ELECTRICITY TO BE PARTLY BANNED

Is this a world-first? (Anything rather than build more power stations)

"Electric hot water systems will be banned in new homes under a State Government plan to relieve Queensland's beleaguered electricity network. New dwellings will have to opt for more costly but more energy efficient gas, solar or heat pump systems. Some building groups claim it could add thousands of dollars to the cost of building a new home at a time when affordability is slumping.....

Research by the Government has identified hot water as the biggest energy user in homes, responsible for 34 per cent of household electricity consumption. A series of reviews has found Energex and Ergon struggle to meet current demands and cannot cope in summer when air-conditioning use soars. The Government estimates that if 35,000 houses were built in Queensland during the next 25 years the new hot water systems would be the equivalent of taking 250,000 cars off the road or a 17 million tonne carbon reduction.....

But the Master Builders says some natural gas options cost up to twice as much in running costs over a 10-year period and gas was not widely available in areas where new homes were built. "No matter what option you choose there will be an increase in cost," Master Builders housing director Peter Osterhage said.

More here




THE LATEST U.N. "DISASTER" REPORT ACTUALLY SUGGESTS SOME SENSIBLE POLICIES

Excerpt from comments by Tim Worstall at Tech Central

So far we have a report detailing a problem, we understand what the root of the problem is, and I've still not told you what is shocking about it. It's that this UN report takes the economically sensible path to the solution. Yes, I know, almost unbelievable isn't it? Instead of taking the social route they advocate taking the private one, to my utter consternation, meaning that I may have to regard at least part of that corrupt and grubby organization as being useful.

There are four alternative routes to a solution offered, one of them described thusly:

More specifically, in Global Orchestration trade barriers are eliminated, distorting subsidies are removed, and a major emphasis is placed on eliminating poverty and hunger.

That is, that environmental degradation would be best reduced by more trade, more economic growth and less taxation and interference by Governments. It's almost as if these people have been reading Iain Murray of these pages or something, actually agreeing with the point that free market environmentalism actually works, indeed, works better than the alternatives.

A few more almost random quotes to show they way they are thinking:

....[a]wide range of opportunities exists to influence human behavior to address this challenge in the form of economic and financial instruments. Some of them establish markets; others work through the monetary and financial interests of the targeted social actors; still others affect relative prices.

Elimination of subsidies that promote excessive use of ecosystem services

Greater use of economic instruments and market-based approaches in the management of ecosystem services

Payment for ecosystem services

Mechanisms to enable consumer preferences to be expressed through markets

Now that's what I call shocking and almost unbelievable, that 1,300 scientists from 95 countries, working under the auspices of the United Nations, seem to have drunk the free market Kool-Aid. The end result of this years-long investigation is that us free market tree hugger and greenie types are actually correct in our contention that it is not the presence of markets, or the failure of markets, that leads to the devastation, it is the absence of markets. Just as we have had to, in centuries gone by, work out a system of laws that allows markets to flourish, thereby leading to the most efficient usage of resources, so now the task is to do the same for those areas of life where there are no markets. In water, pollution, fishing quotas, tropical forestry, in, in fact, all those sectors where we face the Tragedy of the Commons.

Many of us writers here at TCS have said so before, there now being a terrible temptation to say "we told you so", but I really don't think that any one of us ever believed that the United Nations would come out and say it. We now actually have a sensible framework for how to solve these problems, let's get to it, eh?

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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