What’s a fair rate for a feed-in tariff?

The state government of WA has decided to cut the feed-in tariff for solar panels… to zero.

When people install solar panels, there’s a contracted rate for the feed-in tariff, and Premier Barnett has just decided that he’s not going to honour his end of the bargain. I know us greenies are a pretty generous lot, but I think most people will be annoyed, especially when the government has made no moves to clean up it’s own act.

This is terrible news for the solar panel companies too – the tariff was helping them establish their businesses, by making the demand stable enough for them to know how many people they could hire without spending out of their budget. Colin Barnett is happy to help bend the rules for mining companies so they can acquire whichever patch of land they want (even if someone else is already using it), but helping small businesses isn’t on his to-do list.

A government representative was speaking about it on ABC radio last week, and kept going on about how you can’t expect to get rich quick off solar panels. What a crock. This isn’t about getting rich, it’s about a breach of contract and getting a fair price in exchange for providing a resource everyone wants.

Obviously it’s expensive to pay for this, and it means budget money isn’t going to something else (like hospitals or education or emergency services, if the Premier could tear his attention away from the mining boom for a second). But pretty much every state government, and the federals as well, severely underestimated how much Aussies want to use solar power. That’s their own fault, and to deal with that mistake by simply refusing to pay anymore  is pretty crappy behaviour.

I know there have been cuts to feed-in tariffs in every state, and the ACT is at zero already. What do you think is a fair price for providing electricity to your fellow citizens?

Free inhalers for kids affected by coal pollution!

Check it out at Coal Cares! The asthma inhalers come in Batman, Justin Bieber, Twilight and Dora the Explorer styles, and there’s also a $10 coupon for asthma medication for people living within 200 miles of a coal plant in the USA!

Actually, that website is a hoax by the Coal Is Killing Kids environmental group, with a little help from activist pranksters the Yes Men. They’re targeting Peabody Energy, a multi-national coal mining and power corporation.

Peabody has defended itself against the hoax, saying that low-cost coal-fired electricity helps people live healthier lives. But as Wired magazine shows, the hoaxer group has science on their side – as well as the greenhouse gas effects, coal power plant pollution in the USA killed approximately 13,200 people last year, led to the hospitalization of 9,700 others and caused 20,000 heart attacks.

Like many coal companies, Peabody actively campaigns against having to reduce the pollution they create. They opposed the Clean Air Act in 1970, acid rain regulations in 1990, and current efforts to reduce the mercury pollution in their waste products by installing scrubbers on their smokestacks. Last year they spent $6.9 billion dollars on lobbying governments to get favourable treatment, and (I know you’ll be shocked by this next bit!) they oppose any attempt to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

They have an Australian branch too, dealing with their mines in Queensland and New South Wales. They’ve been campaigning with other mining groups to get compensation under the carbon tax deal, and opposing the mining super-profits tax. If your parent company can afford to blow nearly 7 billion bucks on lobbying, I don’t think you get to cry poor when new taxes are put in place.

And yet they claim to be a sustainable company. They’ve restored some of the land they’ve wrecked with their mining, and have asked for money so they can research ‘clean’ coal solutions. This is pretty much the bare minimum they could do. But I guess some other companies are doing less, so to them it seems like a lot.

I hadn’t heard of Peabody before now. When they’re not shmoozing with the government, they keep a pretty low profile. I’m glad this hoax has gotten some publicity, to shine a little light on the people who don’t care about our health or the quality of our air and water, as long as they can make a billion.

Natural bottled water!

I’m very busy today, and will post my usual green links post tomorrow. For now, check out this video about bottled water that I saw on Hungry Beast last night.

The North-West is for the mining industry only

James Price Point, photo by Glenn Walker

WA’s Premier Colin Barnett has just given approval for a gas hub to go ahead in the Kimberley region. Apparently if fossil fuel companies ask him to jump, he only pauses to say “how high?”.

The state government didn’t bother to assess any other locations than the James Price point, even though that area has huge environmental and historical significance. Some of the companies would have been happy to use other locations in the region – it doesn’t matter to them, as long as it’s cost effective.

In another cost-cutting measure, the companies didn’t bother to finish their studies of the impact of marine waste discharge, oil spill modelling, marine primary producer habitat, or coastal processes. This is very similar to what happened with the US Gulf oil spill, with no plans drawn up for what to do in case of an accident or emergency. I guess if you know the government is just going to rubber-stamp your application, there’s no point completing it!

What makes it worse is that we already know there’s very poor oversight of what’s going on up north. The report on the Montara oil spill in the North-West was finally released a few weeks ago. The federal Minister for Resources said that the report showed that there wasn’t much damage – but this isn’t true.

The Montara report actually said that there was no way to tell what environmental damage was done, because the panel didn’t ask for evidence on the matter. And then the gas company was put in charge of future monitoring.

Some days I really wonder if all of WA is going to become property of the fossil fuel companies. There are people fighting hard against it though – The Wilderness Society is doing great work on the issue, as is the Conservation Council of WA. Please do give them your support, before it’s too late.

Review: Gasland

Last night I went to the movies with friends to see Gasland, a documentary about natural gas extraction in the USA. I was keen to see it because the Queensland government is trying to get a similar type of drilling started on farmland there, and I wanted to know more about it.

The documentary started as one guy, Josh Fox, investigated the hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) process after a gas company offers him $100,000 to drill on his land. His journey takes him to 24 states in the USA, to a congressional hearing, and to the Environmental Protection Authority there.

Natural gas is often put forward as a transitional energy source, to wean us off coal. But it’s still a finite substance, and we’ve used quite a lot of the easy-to-reach amounts already. As our energy demands grow, the pressure to use more marginal (i.e. difficult to extract) sources will become intense. As you see in the movie, fracking is a dangerous way of getting to marginal sources, but if you can remove regulations to protect the safety of workers, citizens and the environment, it can be pretty profitable.

A lot of the footage is from Fox’s home video camera, which as you can guess is pretty shaky. But it includes some of the most beautiful landscapes in the US, and honest interviews with the sick and heartbroken people affected by this corporate greed, so it’s worth putting up with the occasional blurry shots.

The bleak humour shown by these people under such difficult circumstances is endearing, and I really warmed to them. They had no idea things would get so bad, that they’d be forced to prove their water didn’t have toxic sludge in it before the fracking started. Now they’re just dealing with it as best they can.

Fox has a low-key style – he’s no Michael Moore. He just explains what he found out, in the same way that he discovered it, and lets the evidence speak for itself. Hydraulic fracturing is a dirty, poisonous process, and the lack of regulation in the USA just makes it worse. If our governments spend their time making things easy for corporations instead of protecting citizens, then what can be done about it? Fox doesn’t have all the answers, but he’s shining a light on the issue so at least we can see clearly what is going on.

Recommended?
If you are living in an area under consideration for fracking (see the trailer below to see the red zones on the map of Australia, at 2:55 minutes), or you have friends or family in those areas, you must see Gasland before our governments get too involved in it*. Everyone else should see it too, because it’s the best summary you’ll get of what’s going on, in a just-the-facts-ma’am presentation. It’s showing in independent cinemas right now, but I’m sure that either the ABC or SBS will pick it up as soon as it’s available for tv.

* I’d also suggest that people in affected areas get their water (and soil?) tested before any drilling starts!

5-star review at Empire Magazine

Gasland Trailer