122 comments on A Sustainable Futures Fund for a Fuel and Climate Emergency
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Fine post- thanks.
I am a bit confused though as to where the oil is going to come from for the people you want to subsidise - the assumption seems to be that if the price is right oil will be readily obtainable, but I am not sure that that will be the case.
Perhaps it might be necessary to convert substantial numbers of cars to natural gas, too.
Have you got your assumed costs for solar and wind, and perhaps geothermal over the time period?
Converting cars to natural gas has been something both the major parties have pushed in recent years, with substantial subsidies available for conversion.
How wise this is long term, given that most of our gas seems destined to be exported, is a matter for debate (one I hope to have a post on in the near future).
Using biogas for CNG in rural areas might be a good idea long term though.
Not sure what costs Garry was using for solar and wind (at this point large scale geothermal would just be a guess until the GeoDynamics experiment is complete), but solar CSP is currently estimated to cost between 13 and 17 cents per kwh and expected to drop to around 8 cents per kwh - the same as wind costs today.
http://www.insnet.org/ins_headlines.rxml?id=6303&photo=
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/20356/
Solar should track your needs much better than wind in many parts of Australia, so the cost difference may not count for that much.
If you used a solar thermal plant and simply sent the power to an air heat pump then you should be able to cool a well-designed house sufficiently to last the night - perhaps by chilling water.
Hopefully they have a massive program for residential solar thermal panels too, or at least are putting one in place.
Household solar panels and (thermal) hot water systems are both subsidised by the government (up to a point).
Feed in tariffs have just been introduced in South Australia - hopefully they will be elsewhere as well in the not too distant future, especially with the new government talking about a 20% renewable energy target for 2020.