Letter to Kevin Rudd: please change the solar power rebate

Hi Mr Rudd,

First, congratulations on the first few months. Generally, you've made me proud I voted Labor - the reconciliation apology in particular was awesome.

I'm generally in favour of means testing - I think a well designed means test used appropriately ensures fairness and makes sure public money is allocated efficiently and equitably.

However, I don't think your announced means test on the solar panel installation rebate is well designed, or being used appropriately. It also conflicts directly with your 20% renewable energy target.

As a family of three we've already spent thousands of dollars of our own money to minimise our use of water and power and reduce our waste output. In each case, it's been simple to demonstrate that the expense will pay for itself soon enough to make it worthwhile, even without the benefit to the environment.

We're keen to take the same step with solar electricity generation and would like to aim for generating 30% of our electricity via solar. However, to make the economics work, we'd need a sensible rebate, and even the maximum rebate on offer would leave us waiting 15 years to see that investment pay off. Have you ever seen any kind of modern technology last 15 years unrepaired or replaced? No. It needs to repay itself much sooner than that.

That's bad enough, but the means test you've introduced means we're not eligible for the rebate at all, which means it would be financial lunacy for us to do it. Your means test drives away the very high income families who might consider installing a solar power system. Doh!

A good mate of mine was the CEO of Australian solar startup, Ausra, which the Howard government drove overseas by failing to support the development of a local renewable energy industry. Now I'm very disappointed to see the Rudd government making it even harder for a renewable energy industry to grow by driving rebate-motivated customers like me away and instead wasting money on the mirage of ''clean coal'' technologies.

I can forgive a few early slip-ups - you're a new government and it's a tough job - but I'd like to see you admit to your mistakes and correct them quickly once it's clear you've made them. Ignore the media and the opposition reaction - the opposition are a sad joke and you have mandate enough to make - and undo - many more mistakes without jeopardising your re-election chances. That won't be true in three years time, so please act now.

Keep up the good work,

- alan

Write your own letter to Kevin Rudd about solar panel rebates, or anything else. Find out more ways to influence the Australian Federal Government's policies at GetUp.org.au

Did you know watering your garden can be geeky?

Micromet online report on my garden watering
Originally uploaded by thatjonesboy.

Oh, this is so geeky I'm all a-shiver! This is a report on my garden's water situation over the last month, as measured by the little black box on the wall next to our garden watering system, installed by Micrometonline.com as part of a 3-month trial by Sydney Water.

The little black box controls the drip irrigation system, and receives its instructions over the pager radio network from a central system monitoring rainfall, cloudcover, evaporation etc in each part of the Sydney metro area.

Basically, the little black box makes sure our garden is only watered when it needs to be, and only delivers as much water as our garden needs.

...which leaves SO much more water for me to have extra baths in!

...kidding!

OK, the graph and the website could benefit from slightly less data density for consumer users like myself, but that's to be expected from a system developed for large irrigators like councils and businesses. It's a great start for saving water!

Can't have it both ways? We need it more than two ways!

As the Australian Federal government tries to push through its nuclear energy agenda, I was catching up with an Australian renewable energy startup that's not only setting up a new HQ in Silicon Valley, it's actively discussing a major pilot program for one of the world's biggest technology companies.



Federal Minister for Acting a Complete Twat for Photo Opportunities, Ian Campbell, was criticising State governments for reacting against the proposal to install 25 nuclear power stations in Australia, saying, "They can't have it both ways... You can't say 'I care about climate change' on the one hand, but say 'We're not going to even look, even have a debate about nuclear' on the other."

You absolutely can, Mr Campbell, as long as you then say, "Let's have a debate about all the possible energy generation alternatives - coal, gas, nuclear and renewables. Not just nuclear. An inquiry that limits itself to considering nuclear energy only is a sham." ...or words to that effect.

Sham strategies for the energy industry have long been policies for governments of all persuasions in Australia. Too much attention is paid to supporting industries in return for guaranteeing jobs and export income , burning some of the world's worst-polluting coal and running some of the least clean power stations in the western world so that by this decade, we're in the position of having a carbon footprint far in excess of our tiny population.

It's a difficult environment in which to setup an alternative energy startup, and yet my good friend Max (not his real name) has been developing a world-first, ground-breaking solar technology for many years, getting by on the smell of an oily rag and infrequent, insufficient drabs of grant money.

Their pilot scale generation plant has proven the technology has a real future as a supplement for existing power station generation, and now is the time for commercialisation.

Except... (If you're in the startup business, you already know what comes next) they haven't been able to attract any investor support or government interest in Australia. So someone from a Silicon Valley VC firm contacts them out of the blue, and a few weeks and a few plan trips later, there's a short-form deal in place, and the company's relocating to Palo Alto, CA before Christmas.

That was a couple of weeks ago, and already the VC has them in to see one of the world's largest technology companies. It has a problem because its huge server farms draw a lot of power, and electricity in California is expensive, in short supply and famously unreliable. Plus, as a large international company, they'd like to begin reducing their carbon emissions.

So my friend and his team go in to meet the operations and facilities heads of the company, to do a quick introduction meeting, show the powerpoints, etc. My friend's hoping that maybe they can win some small support for their dream of building a pilot-scale generation plant in the US. Before the diet sprites are even warm, the discussion has progressed waayyy beyond that, and by the end of the meeting, the company is arranging to send my friend's team and their own senior execs down south to a possible greenfields site that they think just might be ideal for building a full-scale plant.

Just to recap: what we're reading about here is one of the world's largest technology companies, looking at investing in its own private national power grid, and considering driving all or part of its generation using a green, renewable, revolutionary technology from a tiny little Australian company that I guarantee nobody outside of the renewable energy community here has ever heard of.

And instead of homegrown technologies like this even being considered by Australian governments and industry as a possible means of reducing Australia's carbon emissions, the whole company will go offshore, taking its IP, its future earnings and some incredibly bright minds with it.

Wish I could disclose who the friend is, who the startup company is, and who the giant US technology company is, but I can't at this time. Hopefully I'll be able to soon.

Technorati Tags: renewable, carbon, nuclear, power, electricity, startup, silicon valley