Garnaut's report includes a section on Feed-In-Tariffs. Garnaut correctly points out that it should be Gross. Despite the headline on the section it doesn't recommend a value, which is a pity.

Key Point: There is a case for special feed-in tariffs for household electricity generation and co-generation. The case can be quantified by reference to timing and transmission considerations.

17.2.2 What should the value of a feed-in tariff be? There are two main ways by which feed-in tariffs can be paid—gross metering and net metering. Gross metering pays the embedded generator for all electricity it generates, while net metering pays for just the energy exported to the grid (gross generation minus local energy consumed).8 Feed-in tariffs in Spain and Germany, for example, are calculated on a gross-metering basis. In Australia, most feed-in tariff commitments have been based on the net quantity of energy exported to the grid.

For small embedded generation systems installed by households or firms that are consuming electricity throughout the day, it is likely that no exports to the grid will be possible. However, the benefits of embedded generation (lower transmission losses, deferred costs for network augmentation, and displacement of high-cost generation during peak periods) are present for every unit of electricity produced, not just the amount exported. A feed-in tariff based on gross metering is thus a more accurate means of pricing these benefits.9

note 9: Some argue that a gross-metered feed-in tariff is undesirable because, from a sustainability perspective, it does not encourage embedded generators to consume less electricity, whereas under a net-metered scheme profits can only be made by exporting more to the grid. This reasoning is erroneous because the incentives to consume should come through the retail tariff paid for electricity, not through the feed-in tariff system

The long awaited Garnaut report is now out. For a long time its imminence has been an excuse for the federal government not to act, now it may well be called "one of the inputs" as its recommendations are unlikely to match the preferred action of the government.

Like the Stern report Garnaut makes it clear that the costs of inaction outweigh the costs of taking action. Its main focus is the details of how an Emission Trading Scheme should be setup for Australia.

Early economic modelling results of readily measurable unmitigated climate change for middle of the road outcomes on temperatures and decline in rainfall – indicate that climate change would wipe off around 4.8 per cent of Australia’s projected GDP, around 5.4 per cent of projected household consumption, and 7.8 per cent from real wages by 2100.

A key features from my perspective from the report.

* Include all sources of emissions - including Petrol
* Auction permits for emissions
* Spend 50% of the proceeds on compensating low-income consumers
* Spend 30% on "structural adjustments" in particular on high-energy exporting industries (a poor exception in my opinion).
* Spend the remaining 20% on development and commercialization of Low Energy technologies.

I think these are essentially a good recommendation - we need to see the price of energy intensive products go up, as that is the only thing that will shift consumption to low-energy products. The impact on those least able to handle it can be handled through tax/social-security, which will still incentivise those within lower-income brackets who also take action to reduce their use of energy intensive products.

The one area I would differ is that there is a need to support Renewables that need short-medium term subsidies to get through the cost curve and have promise of low-cost - this particularly applies to Solar, but others also qualify.

Unfortunately most of the 20% is likely to be spent on so-called "Clean Coal" which is not clean, and is unlikely to be cost-effective compared to the cost that renewables will achieve even without the billions that will get thrown at the coal industry.

Garnaut recommends a two-year transition into the scheme, which of course industry will say is too short, while the environment will complain that we've already mucked around for 12 years of climate-deniers at the healm, and now need urgent action.

Solar Feed-in-Tariffs (FiT's) are what has driven the solar expansion in Europe - especially Germany (and I believe in California). Here in Australia we are way behind the times.

South Australia led the way in creating a FiT that would have no noticable impact, because it was designed so that almost nobody who installed solar would get any benefit from it. They are still trying to get positive media spin on the scheme which officially started this week.

Of course from the politicians perspective its great - something which makes it look like you are taking action, while costing nothing because according to Queensland Conservation Council almost noone will be able to claim on it. So it should be a surprise that both Queensland and Victoria have copied the scheme.

The ACT has now broken with the pack and passed a scheme that looks like it will make sense - paying 4x the price of power. Presuming all the details have been worked out so that its reliable enough to base funding on, I predict this will see a lot of renewable energy deployment happening in Canberra rather than elsewhere. (Hmmm - I wonder if a hot-air generator on top of parliament would qualify?)

In other positive news, Rudd has passed an MRET target of 20% by 2020, hopefully that will push up the price of Renewable Energy Credits to make up for the damage done by the same government to the Solar Rebate scheme.

With the Garnaut review due on the fourth its a week to focus on how the changes in rules will change the landscape for renewables in Australia.

It looks like the Compressed Air car has finally got close to production. The idea popped up a few years ago, but the performance figures really didn't make it look like a viable alternative that would appeal as broadly as needed to have an impact on the massive emissions from petrol-cars worldwide.

Tata (India) has recently announced its close to production on the car, designed by MDI (France).

Businessweek and Gizmag both have (almost identical) articles on it, and Gizmag has some good pictures.

Its performance figures - 110km/h (68mph); 200-300km range and either 3-4 hours on the built in compressor, or a couple of minutes at an adapted petrol station put it in the range where we don't require significant sacrifices to "go green".

This is a welcome change from Tata's other announcement in 2006 of the Nano-Car - cheap enough to encourage indian masses to move to LESS sustainable transport.

Of course the biggest problem with getting is launched is likely to be the testing regime it will have to go through (designed for 1 tonne steel monsters) in order to be sold in "developed" countries, so I predict we'll see it mainly in developing countries for a while.

I was forwarded this post from another blog . Once again it illustrates the need to think outside the box to solve the world's challenges.

Eden Foundation seem to be doing this by introducing alternative food crops to areas where the crops they've depended on for generations are failing them.

As climate change shifts the patterns of what grows where I believe it is going to be important that food is diverse so that we can adapt to unpredictable changes.

There is a controversy building in Queensland around proposals to introduce Feed-In Tariffs.

Why should it be controversial, after all they've worked well in Germany and California to boost demand for solar and other renewables to get the volumes up to where they will be able to compete with Fossil Fuels (with all their hidden subsidies).

The controversy revolves around the form of the tariff. South Australia, earlier this year adopted a feed-in tariff in name only - offering 44c/kwh but only on net metered power. This means that for 99% of residential installations there is no benefit at all, because they are never producing more power than the home uses.

Queensland made an announcement on 11th March, that appeared to suggest it was going to be "Gross" metered, i.e. the owner of the solar system would be paid for ever kwh they generated, whether they consumed it themselves, or fed it back to the grid. Many organisations congratulated them for getting it right. But then the details emerged and Department of Mines and Energy are writing a "Net" metered Feed In Tariff after all.

Queensland Conservation are one such group that is more than a little annoyed at this backtracking, and have published graphs showing how most households will get no benefit.

It remains to be seen whether Queensland's government will revise this to actually have some effect rather than be just greenwashing, and now is a good time to tell any Queensland politicians you know that a REAL feed-in tariff is needed to stimulate Renewables in Queensland.

I heard Ross Garnaut speak at the excellent Solar Cities conference in Adelaide last month, so I wasn't totally surprised when a couple of days later his proposals for Emission Trading in Australia were released.

However there is a huge difference - as we see with Queensland's Feed-In-Tariffs - between an announcement that looks great; and the implementation.

The Federal Labor government started by minimising the report, which - prior to its release - it claimed was critically important.

Since that time, the political jockeying has started. This is only to be expected, since it is cheaper to influence politicians than to fix the emissions problem.

The Australian covered Ross Garnaut's call to ignore the political fixers, and in particular not to grant free permits to the worst polluters - duh, first they trash they atmosphere then they want a free pass to keep doing it. These are the very people who need to be adjusting their industries, and if they can't find a way - as many of their competitors will - to find a solution that benefits their business then they could, and should, suffer "readjustment". The NSW government, that wants to sell off the state-owned electricity business are putting in their pitch for the money.

It is the employees of polluting businesses we should be looking to support (e.g. retrain) through the transition, rather than the businesses that we should be propping up. This is where we also have to watch for the fixers, the significant pot of money from auctioning permits needs to be used for this re-adjustment, to support the lower-income households likely to be effected by for example the necessary down turn of some industries. One of the first grabs for this money has been from Malcolm Turnbull (Opposition Treasury Spokesman) (printed in the Australian, and reported in the Melbourne Age )

This article is to draw your attention to the twin challenges facing our culture, that of Peak Music, and Global Noise caused by the impact of Cumulative Emissions of Rhythm.

All natural resources reach a peak, and music is not an exception, after approximately half of the talent has been used up it is predicted that annual production of music will decline. While experts argue as to when this peak will be reached, few now disagree with the overall hypothesis that music is, or will soon, be in decline.

Continue reading "Peak Music and Global Noise"

This 1 minute video - entitled Metaphormosis asks whether we, like the caterpillar, will devour our environment before changing into something beautiful

I like this one-minute inspiration from Van Jones and his pitch not to leave anyone behind as we deal with Climate Change