

Australian Government pulls the plug on household solar investments - ColinWright
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/government-pulls-the-plug-on-household-solar-20150712-gian0u.html?stb=twt

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d_t_w
Technically the Australian Government has directed that the Clean Energy
Finance Corporation no longer invest in small scale or residential solar. This
normally came in the form of a rebate for households that installed panels and
accounted for about a third of all investment by the corporation.

This is a day after they directed the CEFC to no longer invest in wind
generation. The Liberal government are quite open about their desire to shut
down the CEFC in its entirety, this is just one step in that direction.

I've lived decades in New Zealand and Britain and moved to Australia a few
years ago. It is a wonderful country filled with progressive, intelligent
people. I have never experience anything even remotely comparable to the
paucity of talent in Australian politics, we are ruled by neanderthals.

The Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, is a xenophobic mouth-breathing anachronism
direct from the 1950s who struggles to form full sentences. He's recently
announced a commission into wind turbines and is on the record as saying coal
is 'good for humanity'. He's not being ironic or making a clever economic
argument, both would be beyond him.

His cabinet are a mixture of the deranged and the spineless, the Treasurer
recently agreed that the actions of new mothers claiming paid parental leave
was 'basically fraud', called them 'rorters', all the while he claims
$270/night in travel allowance to pay rent on a property owned by his wife
while he stays in the capital. The arrogance and stupidity of these idiots is
unparalleled.

Depressingly, if there were an election tomorrow they would likely win another
term. Australia calls itself 'the lucky country', well, it's good to be lucky
if you're stupid I guess, but you won't stay rich with this sort of
leadership.

~~~
twoodfin
I don't find this kind of comment very helpful. You can't be slightly more
charitable to the positions of a government a majority of your fellow citizens
voted for? You don't have to agree with them, but you can attempt to
understand why they might hold those views without needing to be racist or
stupid.

I'm not keen on many of the positions of President Obama, Harry Reid or Rand
Paul, but I wouldn't describe them as "mouth breathers" on HN.

~~~
d_t_w
I'm not a citizen of Australia, they didn't win a majority they won a
plurality, and regardless I don't feel any compunction when describing Abbott
as a mouth breather.

As I explained clearly in my comment, I have never experienced anything like
the paucity of talent in Australian politics. I'm capable of disagreeing with
the government of the day while respecting the intelligence or talent at play.

I'm perfectly comfortable with my description of Abbott and I stand by it.

~~~
thomasfoster96
I have to ask - are you using "mouth-breather" as an insult?

~~~
d_t_w
Yes, to imply low intelligence. I think it's an American term? Though I'm not
entirely sure where I picked it up from.

~~~
thomasfoster96
Seems a bit odd to use it as an insult though, as quite a few people (myself
included) are more or less 'mouth breathers' because of medical conditions.

~~~
d_t_w
We all breath through our mouths. I could have described him as having 'slopey
shoulders', I doubt the progenitor of that insult intended people with back
problems to take insult, though I guess some may take it too literally.

------
TheSpiceIsLife
Can we remove the subsidies on all forms of energy generation and let the
market work it out?

I suppose, at least, now the 'solar is cheaper than coal even without
subsidies' crowd can have an opportunity to see if the theory plays out in
practice.

Edit to add: also, CEFC could be considered a wealth-transfer mechanism to the
already wealthy property owning class (I get that many 'home owners' have
large debts, but humour me here). As someone who chooses to rent I am excluded
from roof-top solar subsidies. I generally disagree with this discrimination,
but don't have a comprehensive alternative off the top of my head.

Solar shouldn't need subsidies and the energy retailers shouldn't be forced to
buy roof-top solar at non-market rates. Governments probably shouldn't try to
pick winners, at least not Australian governments, they're notoriously bad at
it.

~~~
d_t_w
Only if you also calculate and charge a price on carbon emissions, and the
current Australian government stopped that scheme last year.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I don't know why you down-voted my comment. I've up voted everything you've
contributed here. I was asking a question, it wasn't intended to be
rhetorical, and your response is valid and I agree with it.

~~~
d_t_w
I didn't down vote your comment, the timing was coincidental.

I responded to it because I think a removal of all subsidies alongside
correctly pricing the consequences of consumption is a valid end-goal.
Personally I'd continue to subsidise renewables because I approve of them but
I agree politicians are generally bad at picking winners.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
My apologies for the assumption.

------
pi-rat
I don't think I've ever read a positive piece of news from Australia regarding
technology, Internet, law or (green) energy. Is the government there really as
backwards thinking as it's portrayed? Most aussies I've talked to have seemed
pretty liberal (but then again, they were also traveling abroad)

~~~
d_t_w
Yes.

~~~
gonzo41
There's traveling abroad and then there's travelling to SE Asia (Bali). Which
is just another place to get drunk. If you're in America or Europe the cost of
travel prohibits most drunk idiots getting there.

On another note, the current government has taken every opportunity to move
away from innovation. Just a few things they have done is deny climate change,
abandoning the national broadband network and allow a giant coal mine to be
dug in the middle of prime farming land. Meta Data retention, Citizen
stripping legislation (its a privilege not a right!); and more.

The next election can not come fast enough for us. But the real cost is the
damage this general trend does for research. Scientists don't look at
Australia for opportunity anymore, they just leave.

------
thomasfoster96
I'm thinking that they've done this because although the government has been
trying to abolish the CEFC and failed every time, they've now realised (thanks
to the worryingly anti-renewable duo of Bob Day and David Leyonhjelm) that
they can just start telling the CEFC to stop investing in things they don't
want it investing in.

Of course, Australia's current energy policy is so misinformed it's not funny.
There is a general perception amongst the more conservative side of politics
that renewables will indefinitely require heavy subsidies, that India and
China will be an inexhaustible coal market and that the use of wind and solar
energy will have unintended consequences (be it health or economic). I'd think
that all three of those perceptions are mostly false.

------
spiritplumber
Looks like the current Australian and Canadian governments (Harper) want to
fall into the extraction-economy trap and giving incentive to clever people to
move elsewhere. Sad.

It makes some twisted sense though: What's a good position to be in, if you're
a ruler?

Answer: You don't have an educated populace that might displace you or call
you on your BS, and you don't need one because your economy exists upon
extracting natural resources and only doing basic processing on them before
export.

See Saudi Arabia.

~~~
kretor
"Looks like the current Australian and Canadian governments (Harper) want to
fall into the extraction-economy trap and giving incentive to clever people to
move elsewhere."

People will move away from Australia because there they would have to pay for
their solar systems out of their own pockets?

~~~
threeseed
No. But clever people who work in the clean energy sector will.

We have already seen investment drop in the sector as a result of the constant
undermining and ensuing uncertainty. When companies leave, clever people do
too.

------
gioele
"Pearls before swine". Australia could turn its curse (extremely high,
equatorial-like solar irradiance [1]) into a bless, if only politics were not
so short-sighted.

[1]
[http://i0.wp.com/cleantechnica.com/files/2013/08/3tier_solar...](http://i0.wp.com/cleantechnica.com/files/2013/08/3tier_solar_irradiance.jpg)

~~~
shoo
thank you for making me aware that
[http://cleantechnica.com/](http://cleantechnica.com/) exists.

------
chiragpatnaik
How long will renewables need subsidies? Does anyone have a study that
projects this?

~~~
thesnider
Well, coal is still subsidized, so I wouldn't hold my breath.

------
ulrikmoe
Subsidising renewable energy is one thing, but this idea of decentralised
energy production is just plain stupid. We should spend more money on
research, i.a. on fusion power, and a lot less on subsidies.

~~~
threeseed
How is decentralised energy production stupid ? The combination of solar
panels with excess power being routed to battery storage or electric car seems
like a perfectly legitimate option for consumers.

And Australia will never really be able to contribute a huge amount to the
fusion power effort. We lack the funds and sheer combined brainpower of the EU
or US. But lots of small scale innovation e.g. Wifi has always been something
we've excelled at.

