Some decisive arguments made there Tom on a bang for your buck principle. On the face of it surely it makes sense to invest in the renewable technologies that are the most appropriate & efficient for our part of the world.
Having just had another quarterly bill of under €40 from Airtricity it’s hard to justify investing €1000′s. However as we discussed yesterday Micro Hydro is an often overlooked technology for rural locations.
Here is Monbiot’s very final installment…http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/03/19/jonathan-porritts-strange-slurs/ ‘slap on the wrist’ was of course intended to be humorous, rather than petty, I have a huge amount of time for Monbiot.
I do think its a shame though that if FiTs are so poorly conceived, through the whole period of consultation and discussion, Monbiot didn’t publish any concerns (to the best of my knowledge), rather waiting until it is all signed, sealed and delivered and no-one can do much about it? For me, I think that of course, if you had a set amount of money and you want the most low carbon energy you can get, you go for wind and hydro every time. Of course. But at the same time, that usually takes place at great distance from people. PV could be viewed as a loss-leader which helps energy make sense to people, supports behaviour change, and I think that that has value. Also, everyone I know who has them down here say that they got at least a third more power from their systems than the installers had told them they would.
It has been fascinating to observe how contentious this has been. Was up at CAT the other week and there was a lot of talk of it, clearly there are lots of businesses up there that have been waiting a long time for the tarriff.
6 Comments
In the interest of journalistic balance (!) you should also check out Leggett’s long response, which is also very useful. http://www.jeremyleggett.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/20100300-fit-debate2.doc Hope all is well…. Rob
Thanks Rob – that’s a very thorough response from Leggett – I’ll look forward to seeing how this pans out over the next few years.
Worth also checking out Porritt’s take on it, comes down fairly squarely on the Leggett’s side, and gives a gentle slap on the wrist for Monbiot… http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2010/03/the_war_of_words_over_homeprod.html
Well I won’t lower myself to petty ‘slap on wrist’ style comments. Instead I’ll link to this which seems pretty definitive to me:
http://www.carboncommentary.com/2010/03/06/1442
Some decisive arguments made there Tom on a bang for your buck principle. On the face of it surely it makes sense to invest in the renewable technologies that are the most appropriate & efficient for our part of the world.
Having just had another quarterly bill of under €40 from Airtricity it’s hard to justify investing €1000′s. However as we discussed yesterday Micro Hydro is an often overlooked technology for rural locations.
Here is Monbiot’s very final installment…http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/03/19/jonathan-porritts-strange-slurs/ ‘slap on the wrist’ was of course intended to be humorous, rather than petty, I have a huge amount of time for Monbiot.
I do think its a shame though that if FiTs are so poorly conceived, through the whole period of consultation and discussion, Monbiot didn’t publish any concerns (to the best of my knowledge), rather waiting until it is all signed, sealed and delivered and no-one can do much about it? For me, I think that of course, if you had a set amount of money and you want the most low carbon energy you can get, you go for wind and hydro every time. Of course. But at the same time, that usually takes place at great distance from people. PV could be viewed as a loss-leader which helps energy make sense to people, supports behaviour change, and I think that that has value. Also, everyone I know who has them down here say that they got at least a third more power from their systems than the installers had told them they would.
It has been fascinating to observe how contentious this has been. Was up at CAT the other week and there was a lot of talk of it, clearly there are lots of businesses up there that have been waiting a long time for the tarriff.