1,700 new smug bastards

The lightglobe ban is John Howard finally realising people care about the environment, and pretending to do something meaningful about it.

I don’t know that market forces are the answer to this either tho. Why should the rich be allowed to pollute to their heart’s content, just because they can afford to do what they like?

The banning of incandescent bulbs was a figleaf for policy failure elsewhere.

As with water, if we pay for the carbon we use then the great minds of 20 million Australians will apply themselves to using less.

But as long as it remains unpriced all the Government is doing is a carefully calibrated bare minimum to appease public perceptions.

paying more for the low carbon electricity is particularly stupid, make it cheaper and watch the demand take off.

The banning of incandescent light bulbs won’t get us anywhere. Although lights are the most obvious electrical appliance, they hardly use any electricity, even city-wide. Instead of all the bureaucratic farting around trying to ban these bulbs, the money would be much better spent on little things that aren’t as obvious, such as educating people to fix their fridge door seals, or a subsidy on solar hot water systems (hot water being the top or close to the top consumer of electricity).

As for Green Choice… I couldn’t care less really because I doubt it will do much good. The small amount of money that is getting fed into trialling systems like this can’t hurt, but as a policy for reducing carbon emissions, it’s pretty feeble.

It’s more like banning lead paint, or handguns.

No it’s not. These things are (potentially) dangerous.

Don’t you hate it when you post without checking that you are logged in with the right name?

Regulations forcing people to buy fluoro lightbulbs are just inane.

Banning incandecent bulbs is not the same as forcing you to buy fluoro ones. It’s more like banning lead paint, or handguns.

Ross Gittins, a dinky di economist and probably more qualified than most here, wrote a good article on the nanny state and the banning of incandescent light bulbs.

He’s a quite a poor economist actually and a socialist to boot. I’m also better qualified than him.

To answer the original question; there is a much more direct reason why Snowy Hydro isn’t considered ‘green’ power. The Snowy Hydro scheme actually generates a net negative amount of power, an artifact of it being a (NSW government owned) corporation and thus profit-driven.

Coal-fired power stations are very very difficult to slow down and speed up to cope with fluctuations in demand, so they run at the same speed 24/7. Hydro systems on the other hand are very easy to stop and start. So at peak periods the water flows over the turbines and generates power to help the coal plants keep up, and charges a motza for it.

Then during off-peak periods guess what happens? Snowy Hydro buys cheap off-peak power from the coal plants to pump the water back up hill into the dams! Then it can be released again at peak time to help the grid handle the peak time spike.

I won’t get too involved in this argument as I know full well that no discussion on here is in any way intelligent. All I will say is that as an environmental scientist it never ceases to amaze me the complete contempt shown by some people for the social and environmental responsibilities which we all have.

Yes I’ve driven a V8 or plenty (and a few things just a little faster than your average Commodore) and I can say I understand that it feels good to have that extra ‘performance’ – on the race track. But what the hell is the point in spending all that extra money on petrol for a car which primarily drives you to and from work in gridlock? No amount of extra horsepower will get you there any faster if there’s 300 cars in front of you, or a speed camera perhaps.

Save your gas guzzler for the track, go buy a Barina (it’ll get you to work just as fast), and put the money you save on petrol into Green Power. It will be doing the whole world a service, even if it’s not servicing you.

“extra $$ for such stupidity.

Funny – I feel the same way about penis extensio^H^H^H^H, I mean, V8s.
“

Although you’re taking the piss, I’ll bite anyway, The different between green energy and V* is that for my $$ spent I get a tangible benefit – performance. Spending the extra on green energy achieves nothing.

But I wouldn’t expect some narrow minded tosser like you to understand what owning a V8 is all about. Which is why you never will.

Ross Gittins, a dinky di economist and probably more qualified than most here, wrote a good article on the nanny state and the banning of incandescent light bulbs.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/nanny-states-bright-idea-ban-the-light-bulb/2007/02/25/1172338469868.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

Well this thread took an unfortunate turn.
Great way to make us all turn off our systems and go home guys.

And yet you keep the ad views ticking over for me. How sweet.

Your dinky little greenchoice is stupid WMC because I, paying no more at all, get the same electricity with exactly the same component of renewable energy.

It’s a tax on stupid people (people like you who think normans and vikings were the same people despite the massive and differences between them based solely on descent) the same as pokies and smoking.

This time it’s stupid smug people like you.

Firstly, I didn’t say anything about light bulbs. I don’t need you to put words in my mouth, especially when they’re as poorly considered and just plain wrong as yours.

Secondly, your knowledge of Stalin appears to be about as good as your knowledge about Scandinavia in the Middle Ages. Nobody forces you to buy green power. It doesn’t get much closer to “letting the market decide” than that. Don’t want to buy it? Don’t. But don’t think you can spread ill-informed lies about how the scheme works and its benefits without getting called out.

Take that little piece of poorly researched bullsh1t about only getting the first 15kw of energy from GreenChoice, for example. You can buy as much as you want, and all it takes is a simple phone call. Can’t say I’m surprised – the closest this site gets to real journalism is linking to the ABC’s website.

As for investing in R&D: I don’t buy green power because it’s investing in R&D. I buy it because I use between 12 and 15kw hours of electricity a day, and green power means that my net carbon output for that energy is close to zero. R&D and new facilities is a bonus. It’s part of being a responsible citizen – more so than, say, talking sh1t on the internet like most of you fukctards.

Al, did you read where Mars is suffering from gorebil warmening. Bloody martians and their coal burning electricity and big 4wd’s. If only they’d sign up for green choice to save their planet. I could even suffer their martian smugness.

Back on planet earth, though, all is well. Bob the Brown has jetted off to Africa to save us using his fly-buys credits (presumably carbon variety).

Ahh, all the tree hugging hippies can pay extra for their electricity if it makes them feel good. Me, I’ll pay as little as possible – that will make me feel good.

Gaia won’t give a flying one way or the other.

Ralph I’m sure if you were born a few centuries ago, you would have been one of the people clammering for Darwin to be strung up for all his “conjecture” about evolution.
Who was it said “None so deaf as those who will not hear”?
Subscribe to Crikey – you, barking toad, and Christian Kerr could have some great love-ins.

Exactly. WMC a carbon tax is far more efficient than dictating fluoro lightbulbs and green power to the public. It lets the market decide where to innovate and where to sequester.

This from the man who says it never rains?

WMC your longing for stalinist government is going to take years to bring to fruition, in the meantime why not have systems that encourage the outcomes you want rather than command them?

Dealing with real people you might find things work better that way.

More generally, if you want to invest in green R&D the stock market is a better outlet than this scheme.

exactly the same electricity

You do realise that it’s the total offset that counts, don’t you? If I burn 15kw/day here, but put 15kw/day of green energy in anywhere else on the planet, my net carbon emissions are zero. Are you really thick enough to expect that green energy means they run a new cable from the wind generator straight to your house so you don’t have to use the same energy as everybody else?

Taxing carbon is the only real fix

Now we see the real stupidity. You’re against one system that seeks to create zero net greenhouse emissions, but you’re for another one that does the same thing? Trees here sequester carbon here to offset carbon over there. Green energy purchasers purchase energy there to offset energy here. What’s the difference?

extra $$ for such stupidity.

Funny – I feel the same way about penis extensio^H^H^H^H, I mean, V8s.

Scaremongering, and all based on conjecture.

Interesting observation podfink.
Interesting observation podfink.

“old green” and “new green” – jargon of renewable energy practitioners sorry.
One thing is very clear – entire ecosystems will be overrun by changing climate impacts. As the snow retreats, our Australian alpine veg and animal communities will be wiped out – the mountain pygmy possum was decimated this season, as an example.
And while some animal types are fairly mobile and flexible enough to adapt, veg communities can’t “migrate” anywhere near fast enough to keep up with the change already happening. Nor can veg evolve fast enough to cope with staying put.

Inbuilt into your existing electricity bill is compensation towards funding replacement energy. The real pity is that this money went into back pockets for generations, rather than being directed towards research or investment.

There is no need to pay extra for ‘greener’ energy – there is a need to make people accountable for their years of maladministration though.

Waste of money. We don’t, and won’t, subscribe to paying extra $$ for such stupidity.

My wife signed us up for GreenChoice. Initially I thought that it was a waste of money. However, after intense martial re-education I can now see that in fact we are financially supporting investment (and presumably R&D) in better energy. Whilst this will probably change nothing about how Canberra gets it’s energy, it doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile. PS: To say Hydro electricity is “old green” is a little strange. I would think addressing climate change is more important than concern over local fauna/flora disruption. Maybe I need a little more re-education.

My wife signed us up for GreenChoice. Initially I thought that it was a waste of money. However, after intense martial re-education I can now see that in fact we are financially supporting investment (and presumably R&D) in better energy. Whilst this will probably change nothing about how Canberra gets it’s energy, it doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile. PS: To say Hydro electricity is “old green” is a little strange. I would think addressing climate change is more important than concern over local fauna/flora disruption. Maybe I need a little more re-education.

Sadly Sammy is correct.
All electricity providers do have to source a mandatory proportion of their electricity from new renewables. But this is over and above what they on-sell as “green power”. From the greenpower site above:

“How does GreenPower interact with MRET?”
“Retailers are already obliged to purchase a proportion of their electricity from renewable sources through the Commonwealth’s Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET). Any GreenPower purchases are over and above those minimum requirements. More information about MRET is available from http://www.orer.gov.au “

Seepi’s comment reminded me that I need to replace my fridge’s door seal.

Can anyone recommend a suitable tradesperson?

Fools and Money, parted.

Sammy do you have electric hot water, heating/cooling and cooking?
Also old fridges can chew up electricity – especially if they leak thru the door seal.

ActewAGL would never have built the ‘green’ power generation sources, if they couldn’t charge extra for them. Life is all about incentives.

Agree JB. Ideally my first best option is to do nothing, but failing that a carbon tax is most efficient.

Regulations forcing people to buy fluoro lightbulbs are just inane.

One positive though is that it is a private market (well sorta), so people can freely choose to pay more for a piece of psychic utility (double pun).

use less? (if it matters to you)

Taxing carbon is the only real fix, not fleecing (once again) the well meaning.

So Johnboy, how do I get greener energy?
(with out having to do it myself i.e installing solar power on my roof- I don’t care that much)

JB: on Snowy power, it is not generally considered in green electricity schemes because it is “old green”, although there are a couple of schemes that promote Snowy hydro juice, but these are not supported by organisations like ACF.
Why? The idea of these schemes is to support construction of new CO2 neutral generation, in line with the Mandatory Renewable Energy targets (even though at just 2% they are pathetically low – China’s for instance is I think something like 12%).
You create or defer new generation, such as through the solar HWS on my roof, you get Renewable Energy Certificates in return. So “Green Electricity” schemes are buying those RECs. Your premium helps pay for them.
http://www.greenpower.gov.au/pages/
http://www.ata.org.au/?page_id=149
As to the whole idea of having to pay MORE to do the right thing – well that really rubs. But the idea is to dry up supply – if all the RECs are bought up, more renewable generation must be constructed somewhere.

Oh, and i’m on the Greenchoice 5 plan, which gives me 5kWh’s per day of smugness.

According to ActewAGL, a three bedroom house uses 10-30kWh of electricity per day.

I have a three bedroom house, and only 2 people live in it.

I would consider myself an ‘average’ energy user, in so far as I never leave lights on in rooms in which i’m not present, and I turn appliances off when not in use.

I average 3000 kWh per quarter (93 days) which makes me a 32 kWh per day user. I’d love to know how a three bedroom house gets down closer to the 10 kWh per day level?

Hydro power can’t be allowed as ‘green’ because there’s dams involved and they make baby jesus cry and they rape Gaia.

As opposed to the smugness you see when people pass off their opinion as resembing fact

I see it as a way of ‘voting with your feet’ and indicating to the powers that be that there is support for green options, even if they are a bit pricier.

What’s that old proverb about fools and money?