, Abbott will probably trip over a mike cord on a mall walkabout, and give the whole game away…
I don’t understand how you who don’t iron get your clothes flat without ironing them?
Iain @ 38
My mama has been a Lib voter and instinctive Labor hater for ever. Just the mention of Gough Whitlam and Don Dunstan could set her off (as my brother and I found to our amusement in our teens).
The only thing she hated more was ironing. My brothers and I had to learn to iron as soon as we were old enough, (Plus dishes etc etc).
So when I pointed Tony Abbot’s comments to her the other day, I saw for the first time the real possibility that my Liberal Heartland Mama would vote LABOR for the first time in her life. She was ropable.
Iain, don’t worry about the feminist faux outrage, but be very afraid of little old pensioner ladies changing their votes.
Laura @ 46 – does it really matter much if your clothes are not flat? And there’s quite a few clothes you can get these days that don’t really require ironing.
Marks@47, so you have seen an actual woman, who’s not a radical or anything, outraged by the Monk’s dismissive remark, yet any outrage on the part of “feminists” must be “faux”? How’s that again…?
I am reliably informed that there are people who iron their underwear and socks…..
seriously
dj@50
I am a regular witness to a certain member of the LP collective doing just that. The unextinguishable effect of parental example.
My own father taught me how to iron, and afterwards presented me with a diploma for “Ironing and Washing Machine Studies”.
Laura @46, where have you been all these years??? The rest of us got cunning about this, long ago!
The answer is knits, wool mixes (especially pants and skirts), drip-dry poly-cottons, polo shirts, jeans (especially with a little elastane in them), etc.
Definately not high linen content (unless you have a large drycleaning budget or a housewife like Abbott’s), definately not pure cotton (unless you are lumbered with it as site clothing for the mining industry – thoughtless mongrels), and definately not pure synthetic (unless you want the clingwrap effect mentioned earlier).
dj @ 50,
Yep. I mety one once. I was very polite and did not voice the mocking thoughts that were running round the inside of my head.
The real issue is the decreasing availability of good 2 ply Italian or Egyptian pure cotton shirts. One has to search just to get a decent linen shirt as well.
Most of the stuff around these days is “easy care” or “no iron” or cotton blend – dreadful sweat bags. Some seem to think that wearing a (shudder) polyester shirt is acceptable.
No man who cares would let anyone else iron his shirts.
I live in the steamy subtropics so cotton, linen and hemp is the go. Anything synthetic would be like a clingwrap fetish. I couldn’t cope with the environmental bad karma of using a dryer or dry cleaner. Really folks, it’s just a two or three minute job while the toast is on. But just like Tony, my wife does it. Only I don’t think he would approve of my wife…
Abbott, it seems has been subjected to criticism on the ironing issue. Poor boy. Tones, you’re a deadshit and I really shouldn’t do this cos I don’t really want to help you along but …. stay away from wimminz ishoos. They already know you are a turd. You don’t have to prove it over and over again day after day.
Laura @46 and FXH @54 – word. Who makes/chooses their clothes on the basis of whether they have to be ironed or not?
Paul B @56 — heh.
PC –
Me. No iron and no dryclean is best. Wear t-shirt things with suits and if they are crumpled, put them on when it’s humid (helps to live in Sydney / Brisbane probably) and by the time you get to work it’s all sorted. And wear black and a stunning necklace and it doesn’t really matter what you wear.
The really offensive thing that Tony Abbott said was “what the housewives of Australia need to understand …” Really, that’s starting from an assumption that they are a bit thick isn’t it?
Yes, I found the ‘need to understand…’ phrase particularly annoying, but I hate it when anyone uses it let alone a dickhead like Abbott.
And yes, who chooses their clothes on the basis of whether they have to be ironed or not? Weird.
And since when have dryers become environmentally responsible? I always thought they were a dreadful waste of electricity when you have a clothes line and (relatively) fresh air.
As Tony’s principal political tactician, I don’t mind telling you that you’ve all underestimated the man and fallen for our cunning little plan – so cunning you could pour a pallet load of Crown stubbies into it and call it a Young Liberals conference.
By the time of the next election all youse lefty smartarses will be in complete disarray from laughing yourselves stupid at our Tones. We’ll be campaigning on our biggest strength – Tony Abbott isn’t a lefty smartarse like Rudd and none of the lefty smartarses (like your Prion driving brother in law who lives in the inner city latte belt) want him as our next Prime Minister. There won’t be a key marginal left in ALP hands by the time we’re done.
Even though I’m in Melbourne black can be overrated. And perhaps I’m a bit behind the times but where I work a stunning necklace with a suit hasn’t caught on for men just yet.
If it absolutely requires ironing I won’t buy it. Often just hanging clothes on the line in the right way yields a result which is near enough for me.
Yea, they should be next in line to be banned after incandescent light bulbs
Besides if you keep using them you’ll have the Green Police after you.
Oh dear.
Many comments on this thread suggest to me that PJK really had limited lasting impact.
FXH @61: “…where I work a stunning necklace with a suit hasn’t caught on for men just yet”
Well there’s your opportunity to stand out from the crowd and lead a new trend!!!
Yes, I agree Angharad, the choice of ‘ironing’ as a vehicle for Tony’s amazingly condescending way of explaining carbon pricing to the masses is not offensive so much as an insight into the extremo-bizarro world in which he lives mentally and emotionally.
I’d say it was the Fifties except that would be an inaccurate insult to the Fifties which was in many ways an awesome decade that always gets an unfairly bad rap.
‘Doing The Ironing’, to me, is definitely not the same thing as ironing your own shirt. It’s doing everyone else’s ironing for them, because it’s your duty. ha ha ha!
Now back to the other side of the ironing issue. I think it’s nice that ironers and non ironers here can discuss their varied habits and preferences without judging, swearing, screaming crying etc.
Ironing is a personal choice in Australia and that’s how it should be. (But now Tony has realised that people other than ‘housewives’ do ironing, he’s probably going to try to make non-housewife ironing illegal.)
Personally, most of my clothes are cotton, silk, and wool. I hate wearing fabrics that don’t breathe and that can’t be washed. When natural fibres wrinkle, they really wrinkle. So I iron stuff. It doesn’t take long. I also like the feeling of putting on a crisp freshly ironed shirt or dress.
FXH @ 63 – for a programmer colleague of mine formal wear for when clients visit is:
a) shirt with collar (no holes).
b) footwear (actually on).
but thankfully expectations for programmers are very low. In fact, beware a programmer dressed in a suit – who knows what deficiencies they are attempting to hide!
chris @66 – most coders I know would consider a shower and some Old Spice as good enough preparation.
Laura @65, regardless of who wears silk, and who irons the clothes, Tone’s biggest problem is that he has revealed that he:
(a) doesn’t know how to identify the key issues,
(b) creates unnecessary irritation and aggravation,
(c) exposes his narrow mindset at every opportunity.
That does NOT indicate promising PM material, or leadership material, to my mind. If his biggest contributions to debate involve women’s hymens and women’s ironing patterns, then he is not PM material at all.
FXH, here’s how I picture it.
no argument from me there Elise, except perhaps with your use of the word ‘revealed’ (unless you’re referring to some rather longstanding revelations)
Oh hell, Elise, what can be wrong with offering a great, big, new, hymen and a crisp, white, shirt ? That’s all a male wants. Plus a six pack.
Or there’s this. Purdy.
mmmmm Rob da spunk.
joe2 @71, and a fishing rod, and a boat, and a 4WD, and a man cave with lots of rarely used gizmos in it…
Wot sort of boofy bloke wants a crisp white shirt, anyway???
Further to Elise’s answers @52 about iron-free living (special occasions not included).
Hang the washing soon after the load stops so that its not crumpling itself in the machine or the basket (this rule mainly applies to work shirts and school uniforms, for jeans, t-shirts etc doesn’t make a difference).
Hang work shirts and school uniforms on a clothes hanger on the line rather than hanging with pegs (and then they are ready to go straight into the wardrobe when dry)
Lastly, fold the washing off the line and into the basket when its dry and its ready to go straight into the drawers, no ironing required (or sit in the basket for days and removed and worn without seeing the drawers, that works to). If the folding comes after the basketing well maybe you need to speak to Tony’s wife about ironing tips.
Another handy hint is to commute by motorcycle to work, no need to iron the shirt cos it doesn’t make any difference to how the shirt appearances after your trip.
This is rather fetching…
Following on from Rayedish @75.
Ideal:
Wash cold
Drip Dry shirts on a hanger on the line.
Don’t let them dry out bone dry.
Bring them in a bit damp.
Iron them while they are damp and hang up.
Less than ideal but practical:
Wash cold
Spin dry but don’t leave in machine
Give a good flick out to get our wrinkles beofer pegging on bottom of tails
Don’t let them dry out bone dry.
Bring them in a bit damp
Hang or fold
Iron on demand
Abbott knows he can’t win the female vote so now he’s going to try to buy it
http://www.news.com.au/national/coalition-flags-six-months-paid-parental-leave/story-e6frfkvr-1225828105611
However, FXH, what usually happens around my joint is:
wash in cold water
hang it out a few hours later when you realise the wash has finished
bring it in when bone dry and chuck in the ironing basket
swear loudly when you realise you don’t have an ironed shirt minutes before you need to leave for work
iron and wear warm
It works for me.
What’s with this dryer-banning business? Am I the only one here who lives in a flat?
fxh, maybe lose ‘stunning’ and insert funk-shun-al (in a ‘Sham-Wow’ way).
Adapt to stubby holder, goes without saying:
http://www.amazon.com/Wine-Glass-Holder-Necklace-Set/dp/B000W43HF4
Grumphy @ 81 – well it depends on the type of flat, but a good start would be to ban the banning in many body corporate laws of drying clothes on your balcony. When I lived in a flat most of the time I dried my clothes on a clothes horse rather than use the dryer. I still do in winter sometimes where I currently live as we have no outdoor sheltered areas to dry.
Probably doesn’t work so well in humid climates but in dry cold areas in winter it even helps bring up the indoor humidity levels a bit.
Grumphy @80, I think it has to do with people with a muddled perspective, who want to micromanage and define Means rather than Ends.
There seems to be a similar problem with arguments about giving Feed-In Tariffs to low emission technology (like BlueGen and Heat Pump HW) as well as “no emission” technology (like solar HW and solar PV).
The bloody goal is to significantly reduce emissions and avoid building more coal-fired power stations. Distributed low emission energy sources can achieve this. It doesn’t have to be TOTALLY renewable energy, it just has to be “low carbon” to achieve major progress.
Fran Barlow is on record at LP with a strenuous repeated argument that people should use public transport and live in high density accomodation. In line with that argument is an objection to solar PV systems (presumably because a lot of flat dwellers couldn’t have them) and supporting the idea of road tolls on all roads rather than fuel emissions taxes (presumably to stop people driving their own cars).
Not everyone lives and works in the CBD, and not every family is suited to high rise living. This Hong Kong/Singapore utopia won’t happen in Australia any time soon. Meanwhile, a million roofs with 12 solar PV panels each (producing about 10,000 kWh/year each) could cut the peak power demand by about 10^10 kWh/year or 10 Terawatt hours. Correct me if I am wrong. Surely that is a bloody big lot of savings, regardless of purist arguments about whether every household has one?
Road tolls would punish the low emission cars as much as the gas guzzlers. Public transport produces similar emissions per passenger-km as compact diesel cars and small petrol cars, and more than the latest hybrid cars. This is a very important point. Are we looking for lower emissions, or are we trying to micromanage and define the means for achieving them?
‘No man who cares would let anyone else iron his shirts.’
Not so FX, one should always let one’s man iron one’s shirts. It’s what one pays them for.
Elise, I would have thought that mass insulation and highly efficient appliances would provide much more initial energy saving value than the solar panels.
joe2 @86, Yep, totally agree!
Good insulation and highly efficient appliances are probably step one on the journey, in terms of incremental bang-for-buck.
So are simple actions like installing water-efficient shower heads (cuts both water consumption and hot water bills), and setting reverse-cycle aircon thermostats for less cooling in summer and less heating in winter.
After that, though, solar PV has a big impact. It works a lot better than the sceptics would have you believe. Both solar PV and solar HW are interesting technologies which are effectively all-Capex, no-Opex. Once you have bought it and installed it, you have virtually zero maintenance and zero running expenses, for 20 years or so. Not a bad concept. And the power companies are supporting this idea???
We installed 6 solar PV panels in May 2008, and all we have done since then is hose them down using a few drops of dishwashing liquid and a soft broom last week (ONCE in 20 months). Perth hasn’t had rain for months, and the dust was starting to affect their performance. Normally rain keeps them clean. In that time, we now have a long-run average performance of 6 kWh/day from the 6 panels.
Synergy just sent us a bill saying that they owed us money now, so no need to pay any bills. I think they must have made a mistake. But hell, who’s complaining!
“If it absolutely requires ironing I won’t buy it. Often just hanging clothes on the line in the right way yields a result which is near enough for me.”
Exactly. I put them out as soon as the washing machine stops, put them out on the line properly and when I bring them in fold them away or hang them up properly. Works perfectly and I’ve never ironed anything in my life.
I remember when I was around 20 or so and working at this new job and the boss (she was in her early 30′s) and I were talking about moving out of home stuff and I said I’ve got learn how to iron (my mother is one of those iron the undies types) and she informed me that ironing wasn’t exactly something you have to do and then set about explaining why it’s not needed. Best advice I ever got.
Yep, Elise. Good to see the panels are working so well for you.
It will be interesting to see how much the insulation grant actually cuts back national energy use and emissions. It gets absolutely no positive recognition, given the important measure it is.
In the 80s I remember my dad wearing a white sparkly stretch polo neck shirt with his penguin suit and bow tie. Not that he wore it to work but I think it got a regular outing to Masonic Lodge nights. We live in the “the country” – can’t imagine what they thought of him.
I reckon we should put a tax on irons and dryers. If Tony wanted to show thought leadership he should stop wearing ironed shirts (and undies, hankies, sox, budgie smugglers whatever).
The political leaders of Australia need to understand that resource constraints make ironing a non-essential use of energy and everyone should just stop. Tax problem fixed.
“If it absolutely requires ironing I won’t buy it. Often just hanging clothes on the line in the right way yields a result which is near enough for me.”
Exactly. If there’s a couple of little wrinkles, so what? It would get that way shortly after putting it on anyway.
Angharad @90: “If Tony wanted to show thought leadership he should stop wearing ironed shirts (and undies, hankies, sox, budgie smugglers whatever).”
How can we vote for a bloke that wears un-ironed budgie smugglers?
Tones is rather remiss in not having a set of nice sharp pleats in those smugglers, don’t you think? At least for strutting in front of the media cameras.
He could try straightening out his “housewife” on this important matter, and see if he gets a box round the ears…!!!
Of course, he might get another reprimand along the lines of “lame, gay, churchy loser” or whatever it was his daughter said?
Look, this is ridiculous. Buy five business shirts, wear one each day of the week, wash them on the weekend and then put them in the dryer (cost about $400 or almost nothing second hand) for about half an hour, and toss in your weekly undies, towels, and other sundries. Calculate the global harm from one half hour of electricity per week, and then have a glass of wine and stop being silly. Alternatively, hang them on the line and if you see any wrinkles forming, call the police. Alternatively, buy six business shirts, take them the dry cleaners on friday after work and pick them up monday after work, pay $30. Omigod, it might go up to $32 with a CPRS. Tell Abbott to get fucked.
I’m not wearing any business shirt – I AM the business
Of course you are Laura
Elise said:
Do you have a price on
a) the storage requirements (120 hours per rooftop * 7 Kwh [27-20]?)
b) the supply and fit of the panels?
Not to stop them, but to make them think twice about whether at the margins, it was the best option or whether car pooling or walking or public transporting mightn’t be a viable option.
Go back and read what I wrote Elise. I covered that since both tare and emissions were part of my metric.
Helen @ 50.
You should have read the post I was responding to 39.
You might not have then felt impelled to respond to mine 48.
It pays to get things in context.
@93 – grace, I like to wear shirts made from cotton rather than synthetic fabrics. They need to be ironed. I like ironing.
Mark, we agree completely. (I had way too much wearing of polyester/cotton and polyester/wool blend uniforms in the Army. They needed ironing too, btw.)
joe2 @ 89 – I think its very hard to measure the actual impact it has. It depends greatly on how people in the houses change their behaviour. For example I used to live in an ok insulated house with an undersized a/c unit. Running it at full power when it was 40C outside would only keep the temperature down to around 29C. With good insulation I might be a lot more comfortable at 25C but I wouldn’t be using any less power (there may be some minor side effects with the fridge running more effectively but good luck measuring that across lots of households).
I strongly support the intent behind the insulation rebate but in retrospect it has been implemented very poorly. The ban on foil backed insulation is a disaster for much of the potential environmental gain. Its the foil which is most effective at keeping summer heat out from the roof as much of the heat gain is from radiant heat gain from the roof which the foil blocks, and not from conductive heat gain which is what the batts stop. In fact you’ll see in many green homes in cooling climates that they’ll decide to skip the batts completely or have low R value batts but include sarking (foil) as its more important to lose the heat built up during the day through the ceiling at night and too much insulation will trap the heat in if you don’t have sufficient cross ventilation.
Mark/David – some of the synthetic fabrics used in high performance hiking shirts are softer than cotton as well as performing much better in hot sweaty conditions. They also don’t need any ironing and last for a long time but they’re pretty expensive.
Chris, I think the reflective sarking is most effective if it’s put in immediately under the roof cladding (rather than on top of the ceiling). That way, you don’t end up with a huge amount of heated air in the roofspace.
Of course, that’s rather tricky to retrofit …
you can do it by having your whole roof taken off and put back on. The roof on this house was asbestos when we bought it.
@101, thanks, Chris. Hiking style wear, though, isn’t really my style.
Well, yes, Laura, but I don’t think the govt would spring for rebuilding the roof.
It’s the sort of thing that should be mandated in the planning regulations for new buildings. (It may be – I don’t know.)
After all that, I forgot what I was going to say. Something about T-shirts not being as comfortable as they’re made out to be.
Now “That’s Bullshit” Tony
David @ 102 – yes certainly its better to put it just under the roofing as dust which reduces its effectiveness is much less of a problem. But only the very enthusiastic do it as a retrofit as its very labour intensive – maybe not that bad as an anti-recession make-work program
Its not mandated as part of building requirements though highly recommended often as a condensation/moisture barrier especially with metal roofs. Its so cheap I think there’s a good argument for making it compulsory but thats part of what the minimum rating systems in some states are meant in effect to achieve but let the builders work out what the cheapest way to get the best benefit is. Its use in walls is less common but installed correctly can make a significant difference to the effect of the hot afternoon sun on the inside temperature.
Incidentally while I’m off-topic I think the proposed compulsory energy efficiency rating system for houses which are sold or rented is a very good idea. As long as they use a rating system which gives accurate results. Its especially useful for renters who do not normally have the opportunity to check things like the level of insulation in a places they are checking out.
Mark @ 104 – yea its use doesn’t seem to have spread beyond the sportsware market, perhaps because of the cost.
Mark@98: “I like ironing.”
Mark, you are beyond redemption…
“I think its very hard to measure the actual impact it has.”
Chris, given the substantial rollout of insulation across the country I cannot see why it would not be measurable, despite your valid point that some may use energy savings in one area, to use them elsewhere.
The Green Loans arrangements, though still in their infancy, should build on that good basic work that is not diminished, even though it does not jump the high and complicated sarking bar.
We should see a real drop in national domestic energy use even if it’s price may continue to rise.
If the installers who did the house of the neighbour of the in-laws are anything to go by, the job is so badly done it will probably cost more in energy than it saves.
For what it’s worth (which I know is very little) we have not used our air conditioner at all this summer as opposed to last summer when we used it almost every day for the three weeks we took off work in Jan/Feb. The difference is partly the milder summer, but also the newly insulated roof.
Interesting change, Laura. We do not have an air conditioner but have noticed a big difference in our comfort levels this summer. Winter should see us making savings on our gas bill.
Mindy, it beats me how people could get insulation organised and then sign off for it without checking. Do they want the taxpayer to fund their insulation package and make sure it is a good job? I hope they, at least, chase the suppliers down and report them.
joe2, you just blame the govinment, just like everyone else does. Not that Orstralia is becoming a nation of self-obsessed spoilt brats or anything.
joe2 – well thats one of the problems of having a scheme where its completely free. Introduce even a small co-payment and more people will make sure the work is done properly.
btw I do like the Green Loans scheme, and perhaps instead the insulation scheme should be linked to having a free audit as well first – may stop some of the rorts where installers remove existing insulation without telling the government in order to qualify for the rebate. But by trying to do two things at once – improve the energy efficiency of housing and stimulate the economy NOW they’ve ended up doing at least one poorly with long term consequences.
How many people are now going to be scared off using foil backed insulation in the future? Not because its dangerous but because its been installed poorly with the big influx of inexperienced installers?
Yes adrian, I saw it on the 7.30 Report last night.
Apparently the government is fully responsible for any dodgy business that employs an installer who is electrocuted or injured while installing insulation. And the whole roll out should therefore be cancelled because it is an obvious failure.
Well you know I do tend to blame Government if there’s a failure in building regulation (people’s roofs not being insulated correctly or jobs being done safely) or a failure in mandatory OH&S (17 y/o builders labourers dying because their bosses send them up to install pink batts on 45° days)
Liam, I just cannot see how you can make regulations and OH&S stipulations totally govmint responsibility. It comes down, in the end, as to whether the employer is prepared to play by the rules. And that goes for their preparedness to complete the job in a satisfactory manner, as well.
The government can merely, and must, move quickly to ban those who are rip offs or place workers in danger.
In any case, Liam @117, most of those OH & S rules’d be a state govt responsibility, wouldn’t they?
joe2 @ 118 – as you would have seen on the 7:30 report there were according to the union essentially no significant OH&S problems in the insulation industry in Queensland prior to the introduction of the subsidy. By introducing the rebate the government created gold rush like conditions and in retrospect its not surprising that dodgy operators would rush to enter the market.
I think how responsible you hold the government comes down to how much planning you expect the government to do when introducing new schemes rather than just thinking about the upside. Is there a group of people that thinks about how people may try to exploit new schemes and the consequences that may have? Eg realise they may need to tighten up monitoring in the short term, especially for new entrants.
And according to the usual SMH anti-Labor beat-up on its front page, it’s the govmint’s fault when inerest rates go up.
Good to see Media Watch get stuck ito this poor excuse for a newspaper.
Chris, there seems to be a mentality that says ‘businessmen will just be businessmen’ and we should all just run around and accept that their boyish nature is to be naughty.
If every government measure has to be run through some prism of how a sneaky creep will inevitably exploit it, it is a problem with private enterprise ethics not those who seek to govern.
Just Abbott appealing to the base…locked in the 1940s/1950s mind cupboard courtesy of the forward thinking Howard & co.
They have a window of oldies who vote that yearn for the “good old days” in times of extreme technological change & war.
Add the Dallas/Dynasty/Wall Street-like pro-greed factor of the Reaganomics 80s & Thatcherite “mean-spirited, war thumping & miserly towards public services” attitude also pumped up in different form during Howard era…and you’ve got enuff voters who accidentally fall into that closet w/ their grandparents and other oldies because the smell of the combined attitudes is confusing/enticing.
And you’ve got a hypocritical media led by empire builders who use news & shows in same contradictory fashion…led by moguls and talking heads of the DON’T DO AS I DO, DO AS I SAY approach…bashing, wedging the government from all angles on a daily basis…and promoting FAMILY VALUES when it suits them.
Abbott rides that wave. And the media empires using old hat, but tried and true during pre-Gore/Bush election, tactics to create perception that all Abbott/Joyce critics are ELITISTS and born & bred of a shambolic 60s era…and don’t understand the regular bloke & loving Mum on the street.
Yawn.
It’ll come back to bite them. Aussies when they WAKE are not quite as gullible as some in other nations.
They know what Howard & Abbott woulda done w/ the WORKCHOICES AXE during the global economic downturn. Any excuse to…
N’
And they know that WINDOW is closing fast.
N’
Chris @120, joe2 @122
Nitpicking maybe, but there isn’t just one government involved in the Queensland OH&S failure, there are two: the Federal Government which provided the money for the scheme and the State government which has responsibility for OH&S supervision. Both levels of government failed to discharge their responsibilities in this case.
Gummo Trotsky – yes, failure at both levels, though given the Feds introduced the scheme and were happy to take all the credit for it I think there is some level of responsibility upon them to consider the possible adverse side effects *and* supply some funding to the states if necessary.
Joe2 – I don’t think its fair to tar all businessmen with the same brush. Like any group of people there are going to be good and bad, and for the government to assume that they are all good would be a bit naive (hey why do we need any regulation at all?). I realise its easy to judge in retrospect, but that doesn’t mean the government doesn’t have any responsibility and certainly need to take into account these things in the future – perhaps it was just inexperience on Rudd or Garretts part?
“and pro-big government when handing out rebates to prop up the private sector”
Unless there’s a possibly “too Lefty” government to undermind. Roof insulation?
Bring me the scrutiny of private hospitals & other industries/business that benefits from rebates. Car industry?
N’
“Both levels of government failed to discharge their responsibilities in this case.”
And to repeat myself, somewhat, there were no government officials standing there forcing employers to send the untrained and young into dangerous situations so they could make a quick buck out of their hard, hot and dirty labour.
We always let the real bastards off the hook like the restaurant boss in Melbourne who just watched as his team members hounded a young women to death by suicide. It would not matter what workplace laws you had in place, in many cases.
We don’t really do scrutiny of the private sector in Orstralia anymore, unless you count the in-depth analysis that the likes of ACA undertake.
joe2 @ 128
We’re getting way off topic here so here’s just a quick 1-2-3:
1. Yes, the employer failed in his duty of care to the employee.
2. (Pure 20-20 hindsight) the Feds should never have accredited the employer under the scheme in the first place.
3. (Pure 20-20 hindsight again) neither should the Queensland government.
Administrative laxity kills.
I fitted airvents to the roof of an old, uninsulated farmhouse that was unbearably hot on cloudless summer days. The difference in temp was very marked. Some of the high gabled iron roofs have enormous cavities that trap considerable heat. The type of vents I fitted were the whirly expellers that are actioned by convection, cheap and easy to install.
Elise@87:”Synergy just sent us a bill saying that they owed us money ” … Well f’n done!!
For the record, can you tell what terrible hairshirt hardships you’ve endured ..No tennis court spotlights? No Pool Pump? No A/C? No Plasma? No Washing machine? No fridge? No kettle? No worries?
Zorronsky @131, smart move with those whirlybirds! Great bang for buck, venting the hot air from the roof cavity.
In a similar vein, I suspect that putting a bleed stream of aircon cool air up there (especially for a tiled roof) during heat waves will reduce the heat load on the ceilings of houses. I have tried closing the doors and windows on a really hot day and venting the “swampy” (ducted evaporative cooler) air back up through the ceiling vents (bathroom, toilet, over the gas heater, etc). It seems to work, but I haven’t conducted any scientific measurements to prove it.
Better half tried something similar with a ducted refrigerative system in North Qld more than a decade ago. He diverted the outside ducting to run in the roof space, and put in ceiling vents to push the cool air up and effectively have a cooler airspace around the ducting. He reckoned the house was cooler afterwards, and the electricity bills were much lower. The ducted refrigerative system was a big chunk of his bills in the summer. That was the days before most of us understood the size of the problem with climate change.
Danny @132: “For the record, can you tell what terrible hairshirt hardships you’ve endured…”
Presumably you are being sarcastic, and not really asking a question. However, I will assume otherwise, as a first approximation.
No tennis court spotlights? Check! No tennis courts, and can’t play to save myself. How much garden space do you think we have anyway? What we have is virtually full of Aussie natives.
No pool pump? Check! No pool, and am not much of a waterbaby anyway. We do have 3 water features with little fish in them, and they have air bubblers (which are very low wattage and on timers).
No Plasma? Check! We have a LCD. Not that it would make much difference to our total electricity consumption if we had plasma. We hardly watch TV.
As for the rest, we have them and use them, as I said before. We may be pale green, but we aren’t anti-technology in this household.
So you wonder about where the hairshirt hardships are?
We set the reverse-cycle aircon thermostat at around 24′C in summer (rather than say 21′C), and preferentially use the fans and the “swampy” unless it is really hot. We also open up the house in the evenings and early mornings, to use natural cooling.
We set the thermostat to about 21′C in the winter, but preferentially use the gas heater and wear warmer clothes.
We change the hot water thermostat 4 times a year (each season), winding it up to have enough hot water in winter and down again in summer. This method means that our old gas HW storage system can hardly be justified changing in terms of either financial efficiency or incremental reduction in carbon emissions.
The towel warmer is on a timer to come on an hour before shower time (to have toasty warm towels), and switches off an hour later after drying them. The bar fridge is only turned on when we are having people over for a BBQ and need the extra space.
Virtually all lights are compact fluorescent or LED. The outside lights are either movement activated, or dusk activated with a 4 hour limit, to reduce their on-time.
Wonders of modern technology! Scarcely counts as serious hardship.
Elise – this is not meant to be a criticism of you, but I did want to point out the scientific evidence on whirlybirds seems to indicate that they are not very effective.
If you’re considering adding whirlybirds its worth reading this thread on the envirotalk forums. The short summary is:
- whirlybirds make very little difference to the amount of heat transferred from the roof space to ceiling in situations where you already have ceiling insulation. They simply can’t move enough air out. There was some real house experimentation done with whirly birds (Victoria I think but I can’t find the reference at the moment).
- sufficient ventilation or cooling of the roofspace can as Elise noted make a differences to how well ducted a/c works. The house I’m in at the moment has evaporative a/c and vents into the ceiling space through to the roof space. This has the dual advantage of cooling the space a bit as well as not requiring as many windows/doors to be opened which can sometimes be a security issue at night). And with evap a/c you have to vent the air somewhere.
- Its the radiant heat from the roof that heats up the top of the the insulation which leads to the ceiling getting hot, not the build up of hot air in the roof through conduction.
I’ve visited one green house in Canberra that has a roof ridge vent (basically a vent which runs along the whole length of the top of the roof) which according to the owner’s calculation does provide sufficient air flow. So it is possible to passively cool/vent the roof space, just not effectively with the whirly birds.
Chris @134, that was a very interesting discussion on that forum link!
The argument against whirlybirds seems to be that radiant heat from the roof isn’t conducted or convected by the hot air, since hot air rises and sits against the roofline. If you have insulation, then the ceiling is protected from the hot air. Sounds fair enough, on face value.
Unfortunately, most backyard sheds DON’T have insulation, so that caveat doesn’t apply and the room space will get hot.
Regardless of the reasonable-sounding scientific argument, I’m going to side with the termites on this one. You know, the ones that build those humungous tall termite stacks in the outback? They had the vent stack concept figured out long, long before us two-legged, clever buggers decided it couldn’t work on scientific principles!
As one guy towards the end of the forum said:
“Whirlybirds are essentially a vent that moves hot air up and out. They perform the same function as a pipe with a witches hat on top. They exploit the fact that people think that things that move are doing something, but things that stay still don’t do anything.
Think of your house as a chimney or column of air. Hot air will rise within it. If you open the top of the chimney with the bottom closed, not much will happen. If you open the bottom of the chimney with the top closed, not much will happen. But if the top and the bottom of the chimney are both open at the same time, then you will get an updraft through the chimney.”
Basically you need to suck in cooler air from somewhere, to replace the hot air in the ceiling. The coolest air is probably under the house or under the eaves on the south side of the house.
On a related aspect of this vent-stack concept, we put up some polycarbonate “sails” to shield the walls of the house from the sun. The bearers are standing on legs (rather than fixed at the guttering level), to give an air vent at the eaves. The theory was that the hot air would rise and get vented along the eaves-line, sucking in cooler air from under the trees in the adjacent garden.
I don’t know to what extend this venting contributed to having a cooler house, beyond that of shading the walls, but the house certainly stays cooler for longer in summer. We don’t seem to need the A/C as much since installing the “sails”. I’m giving full credit to the termites, for thinking of the concept first!
Chris the only modification to the old farmhouse I mentioned above was the whirly roof vents. I did say that the house was uninsulated. During the previous winter the temperature inside the house reached -6c on three occasions. I used for heating the Lux Wood fired stove [non-sealed combustion wise] and an oil type electric heater. In frustration at one stage I suggested that maybe my wife should keep the cooking oil in the fridge to stop it from solidifying. I ripped out the Lux replaced it with a Ned Kelly combustion heater and the house never reached freezing again. I believe that the combination of heater plus airvents made the house comfortably liveable year round. Oh.. without insulation!
Elise @ 135 – The envirotalk forums do have some really interesting discussions. I won’t argue that the stack effect doesn’t work, just that its been found that the whirly birds don’t have the capacity to move enough air at least with the number that most people install them. Which is why roof ridge vents that create a much larger area for the hot air to escape can work. But as you mention you still need to think about where the incoming air is coming from.
There are green houses around that use the stack effect to passively cool the living area of the house. Solar chimneys which draw up air through tubes connected to the living areas and low windows in shaded areas to draw cool air into the house. I haven’t gone to this extent for a house I’m currently building but we’ll have low windows adjacent to a pond for natural evaporative cool air intake on one side of the house and high windows and roof windows on the other to get a natural air movement even when there’s no breeze. We’ll still have evaporative a/c available though – can only expect so much passive cooling when its 40C outside for a week.
Re: the sails – if you don’t have properly installed sarking in the walls then shading the walls of a house from direct sunlight can be very effective, again because you are blocking the radiant heat. And allowing for movement of the air to prevent hot air building up wouldn’t hurt either. Its actually been quite encouraging to see some houses around where I live install shade sails to shade western facing walls and not just windows. Its great to see people the effect of people thinking about what the sorts of things they can do to cool their house down that aren’t just “install another a/c unit”.
Zorronsky said:
Yes thats why I specifically mentioned it applied to insulated roofs. I suspect that installing sarking may have been even more effective (though a whole lot more work) because much of the radiant heat would not have hit the ceiling. Would at least be an interesting experiment
Back on the question of solar panels on rooves …
According to this source
I decided to do some BOTE on the cost of increasing renewable energy output enough to displace fossil energy supply.
Assume that a household is averaging 20KwH per day. Elise is flying with the angels, and doubtless whispering lovely things into their ears at only 12KwH but even so, but mostly, the angels see few frequent fliers …
That means (assuming the hours of insolation when you can get your 100 to 150w per metre are about 8 on average) you are going to need about 2.5 * 1Kw systems so roughly 2.5 times $20,000 per household. i.e. about $50,000 each. Perhaps with bulk purchase and a really good roll out you could get this down, but this is BOTE …
Let’s say that all of that energy is made available to the grid and that when people want energy they simply draw it back. That’s probably going to be the cheapest way to store the energy and the means with the smallest footprint, though you do give up some round trip efficiency. But this is BOTE so we forget about that. Let’s ignore the fact that in Tasmania a lot of their power is hydro and that a good proportion of urban dwellers live in strata titled multi-level apartments and assume that all of the 13% of electrical energy going to households is covered on rooftops. (We haven’t counted factories and warehouses where it would be easier and cheaper to lay much greater coverage than 25 square meters so maybe this works.)
So at $2000 per square meter installed, we could cover 13% of 27GWe baseload (3.51GWe) by about having 140.4 million * 25 square metre installations (equivalent — some warehouses in highly insolated areas for example might have 2000 square metres on their rooves). Now at $2000 per square metre that comes out to $7.02 trillion dollars, for 13% of our generation capacity not including the costs of storage, RTE losses, fluctuations in localised insolation, losses through churning of roof space, decommissioning costs etc. Even allowing such a massive program would generate installed cost savings of 90% (a breathtaking assumption) you would still be looking at $702 billion dollars, which assuming we put 5% of GDP into funding it would be paid off by … err … 2150 … at least 12 years after the panels had been decommissioned. That doesn’t sound remotely sensible. And of course that 13% we would cover doesn’t include electric car infrastructure demands …
Alternatively, we could generate the same contribution with 3.51Gwe of AP1000s for example. Let’s assume $3500 per Kw installed … a pretty mid-range price though the Chinese are apparently going to do theirs for about 1/3 of that … On that basis the 13% figure costs us $10.5 billion or about 1/70th the optimistic 90% discounted bulk purchase price of the solar panels. And we don’t need to find and cover 3.5 billion square meters of roof space to do it.
Actually Fran, if you sing up with Origin Energy and sell back the RECs you can get a 1.5kW system for about $5K. You have to live within the Sydney basin or within a 100km radius of one of their offices though.
Fran @138: You truely are a sarcastic type, aren’t you Fran?
Here is our invoice from installing a 1.3 kW system, not including rebates:
Balance Due:
PAYMENT DUE ON RECIEPT OF INVOICE
UNLESS OTHERWISE AGREED
To supply and install 1.3kW grid connect solar system $14,088.18 incl GST.
SunPower 215w modules x 6
Fronius IG30 indoor
Note that it is 1.3 kW (more than your 1 kW claim), and it is well under $20,000.
Note also that it uses the most expensive high performance panels and inverter that were available at the time.
There are many cheaper options around. I picked up an AustralSun brochure the other day, which offers a 1.5 kW system for $12,500 before rebates.
This household has technophiles, so we went after the most technically advanced option that was available when we installed. Others would not have that weakness, and could easily find a cheaper system, especially since the cost of panels has come down since then.
As for your sarcastic, smart-alec comment about “flying with the angels, and doubtless whispering lovely things into their ears at only 12KwH”, you clearly haven’t tried.
If you were here in person, I could show you our power bills and my notes from regularly reading the SmartMeter. And box your ears for your unwarranted sarcasm.
Fran @138, something else you might like to consider, is that NOBODY anywhere has suggested that household solar panels will replace ALL baseload.
You are doing a bunch of spurious calculations, based on a set of incorrect starting assumptions, to prove an unnecessary point.
Elise said …
Actually Elise I didn’t consider replacing all baseload but rather the 13% of it going to households — i.e. where households’ net demand was zero. I think it was either BilB or Hannah’s Dad who suggested that rooftop PV might in 2050
account for 60% of Australia’s electrical demand.
As to the installed price I eventually allowed a very generous 90% discount and none at all for nuclear, and yet it was still a lot more than an order of magnitude more expensive per unit of output.
Mindy Said:
Self-evidently then it is fairly limited but even if this were general the final cost of the syastem still has to be paid in one form or another by someone. If not the householder directly then by the payments of whoever makes the RECs you trade financially worth trading. There is no free lunch. There are no separate pools of magic pudding money to do this. How costs are distributed and settled upon stakeholders is a policy question quite separate from what total costs are.
Fran @142, you are still making absurd claims. And you still haven’t apologised for your sarcasm.
According to a government report: “The 2008 target of 6800 gigawatt hours (GWh) is equivalent to the residential electricity consumption of more than 1.4 million Australian households.”
This comes from: http://www.orer.gov.au/publications/media-releases/mr01feb10.html
That gives us 4,857 kWh/household/year.
Divided by 365 days/year, that gives us 13.3 kWh/day.
Government figures, Fran. And you would have it that 12 kWh/day is “flying with the fairies”?
We do not need to resort to a bunch of spurious square meterage estimates. From actual operating data, averaged over a year, we can get an average of 6 kWh/day from 6 panels (a 1.3 kW system). It is not unreasonable to think that 12 panels (a 2.6 kW system) will give about 12 kWh/day averaged over a year.
If we assume no rebates and no system of supporting mitigation of climate change, and use the AustralSun offering of $12,500 for 1.5 kW, then prorata we have $21,700 for a 2.6 kW system.
For 1 million households, that is $21 billion, unless I am sorely mistaken. If the government funded this to the tune of say 20%, it would be $4 billion.
Meanwhile you are saying “…you would still be looking at $702 billion dollars, which assuming we put 5% of GDP into funding it would be paid off by … err … 2150″
How on earth did you manage to escalate $21 billion to $702 billion?
Incidentally, according to the government figures, households consume 26.7% of electricity generated.
http://www.environment.gov.au/soe/2006/publications/drs/indicator/326/index.html
Scroll down to the table “Energy end-use by source and by sector”, and look at the column labelled electricity, and the figures for Residential and Total. Residential 184.4
Total 689.9
Percentage = 184.4/689.9 *100% = 26.7%
Fran, your estimate of 13% household consumption would appear to be too low, by quite a margin.
Just as your estimate of the cost of individual solar systems is too high, by quite a margin.
Just as your estimate of the impost on government coffers is too high, by quite a margin.
Fran, I think you are seriously distorting the available figures, to suit your anti-solar, pro-nuclear story.
Here is a great little graph with the latest costs for solar power, compared with a couple of other alternatives:
http://www.sunpowercorp.com.au/utility/why-solar/why-pv.php
It gives the levelised cost of energy (LCOE) in A$ for 2009/2010. Check the horizontal axis of the graph $AUD/MWh.
LCOE is the total installed cost of a system – including the cost of land, building materials, construction and maintenance – divided by the power generated by the system.
Solar PV is $114 – $183 per MWh, or in other words 11-18 cents per kWh.
Synergy currently charges: Peak 32 cents/kWh, Shoulder 19 cents/kWh, Off-Peak 9 cents/kWh for their dirty coal-fired power.
It looks pretty close to game-on for solar PV, as far as I can see!
we use about 5kw a day in summer and it rises to about 7 in winter. No special deprivations. There are only two of us, but still.
Laura @145, you mean 5 kWh I guess, Laura? That is spectacularly impressive!!!
On our electricity bill, kWh is reported as “Units”.
They give you the Total units consumed for the billing period, and they also give you an average Daily consumption in units/day.
If you have SmartPower and solar PV, they THEN give you two more pages of close-packed figures to calculate whether they owe you or not. It is enough to make a normal person go cross-eyed, checking it.
Elise said:
There was nothing sarcastic about flying with the angels (not fairies). I was sending you a bouquet not sarcasm.
As to my figure for household consumption I relied on this:
You say
Well that’s not close to being the total number of households in Australa, unless you’re saying each household has 15 people in it. Last I heard, the average household size was under 3.
The same source suggests 2.3 per household by 2026. Your figure would be less than 20% of households.
OK … let’s accept your figures for the sake of argument. Your proposal is to produce 12KwH per day per household for an entire year * 1 million households using PV panels, correct? You say you can buy them for about $21,700 correct?
OK so that’s 1,000,000 * $21,700 for an installed capacity of 2.6 KWe * 1,000,000 or $21.7bn for 2.6GWe or about 8.3 billion per GWe installed. If the panels last 60 years without change or loss in harvesting effectiveness and nuclear’s current cost remains the same then it only costs a bit more than double nuclear power’s cost, not including the storage needed to capture all that output and hold it through periods of low insolation or RTE losses or decommissioning cost.
This seems fabulously optimistic.
I redid my calculation and it seems I used a couple too many zeroes on the input when calculating the number of systems. Those calculators should include commas! I apologise for that. And of course I was using 50k per system costing initially.
Energy and electricity overlap but they are not the same. Gas is separate as you know.
I’m not anti-solar at all. Personally, I would be quite OK with spending 2-3 times what nuclear costs per unit of output if the whole thing could start tomorrow. Time is of the essence. But even allowing 30 years of life for PV at the average you specify, we are closer to six times the cost and of course, once you do cover your (shrinking) 13% where do you go next? We need to get down to near zero emissions by 2050 if not 2030. bear in mind also that with nuclear you get other benefits — flash desal and water/gas pumping during low periods of demand for example; use of process heat to reconstitute boron to run cars and buses and so forth. With the spare capacity left in nuclear power we could resupply our river systems with potable water. These are benefits PV cannot supply.
Fran @147, I was never proposing that EVERY household in Australia would have solar PV. That is your assumption, not mine.
We don’t have to do anything either 100% or 0%, in order to make a difference. That is the distinction between pale green and deep green, I guess. I would be delighted if some people make some changes. No policy or activity has to be 100% of households doing the same thing.
Have a look at the link @144 and my accompanying remarks.
“Personally, I would be quite OK with spending 2-3 times what nuclear costs per unit of output”
A new study puts the LCOE generation costs for power from new nuclear plants at from US $250 – $300 per MWh.
http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/05/study-cost-risks-new-nuclear-power-plants/
That would be A$290 – A$350 per MWh for nuclear power.
Compare that with the other options on that graph. And consider that they probably haven’t properly included all the costs for waste disposal.
Where is this 2-3 times cost comparison in favour of nuclear? Looks to me like you have the comparison around the wrong way.
Elise @ 148 referred to Climate Progress citing thr Severance Study on projected nuclear power costs. The modelling for this report is controversial and it is widely regarded as an outlier.
At the moment the Russians are working on building an IFR at about $1000 per KWe. It should be online in 2015. If they succeed it will have a payback time of 1 year and maybe less. Right now, pumping gas costs the Russians 45% of the gas they export just in the energy to pump it west to Europe. They will be able to sell that gas and the energy cost will be near zero, and maybe less than zero if they can run it on waste that people pay them to haul away.
But frankly, I am agnostic. Why don’t we remove all the subsidies and all the RECs and all the policy objections, impose a proper cost on the externalities of all sources and then let everyone with the resources and expertise bid to supply power.
If nuclear really is as expensive as you say, then what you or I think about it will be moot. You won’t have to ban it — nobody will supply it because they won’t be competitive. If PV works out as being economically viable, lots of it will be taken up and I will party just as hard as anyone about that result.
It’s pretty simple really.
In the meantime though this doesn’t solve the problem of what to do with future energy demand. No conceivable combination of efficiency measures can generate enough power to render fossil energy redundant. Finding ways to generate the right mix of energy supply at acceptable cost is essential. And dealing with 13%, if you could still leaves the other 87% (less hydro) to deal with.
Fran @149: “No conceivable combination of efficiency measures can generate enough power to render fossil energy redundant.”
Good job you don’t work in science, or science funding, with your eyes fastened firmly on the rear view mirror.
You are also confusing “efficiency” with “generating power”.
You also made a total dog’s breakfast of both your assumptions AND maths on solar power.
You willfully misrepresent the data at every turn.
Give up Fran, your arguments are full of holes.
Elise said:
Hmmm … the pot calls the kettle black. You are the one who thinks greater efficiency can meet longterm energy demand. At best, it can defer the day when we need to install new capacity, or lower our per capita demand, but it can’t deliver any new capacity and unless we retire some fossil capacity as a consequence then our output will be the same.
Hardly. You refuse to stand behind your claims. If you really believed nuclear could not be viable, you’d favour internalising energy externalities, abolishing MRET and allowing nuclear to compete on a level playing field.
That you don’t shows that you are merely engaging in wishful thinking which you yourself don’t believe.