Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Ward
I live in a modest suburban home, similar to many I'd guess, but with an observatory in the backyard. As is typical in Sydney, State and local government are happy to take stamp duties fees and taxes and not compel developer mates and utility suppliers to put in essential infrastructure. In our case we were promised a gas main, some 25 years ago. We are still waiting.
So our home is ALL electric. Hot water, cooking, and reverse cycle air conditioning plus running a pool pump saw us get slugged with some pretty large energy bills. One particularly hot humid summer gave us a $1800 quarterly bill.
It was a no-brainer to install a large PV solar array and Tesla II battery. The ROI was under 4 years...even less as energy costs have continued to escalate. Last summer our quarterly energy bill was $13 in credit.
During the summer months, our PV system after charging the battery feeds back to the grid with a miserly 11 cent per Kw/hour credit...and on sunny days that's about 35Kw of surplus power that rather than get paid a pittance for it, could power our EV car. So now rather than pay like a Heroin addict, dealers like British Petroleum, Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron for a weekly hit of fuel, plus government coffers an obscene fuel excise and GST to burn fossil fuels and further bugger up the only planet we have, we pay nothing.
In Australia that's a rare decision, as only 1% or so of new vehicle sales are currently EV's. In Norway it is 60% and climbing. Norway’s 25% sales tax was removed from new EV purchases in 2001, and drivers were permitted to use bus lanes from 2005 and do not have to road pay toll fees. They actually want ICE powered vehicles off their roads as soon a possible.
In Australia as EV buyers we were offered zero incentives, still pay tolls, and had to pay about $7000 luxury car tax to support a car industry that no longer exists. This duplicity and hypocrisy has now pi$$ed me off to such an extent, I will now make it my business to hassle and harangue my State and Federal MP's for being such dicks.
Australia has the potential to be the renewable energy centre of the planet, by use of PV, Thermal solar and Hot Dry Rock technologies. Not in the future, but now, as these are finally cost-competitive with coal fired plants. Rather than ship ore elsewhere, we could smelt our resources here, with zero fuel costs and zero emissions. And add value. What a concept!
Burning coal in the 21st century is just plain dumb, unless of course, that same coal industry contributes many millions of dollars to your campaign funds as long as you keep the status quo and do sweet FA about effecting real change.
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Peter,
I understood you were a pilot and flew planes for a living? Where did their fuel come from?
Keep it real.