Don't laugh. This is serious. It's the challenge of our generation. Trust the politicians and pay your Carbon Tax. Do not object or demonstrate any cognitive capabilities whatsoever. Collectivism lead by Julia, Wayne, Penny & Co. You know it makes sense.
no suprise got my first $1000 bill .bloody hard for the battlers to use more .they cant pay for what they are using now
Same thing has happened with water. The Qld Govt wants SEQ householders to turn the taps back on so they can raise more revenue from water bills. Queenslanders became so adept at saving water, water usage is still at record lows and they've kept to their new habits. Dams have 10 years supply but somehow the Govt still has to find money to pay for the (now mothballed) Desalination plants they bought. Theres still a social stigma about watering lawns, washing cars hosing driveways etc that they Govt has to break.
I actually do laugh at it all nowadays. What other response is there to maintain sanity while confronted by the face utter madness? Electricity and water consumption in decline, but they want to play the "guilt over the environment" card on everyone. :lol: All we need to hear now is that use of fossil fuels and paper is declining and they can all just call it mission accomplished and retire.
Radiobirdman..How the hell did you rake up a $1000+ bill for electricity??? Have you got 3 wives and 14 kids, 8 showers and 15 TV'S and 4 air cons? $1000 pays my bill for a whole year..I do have solar hot water however. Regards Errol 43
^^^ In cold zones, it doesn't take much during winter. Our highest was just under $1,200 for the winter quarter a few years ago due to having electric wall heaters in the property. When we switched to a (super efficient) reverse cycle our winter bill fell to $750 (with the last quarter approx. $850). If we had an extra bedroom/child no doubt we'd hit $1,000. For comparison, Spring/autumn quarter are typically <$400 (depending on the number of frosts etc). Edit: And yes - I seem to remember electric hot water adds something like $100-$200 per quarter (depending on the size of the unit etc).
Since you mention it... From: http://www.smh.com.au/business/carb...ump-sends-emissions-lower-20121018-27s85.html The carbon tax is, in fact, working as intended: dirty energy is more expensive to produce, therefore the market is producing less dirty energy. And it's also worth noting that the electricity market is largely responsible for the situation it now finds itself in because the grid operators got greedy and over built their networks so that their "regulated return" would be higher. They get paid as a fixed percentage of the value of their infrastructure, so if they build more infrastructure they earn more money. All very nice in theory but they didn't seem to take into account that consumers can't (or won't) keep paying higher and higher rates for their electricity and either cut back or become more efficient with their usage. The market forecasters have been generating completely unrealistic "usage projections" for years in order to justify their massive overspending and now they're acting all surprised that people aren't using $3000 worth of power every quarter. They essentially used the same forecasting model that the banks and hedge funds used before the GFC that assumed that growth was just going to continue on, completely uninterrupted, forever. Yeah, real nice work there fellas. Now they're whineging that something else - not pumping as much crap into the air - has been given a higher priority than their apparent right to keep bilking Australian households for greater and greater sums of cash. Screw them. They don't give a flying flip about you or me or the community or the environment we all live in. All they're interested in is making fat piles of cash and now their rigged game is coming apart. Boo f***ing hoo.
Keep in mind that another major reason why the share of energy coming from "dirty" is falling is because the quantity of renewable electricity is forced via the LRET etc. This policy alone is costing and will cost more and more independently of the Government-approved bilking by networks or the effect of the carbon (dioxide) tax on generators and consumers.
Over time the RET it will actually make electricity cost less. For example, a the cost of the hardware for a solar array is (roughly) equal to 7 years worth of coal-fired energy costs. The solar array will last for 25 years, so over a 25 year period the solar power is significantly cheaper than coal-fired power. The up-front cost is high, but the amortised cost is low.
Besides your dodgy maths - if it truly was cheaper over 25 years then it would 100% be happening without a bunch of direct and indirect subsidies - you're forgetting that the cost of the RET to the "dirty" generators are the greater and greater number of REC permits needing to be bought to meet their mandated requirements.
Just a question. Do you guys see emigration happening? I have noticed a lot of chinese migrants exiting the business scene (milk bars, 2dollar shops, fish and chips, etc).
Last I looked net flows are still incoming but half to a third of the peak in 2009(? I think, maybe 2009-10). A friend at immigration said something about the number of non-permanent and student visas have been falling off a cliff - from 300,000 net inward to something like 150-180,000.
Thanks Bordsilver.. Never thought of it being winter down south.What about summer? A large portion of the winter bill would be heating but you wouldn't get such a large bill in summer or spring, would you? Regards Errol 43
Shouldn't. But as per Bundy, Cairns, Darwin etc it really depends on how much of a wuss you are doesn't it? I think last summer we only used the cooling part of the reverse cycle (i.e. air conditioner) for about a week at most. From memory the summer bill was only $250 or so.
The side benefit of the reduction in wholesale prices associated with all the excess capacity at the moment (also most states have scaled back the FiTs so this element isn't being passed through by the retailers as much).
:lol: Yes, I read that propaganda during the week too, trouble is Yallourn's cut backs are due to flooding of the pit. http://m.theage.com.au/victoria/yallourn-coal-mine-flood-worsens-20120715-224ef.html The carbon tax is a scam. Pure and simple. But you are still correct, it is working just like it was intended... Banks buy up carbon permits http://www.afr.com/p/national/banks_buy_up_carbon_permits_pM9TpeCQPxY8iRG20LapUK
The same thing goes for SA's Desal Plant. In mothballs .. we pay for the privilege of getting it with higher water rates (five times increase since 2007) .. and then sleep well in the knowledge that it will cost 30 million a year to look after while it is waiting for the next one in one hundred year drought. To me it all seems like a way of spending money to prop up an ailing (read failing) economy through growth. http://www.news.com.au/breaking-new...-left-on-standby/story-e6frfku9-1226488386473 Phil
The maths aren't that dodgy but you're free (and encouraged!) to work out your own amortisation schedule and see how it compares to constantly burning coal over an extended period of time. This is a "payback time" chart from just over a year ago: http://www.choice.com.au/reviews-an...r/solar-payback-times/page/payback-times.aspx In reading that, remember that: (a) the price of solar panels has decreased in the last year, and (b) the electricity cost (per kWh) from the grid is now up to 25% higher
