Little John wrote:Are you seriously trying to tell me, however, that there were not more equitable funding and deployment arrangements that could have been implemented? That such alternative funding and deployment structures were simply beyond the ken of man?
Good god, man, no! My first comment here was critical of the way FIT and RHI are funded. It's been broken from day one and I called it out many years ago.
Little John wrote:If you are, then I cannot take anything else you say on this topic seriously. If you are not, then why on earth are you trying to justify them, if only by way of apologetics. There are no apologetics that can ameliorate what is yet another episode in the transfer of wealth from poor to rich that has continued more or less unabated for the last two or three decades.
The world is not black and white. Look at the bigger picture. Whilst there are obviously far better ways to fund renewable energy, the current system has delivered dramatic costs reductions and capacity increases in what I consider one of the most important technologies of the 21st century.
In my opinion this global social beneft is larger than the clear negative of poor to rich wealth transfer in rich countries operating FIT schemes.
So, in short, your position is that whilst you would have preferred the funding and deployment of these energy saving technologies to have been less iniquitous, in the absence of said alternative arrangements, the further deprivation of the already unacceptably poor is a price well worth paying for the iniquitous deployment that has been achieved.
A couple of good, grenn thinking friends of my mine have a Fit funded PV array on their roof, of which they are quire proud. At the same time as it was fitted, the mother-in-law in the basement flat used a pension lump sum to install an electrically heated outdoor jacuzzi. I calculated that the solar panel electricity production was entirely offset by the jacuzzi consumption.
Their fit tariff will be paying for their mother in law's bath for the next 20 years.
That takes us into the even bigger argument about money and energy. That is to say, money is concentrated, abstracted resources, most notably energy. And debt based money is concentrated, abstracted resources that have not yet been extracted and put to work in the economy. Thus, any carbon saved by purchasing a given product is immediately offset by the fact that the money spent will reside in the banking system to be lent out over and over again until all returns from it approach zero. In other words, in a globalised, debt-based monetary system all attempt to spend money on saving carbon in one part of the system is akin to hitting frogs at an amusement arcade. another one just pops up elsewhere to replace it.
PS_RalphW wrote:A couple of good, grenn thinking friends of my mine have a Fit funded PV array on their roof, of which they are quire proud. At the same time as it was fitted, the mother-in-law in the basement flat used a pension lump sum to install an electrically heated outdoor jacuzzi. I calculated that the solar panel electricity production was entirely offset by the jacuzzi consumption.
Their fit tariff will be paying for their mother in law's bath for the next 20 years.
Isn't this where TEQs and potential carbon taxes come in? The use of the Jacuzzi would have to be paid for even though the user produced the energy themselves.
PS_RalphW wrote:A couple of good, grenn thinking friends of my mine have a Fit funded PV array on their roof, of which they are quire proud. At the same time as it was fitted, the mother-in-law in the basement flat used a pension lump sum to install an electrically heated outdoor jacuzzi. I calculated that the solar panel electricity production was entirely offset by the jacuzzi consumption.
Their fit tariff will be paying for their mother in law's bath for the next 20 years.
Isn't this where TEQs and potential carbon taxes come in? The use of the Jacuzzi would have to be paid for even though the user produced the energy themselves.
Good man.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
Yes - the system could be much better, but even for the current system I believe the benefits outweigh the costs.
Do you think we'd be better off with no FIT system than the one we have? That would take ~1% off UK electricity and gas bills (assume similar in other countries) but set the PV industry back a decade or so.
Last edited by clv101 on 27 May 2015, 17:50, edited 2 times in total.
Even TEQs and all the rest are worthless so long as we have a debt based monetary system. There is no way that the money supply can be allowed to do anything other than grow over time in order to service the interest payments on the money currently in circulation. So, if people pay some kind of levy for their carbon use, unless that money is destroyed and not replaced, it just comes out as consumption somewhere else in the system. Which, one might argue, is a potentially good thing in terms of being a form of consumption redistribution mechanism. It just doesn't actually reduce consumption at the global systemic level
Last edited by Little John on 27 May 2015, 15:56, edited 1 time in total.
Interesting. Our Rayburn runs on fast-growing softwood, sourced from five miles away. It heats the water, helps run the radiators, cooks the food, boils the kettle and dries the washing. It is NOT eligible for FITs through the RHI.
A GSHP, which takes significant amounts of electricity to run, some or all of which could be produced from fossil fuels, IS eligible.
The GSHP contributes to consumption and therefore growth. You have to remember that the Treasury is in the hands of idiot, Lawsonian, economists who don't believe in GW/CC but believe in the truth of the mantra of continuous economic growth. Until we can free the rest of government from the hands of this idiot faction we have no chance of any sensible policy.
I feel a petition coming on!!
LJ could you explain this please
That is to say, money is a concentrated, abstracted resources, most notably energy. And debt based money is concentrated, abstracted resources that have not yet been extracted and put to work in the economy.
kenneal - lagger wrote:The GSHP contributes to consumption and therefore growth. You have to remember that the Treasury is in the hands of idiot, Lawsonian, economists who don't believe in GW/CC but believe in the truth of the mantra of continuous economic growth. Until we can free the rest of government from the hands of this idiot faction we have no chance of any sensible policy.
I feel a petition coming on!!
LJ could you explain this please
That is to say, money is a concentrated, abstracted resources, most notably energy. And debt based money is concentrated, abstracted resources that have not yet been extracted and put to work in the economy.
I think it might mean that repaying the debt relies on future growth, which will be dependent on future extraction of resources. So, if money is an abstraction of wealth derived from current and past resource extraction, then debt is an abstraction of wealth derived from future resource extraction.
