German greenery more expensive than Greece

As a result of Germany’s green energy transition, electricity prices are exploding. Consumers and businesses are paying the price while Germany faces gradual de-industrialisation. Economists estimate that the cost of the green energy transition will total 170 billion Euros by 2020. This is more than double of what Germany would have to write off if Greece were to withdraw from the monetary union. “The de-industrialization has already begun,” the EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger has warned. 


WUWT.

Man vs state

I pinched this from Samizdata.

It's just a reminder that the state can't give you anything until it has taken something from you.

Weekend rant

Some days, it's lovely. A bit chilly, but lovely. You just need to give it 5 minutes for the blood to start flowing to the fingertips, and after that, it's OK.

Friday was a different story. It was blowing a gale when I left town, and I was knackered before I even started. The whole family has had a cold, and it started to bite me on Friday morning. To top it off, the legs were cramping heading in to town.

Don't ask me which muscles were cramping - it was the back of one leg and the front of the other. That meant I could pull up with one leg and push down with the other. Not the best way to ride.

I really struggled home - it was pretty shocking on the last stretch, battling up hill into a head wind with the beginnings of a fever. I was out like a light before 9pm, utterly spent.

And that's part of the problem with relying on a bicycle for transport - you need to power it. If the power plant is feeling a bit icky, you're going nowhere. There is a good reason why most of us own and drive cars.

Riding a bike does have its consolations though.

The views are pretty smashing.

And it can be very social.

Plus it beats the hell out of the bus. I took a bus into town yesterday to pick up a few things that were too large to carry home on the bike (plus I was well and truly rooted). Going in was fine. Coming back was a disaster.

I was shopping near the office, and I know that I need to leave the office at least 12 minutes before the bus arrives in order to make it in time. I gave myself 15 minutes.

And then I stood around at the bus stop for 20 minutes, waiting for my bus. For some reason, the timetable goes to custard in the afternoon. In the end, I said "sod it" and hopped on a bus that went most of the way home. It meant a 20 minute walk once I jumped off, but I can live with that on a fine day.

Of course as soon as I got off that bus, I spotted the bus that I wanted to be on across the road - it had caught up behind us, and because of where it turns, I had to cross a busy road to catch it. Which I failed to do. That wasn't too bad - due to traffic, I walked alongside it for about half a kilometre as it crawled towards home.

Door to door by bike is 40-45 minutes. I can shave it down to nearly 35 if I take the short route - I always do a few sections I don't actually need to ride in order to give myself more exercise. Yes, I have to change clothes at the end and have a shower, but if you're going to work, you have to do that anyway. You either shower and get on the bus, or get on the bike and have a shower. Unless you are a stinky weirdo. Or English.

Here's how the bus compares:

• 15 minute walk from office (without lights and idiot dawdling pedestrians, I could do it in less than 6 minutes)
• 25 minutes on the bus - outside of peak hour. It can be 40-60 during the peak.
• 6 minute walk home

Time wise, the bus and bike are about the same.

Assuming reliability

If you assume reliability, you've got rocks in your head. The trip home yesterday took me 75 minutes, and that has happened often enough in the past to make me stick to the bike. It's blown out to 90 and even 120 minutes on really bad occasions. I can walk the entire distance in less time than that (assuming comfortable shoes). Even if I get a flat tyre, or two flat tyres, the worst I can expect on the bike is 60 minutes. It gives me freedom and reliability. Plus a bit of exercise. What's not to like about that?

Muscles and ninjas

First off, I'm never going to shave my legs. But if I ever did remove the hairy layer, I hope that underneath, my legs would look like this. Phwoar. 


And Cav - you orta see the legs on the blokes!

My pet hate at the moment - bloody ninjas. I don't care whether they are running or on a bike - anyone that runs along a busy, unlit path in dark clothing is just a complete moron. A cyclist is going to smash straight into one of these idiots one night, and the paper will be full of stories about speeding cyclists. No one will mention the runners in their black hoodies and black trackies with the earphones in and the volume turned up to 11. Or the idiots that fail to keep left, or the groups that fill the entire path from edge to edge.


Speaking of morons, I had to suppress the urge to beat a taxi driver to a pulp tonight. I was coming out of the Rocks (in the bike lane) and I was being annoyed by a lady in a silly little car who was driving rather erratically and slowly. I think she was looking for the Sydney Writers Festival, and had no idea where to stop or park. She was going at that really annoying speed where she was moving slowly enough to hold me up, but fast enough to prevent me from overtaking. I'm really careful around drivers like that - if they look dodgy, I hang back and never put myself into a position where they might suddenly brake or swerve and take me out.


Which is a good thing.


Because a taxi came blatting up behind her at high speed and started flashing his high beams at her. I don't think she noticed, so he then stood on his horn. At that point, she panicked and swerved (without indicating) right across the bike lane directly in front of me. She ended up in the parking lane. If I'd been along side, I would have been toast. Just like that. 


The taxi driver then roared off impatiently.....and sped off to the next red light.


I don't know why these buggers just can't calm down and drive like reasonable people. What's the point of being impatient in peak hour traffic in the Sydney CBD? You're not going anywhere fast - just get used to it. And you certainly won't be moving very quickly if I pull you out of your cab through the window by your ears and then give you a good talking to about your behaviour.

Gumby, gumby, gumby

You ever have one of those days when you get out of bed on the stupid side?

One. I sprayed the lawns for weeds. Afterwards, I thought that the bottle of weed killer wasn't any lighter. I pulled the cap off the bottle, and sure enough, the hose that sucks up deadly chemical poisons was not connected to the cap. I have been watering my weeds for the last month instead of napalming them.

Two. I made a loaf of bread, turned the oven up flat out, let the oven get really hot, put in the loaf and then went to water the weeds for 15 minutes. When I came back, the oven had gone out and the loaf was anything but baked and crispy.

Three. I made a lime tart. This called for some blind baking. This is where I really went stupid. The instructions said to put the pastry in a tin, line the pastry with baking paper and pour rice or baking weights on top. I line the baking tin, put in the pastry and then poured rice all over the pastry. 10 minutes later, I was picking soggy rice out of half cooked pastry.

It was shortly after that point that I decided it would be safer to return to bed.

Catallaxy joins the solar party

The logistics of solar and wind don't add up.

The numbers are truly astounding, regardless of how low solar costs have fallen so far. They simply haven't fallen anywhere near enough to be economic.

I got a comment over the weekend that suggested I pay Rotto a visit. Been there, done that. Haven't been for over 20 years though - and the last time I visited, it was on something like this:

I don't know how or why, but someone in our regiment managed to organise a trip to the island on a landing craft. It definitely wasn't official Army business - we turned up in civvies, took lots of beer with us and got very drunk on the way over. As they're pretty slow, the trip took at least 2 hours. Instead of docking at the jetty, the coxwain put us ashore right outside the Quokka Arms hotel. 


Apparently the pub is pretty upmarket these days - it was definitely anything but that in my youth. However, even the patrons of the pub blanched when the landing craft beached, the ramp dropped, and 50 drunken yobbos in board shorts poured out yelling something like "ATTAAAAAAAAAAACK!", and then proceeded to assault up the beach (by section) and then buy many jugs of beer which were drunk, thrown over the heads of anyone within arm's reach or vomited into. And of course there were always a few under the table - for those that couldn't be bothered getting up and walking to the toilet. 


I always get confused as to whether we did our section brown eye against the plate glass window at the Quokka Arms or Steve's Hotel. That was quickly followed by a section squashed frog*. I do remember the bouncers wouldn't let use inside because the place was "too full". After our squashed frog display, the room completely emptied, and the bouncers had no choice but to let us in. I think expected standards of behaviour have changed since then.


We were only there for a few hours - the landing craft had to float off on the tide, and if we didn't stagger back across the beach in time, we were staying the night. I don't know why the siller buggers in Transport let us on board - the thing was ankle deep in vomit by the time we made it back to Freo.

When I was a kid visiting Rotto, one of the best things to do was to "tour" the gun battery tunnels. It looks like they've been spruced up as a tourist attraction now, but 25-30 years ago, they were abandoned and a mess. The Army simply welded up the doors and walked away.


I lifted the photo above from this blog - nice pics. That door is about 10 feet tall, and up the top, you can see where the concrete has been chipped away. That must be new door, because in my day, you could stand on the shoulders of someone else and slip over the top of the door where enterprising vandals had removed a good chunk of concrete.


There was no lighting inside, and the place was half full of sand. However, you could explore the entire tunnel system, ending up under the guns themselves. It was great fun. And just to show you how much the education system has changed since my day, we used to break into these tunnels and scamper around in the dark with our teachers. They weren't particularly worried about us getting tetanus from the numerous bundles of rusting barbed wire that surrounded the place, or falling down an unmarked shaft in the dark, or picking up some unexploded ammunition. I don't think they even made us wear sun screen, or take water with us, or wear a sensible pair of safety thongs. What 12 year old boy wouldn't give their right nut to partake in a bit of dangerous, unauthorised trespassing on ex-military territory?


* A "squashed frog" is where you drop your pants and squash your genitals against a window. Preferably when there are lots of women on the other side.

What's wrong with cheap energy anyway?

Whilst I don't agree with a few things in this article, I do agree with these points:

For one thing should now be clear: The key to decarbonizing our economy will be developing cheap alternatives that can cost-effectively replace fossil fuels. There simply is no substitute for making clean energy cheap.


Government funded research aiming to make energy cheap, clean and abundant is surely a better approach to our energy issues than government regulation aimed at making energy more expensive.

Clearly, I'm not alone

A rather..err..interesting blog that isn't safe for work. But it makes some good points:


Total federal subsidies in fiscal year 2007 were $24.34 per megawatt hour for solar-generated electricity and $23.37 per megawatt hour for wind, compared with $1.59 for nuclear, $0.67 for hydroelectric power, $0.44 for conventional coal, and $0.25 for natural gas and petroleum liquids. 


and


This paean to the pResident’s genius comes on the same day Warren Buffett, sitting on $44 billion, said his wind and solar projects wouldn’t be built without tax payer cash.


Wow. One of the richest guys on the planet saying that he needs subsidies to get these things going. Amazing.


And a bat shredding project stops dead:


Paul Copleman, an Iberdrola spokesman, said that without the federal Production Tax Credits, which will expire at the end of 2012, its two projects and many others in the state and nation won’t get built.


I found this pic at that blog - had to grab a copy for myself.

Great Bloomberg predictions

Rob suggested I got read this paper at Bloomberg: "Re-considering the Economics of Photovoltaic Power"- which I did. More on that later.


In the meantime, just for some laughs, here is a great prediction from Bloomberg from 2007:


Apple iPhone Will Fail in a Late, Defensive Move: Matthew Lynn


Just because you read something in the financial press, doesn't make it so. h/t to Copious Gasser - my kind of blogger.

Sunday solar

Just what you wanted to wake up to - some more stuff on solar power.


I'll start with this point - if you want solar power, good for you. Just don't expect me to subsidise your power bill, either through paying part of the installation of your system, or paying you above market rates for any excess power you produce. And if the power grid needs expensive upgrades to cope with you exporting power into the system, you can pay for that too. If the cost of solar power has in fact reached "gird parity", then you shouldn't need to steal any of my cash in order to install a system on top of your house. 


So how much money are we pouring into roof top solar installations?


Well, as Rob has pointed out, the current price for STCs is not $40 - it's $27.35.

That price has moved around a lot over the last few years.

From the link above:


REC/STC brokers take the assignments and then create and sell the REC/STCs for several dollars more.


That's another way to generate "green jobs". If 44 million certificates are created, and the brokers push a few electrons around and charge $2-3 for the service, then they can cream off over $100 million for themselves. In The Bonfire of the Vanities, this was described as picking the crumbs off the cake. That's some crumb! Remember this - a pretty big chunk of the cash being poured into these renewable energy schemes is not actually being spent on installing renewable energy systems - it is being soaked up by brokers and intermediaries who probably used to sell shares in mining companies, tobacco companies and arms manufacturers.


I've read plenty of opinions this morning that the price is heading south due to a large over supply of STCs. When supply greatly exceeds demand, the price can only go one way - down. 

The Regulator has issued a target of 44.78 million STCs for 2012. If we multiply the spot price of $27.35 by 44.78 million, we get $1.063 billion.


Where does that $1.063 billion come from?


STCs are bought by the "big polluders" - mainly coal fired generators I suppose. As this increases their costs, they can either reduce their profitability or put up their prices. As many generators are state owned, and they pay dividends to state governments, any reduction in profitability means less revenue for state 
governments to spend on health, education, roads, police etc. So they have a big incentive to put up prices. If they can't put up prices, then governments need to raise taxes somewhere else. Either way, residents get it in the neck. Or the hip pocket.

Alternatively, they can pay exorbitant amounts for solar power - up to 52 cents per kWh - and then pass that cost on to consumers.


The over supply in STCs is exacerbated by the deliberate government policy of handing them out with a multiplier (currently 3, although it is 4 for contracts signed before May 2011). That's like me employing you to dig a hole in my backyard, "deeming" that you in fact dug three holes (when you dug one) and paying you for digging three. Yes, it makes about that much sense to me too.


Yes, the cost of solar panels is plummeting - more on that later. If that's the case, and solar is now at "grid parity" (which I view as the wholesale price of power charged by large coal fired generators), then we should be able to do away with this entire panoply of subsidies and certificates. Close down the STC scheme and eliminate the solar tariff - let the market decide.

Green jobs

Environmental preachers like to spruik the idea of "green jobs". Most people probably think that means lots of people running environmentally friendly tourism ventures, or bike shops, or planting trees west of Tamworth.


Actually, the only green jobs that I can find have been generated in the finance industry. You know - that evil bastion of capitalist greed.


Consider TFS Green:



TFS is one of the largest and most successful energy brokers in the World and is part of the Tradition Group, which employs over 2,200 people worldwide. Founded in 1985, TFS has built-up a global business in the power, gas, coal, weather and oil markets and since 2001 has been prominent in the renewable energy and emissions markets in Europe, the US and Asia Pacific. In 2005 TFS began building a presence in Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), Joint Implementation (JI) and Voluntary Emissions Reductions (VER) which has led to a global team of 12 brokers now specializing in these, the newest of the environmental markets.


TFS Green, the TFS environmental team, spans the globe, with offices and representatives across London, New York, Stamford, Beijing, Sydney, Melbourne, Manila and Frankfurt. In addition to having environmental staff in these offices, TFS Green has strong links with their other TFS offices worldwide in Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Johannesburg, Dubai, Houston and Copenhagen. TFS Green is therefore well-placed to structure successful transactions and provide advisory services across the entire spectrum of the environmental markets.


From reading  this, it appears that "green jobs" means working for a massive multinational financial conglomerate, sitting in an air conditioned office in front of energy gobbling computers and pushing electrons back and forth. I can't see any difference between what they are doing and say Goldman Sachs. 


Why isn't the Occupy movement going after this lot?

Affordable housing

House prices in the US have certainly crashed:


For well over a year I have mentioned that it is likely that nationwide we are reaching a bottom with the median home price being $163,000 and the typical household pulling in $50,000.  Historically this seems to work fine and given current mortgage rates, there are many good deals to be had across the country.  


They're back to what used to be the old rule of thumb - your house cost you three times your annual income (back when families had only the dad working - back when families had a mum and dad).


I guess apartments are even cheaper than that.

Sneaky solar scoundrels

This flyer landed on our front lawn recently - "carbon tax is designed to increase electricity bills". Regardless of where they got that quote from, this solar installation company is clearly trying to scare people into buying a solar power system.

The price is quite incredible - but you have to read the fine print.

For $1991, you get in (big print) and 5KW (and then in small print) Growatt inverter, along with 8 x 190W panels. That gives you a nominal 1.52KW.

I bet a lot of people get suckered into thinking they are getting a 5KW system for that price. And as we know, due to things like night time and cloudy days and winter, you'll be lucky to average 20% of 1.52KW over the course of a year. 20% of 1.52KW - that's about enough to run all the lightbulbs in our house.

Why is it that you can get a solar system for this price?

Simple - the government subsidises the installation via Solar Credits using "small-scale technology certificates", or STCs. Notice they never use the word "subsidy" or "cash handout" or "transfer from one taxpayer to another". You can read lots about this scheme at the Department of Climate Change. At the moment, a multiplier applies to the handout of these certificates - the Department deems an STC to be worth $40, and at present, the multiplier is 4. So for the installation of a 1.5KW system, you get 124 STCs, worth $4960. The installation contract requires you to hand over your STCs to the installer, who cashes them in.

So let's look at the total cost of this 1.5KW system.

The householder pays $1991.

The installer collects a subsidy of $4960 from other tax payers, courtesy of the government.

Total cost - $6951. Which works out at $4634 per installed MW.

The average household uses around 8000 kwh per year. This system will generate about 2600kwh - about 32% of total household requirements. For the householder, this might work out to be a pretty good deal - but would they buy it if they had to pay the full cost of $6951?

I doubt it. If it wasn't for a 71% subsidy, these things would never be installed in the metro area.

Here's a cracker from our local rag - "Beat the carbon tax". Apparently pergola prices are going to rise on 1 July because of the carbon tax. I wonder if the compensation we're getting from Wayne Swan will cover that increase?

Friday

Check out those low lying clouds on the centre left - they look like mountains. They really looked incredible.

15 seconds later, the sun came up just a tiny bit more, and I was a bit further around the Bay, and suddenly those same clouds were tinged with pink.

The usual flock of early morning rowers - they must have nuts of steel to be out on the water at this time of the year. They reminded me this morning of the water boatmen insects. Yes, it's cold and all that, but it really is a stunning time of the day.

When most cyclists want to carry a stack of stuff, they buy some panniers. This lady was stuttering along with multiple shopping bags hanging from her handle bars. I'm always paranoid that a bag is going to go into the front spokes, and then over you go.

This bloke must have been seven feet tall - the top of my helmet didn't was below the line of his shoulder. 

The Global Renewable Energy Index is crashing

Oh dear. Read the whole lot here. And just remember this - in Australia, some unions have poured a lot of superannuation money into these money pits. If the Australian renewable sector goes the same way, a lot of union members are going to have their retirement funds hammered. 


The RENIXX® (Renewable Energy Industrial Index) World is the first global stock index, which comprises the performance of the world´s 30 largest companies of the renewable energy industry whose weighting in the index is based on the market capitalization (free float).


Since 2008, the index has lost about 90% of its value. In the last month, the nosedive seems to be accelerating


Filed Bankruptcy:


Solyndra
Beacon Power
Ener1
Range Fuels
Solar Trust of America
Spectrawatt
Evergreen Solar
Eastern Energy
Unisolar
Bright Automotive
Olson’s Crop Service
Energy Conversion Devices
Sovello
Siag
Solon
Q-Cells
Mountain Plaza


Teetering on the Brink:


Abound Solar
A123 Systems
Brightsource Energy
Fisker Automotive
First Solar
Nevada Geothermal
SunPower
Nordex
The Bard Group
Amonix
NRG Energy
Alterra Power
Enel Green Power
Sunpower Corp

It's getting too dark, too dark to see

It's that time of the year when photography is becoming painful - literally. The morning temp dropped to 9 degrees this week, which is when the finger tips start to ask for the fingerless gloves to be put into storage until spring time. The top two joints of my fingers ache with cold for the first five minutes - then the blood starts flowing, and all is well. However, it's bloody hard to take a photo with frozen fingers. It's even harder though taking a photo on the move with full length gloves on. And it's really, really hard taking a photo on the move in the dark, as the above photo attests. 


The dark blob in this photo was out of the ordinary - I could smell cigarette smoke, but couldn't work out where it was coming from. That's nothing new - I smell people smoking dope fairly often, but what kills me is when I smell something freshly baked - like croissants - and I know I can't stop for a bite. Anyway, the smoke was coming from the cyclist in front of me.  It wasn't slowing him down at all. His lungs appeared to be in better shape than mine.

I've seen classic old photos of cyclists having a fag whilst racing, but I can't remember the last time I saw a real life bloke on a bike having a puff. I wouldn't have minded, except that he flicked his butt out behind him and it nearly went down my top. 


Speaking of which, I made the classic mistake of being careless when zipping up this week. It's been one of those weeks of greatcoats on, greatcoats off. Pretty cold in the morning, requiring two layers and leg warmers. Fairly warm in the afternoon, requiring the shedding of the top layer. I was starting to overheat, so when I pulled up at a red light, I quickly took my jacket off and was in the process of neatly folding it away when the light went green. So I simply stuffed it down the front of my jersey, and rode around with one massive tit.


At the next red light, I extracted the jacket, folded it neatly and stowed it in a rear pocket. And then the light went green, so I rapidly zipped up the jersey.


Wrong


Careless old me managed to insert a nice four inch stretch of chest hair into the rapidly moving zipper. That was way wrong. I thought I was going to end up with a landing street between my man boobs, but it didn't eventuate. It certainly felt like half the hairs on my chest were being ripped out.


By the way, follow this link and check out the bears at the bottom. You won't be disappointed.