just the facts, ma'am

Tram and bus companies were not purchased and shut down by oil companies in Australia. You're thinking of the US, specifically Chicago and Detroit.

Australians are quite capable of neglecting their useful infrastructure without any help from oil companies, thanks very much!

The Greens used to have a loopy, "out there" image, which came partly from just making stuff up, like this. They've largely lost that image, so keep to the facts to avoid getting that unhelpful image back.

incremental

Promoting passive design principles by minimum target legislation for all new developments is a common sense imperative. Ensuring a smooth path for the correct interpretation and implementation of this kind of legislative culture at a council level by using positive federal incentives is an effective and appropriate methodology, given our current government architecture.

Passive design principles are a basic common sensical (sic) and not expensive. In a hot climate like Perth for example you simply mandate to paint exterior walls dark and roofs light colours, not the reverse.
You mandate for eves or other summer shading winter sun ingress methodology. You can encourage reverse construction techniques where the dense materials are inside i.e. bricks and the lighter materials outside, i.e. tin or timber cladding. You can ensure that kit designs are appropriate for the location and homes orientated properly at that location. You can encourage design for function, fashion appropriate for that function and forms derived from it, instead of functionality determined by fashion flogged by air headed and mercenary bimbo builders. Views are not actually everything guys. A south facing wall of glass just makes your home uncomfortable and expensive to live in while you watch your TV.

I disagree with what I believe to be an emotive and reactionary response by Jim (above) to the new PV incentives scheme.

Here are a few salient points which might be worth considering if constructive argument is your thing (please don’t bother Richard; I am surprised they let your comment through maybe you’re a dupe to whip up a Creationist Vs Evolution commentary reaction?)

1. Under the current scheme urban grid connect Renewable Energy (RE) generators are only subsidized by the government for a small percentage of the potential market. You have to live in and own the home where the generator is to be installed and you have to have a combined household income under $100k.au. The new scheme will open up the market for investment groups and individuals involved in new suburban housing developments to pre install small grid connect systems on multiple homes built in batch fashion. This encourages the passive design/minimal carbon footprint zeitgeist and can only be a good thing. It also opens up the market for smaller property investors with a second or third or more rental property to put a generator on each of their properties. This also means that those that need it most, in the lower socioeconomic disorder can access cheaper energy while their landlord benefits from immediate equity.

2. Despite what the big end of town, their pecuniary interested partners and the fundamentalist dreamers are saying , small scale decentralised RE generators are effective in the short and long terms for minimising carbon and greenhouse gas emissions, developing an alternative economically viable road for Australia to travel on and to assist in the creation of a culture encouraging the appropriate energy infrastructure responses needed to change our National approach (which is undeniably flawed) . To deny this, to discourage the dissemination of RE micro generators is counterproductive and one can only question the limited agendas of those that are attempting to do so in the name of the environment. Big industry will buy the RECS, yes but they will also have their minimum emission targets regulated and enforced. The RECS may not be a perfect system but it is a motivator and to demotivate for the sake of point scoring to end at a standstill is a negative and questionable methodology.

3. Jim, I don’t know what kind of RE systems you’re referring to but I do know that most urban micro energy generation concepts that have a practical application are used in conjunction with the existing centralised base load generators and their transmition infrastructure. To do this we generally utilize an inverter and smart metering system. The inverter provides a safe and effective synchronised connection to the grid, the smart metering system is the infant of the method which will allow for effective and efficient control of multiple decentralised energy inputs so a balance can be created between centralised base load generation and suburban grid level inputs. Your RECS grant assists you in the purchase of the inverter, meter and the mains connections. You can use this infrastructure for other technology, providing it meets the appropriate Australian Standards and is installed by a qualified practitioner to Australian Standards. We need these standards and regulations so that we don’t have to live in fear of deadly or catastrophic built environment failures

4. The RECS system is a RENUWABLE ENERGY certificate incentive, it can be applied to other forms of RE generation like wind power or micro hydro. Unfortunately although much more effective in the appropriate environments IF designed and installed by experienced practitioners these systems have limited applications for the most part of the urban landscape. Whereas PV is relatively simple to install on the major part of the urban geography and minimum outputs are pretty well guarenteable. That is why it is out there, because nature tends to encourage workable patterns by replication.

5. Which brings me to an opinion on the whole Gung Ho Hero approach to environmental problems.

Incremental improvement and gradual change is the only sane way to achieve solutions to very large problems. This is obvious to any observer of human history or the natural world.

This is the way natural systems evolve and if you believe in an interventionist God it is the peaceful face of divinity.
Change that is forced and fast is also violent. The faster the enforced change the more violent, destructive and wasteful it will be.

This violence may be manifest in catastrophic economic chaos in human conflict or just the flare of a match.

We are all part of a system which has some basic inviolate behavioural guides it must run on to exist. The faster the rate of incremental changes the quicker you can achieve a desired monumental outcome. The way to slow the rate of incremental change toward a desired outcome (environmentally responsible existence) is quiet simple, you can do it by obstinate ignorant short sighted personal agenda motivated obstructionism, infact you are. But why? In my opinion it’s because you are ill informed and possibly prejudiced by that ignorance. Not your fault so I will not take it personally, although it is quiet frustrating to be subject to it.

The new economic methodology, one which is gaining acceptance amongst the powerful, even the more conservative interests in control of our worlds is one that was originally taken up by the Greens camp.
Triple Bottom Line accounting. (May it become mandated for school curriculums). Instead of the single fiscal bottom line we are forced to place a value on the human element and the environment as well as the financial considerations and then evolve value based strategy, asses risk and prove viability. This should be common sense if you are attempting to calculate outcomes over the lifecycle of any project. That it has not been so is evident in our current situation.
If for example we where to halt coal mining and energy production from fossil fuels overnight we would violate two of the bottom line motivators and in doing so create conditions which would negatively impact on the third. It’s a tripod, simple.

6. Lastly, I love the idea of everybody riding or walking to an electric tram/train or bus stop. Unfortunately although we can design for this kind of future we cannot escape the present nor deny the infrastructure that is already here. To do so would be wasteful and counterproductive. To have electric transport we need electricity to create clean electricity we need Renewable Energy. (Nuclear Energy is not a viable option a simple triple bottom line analysis proves this, but I won’t go into it here).

What if we where to strategise thus for the desired outcome:
i).Encourage the dissemination of decentralised grid connect RE generators in the built environment.

ii). Discourage the use of large personal fossil fuelled vehicles (i.e. four wheel drives) in the urban environment by creating an environmental impact 2 or 3 tiered registration policy,
*cheaper ‘weekend use only’ larger vehicle rego. Which can be policed and non compliance penalised for.
*More expensive Rego. For daily large vehicle use if not shown to be utilized for necessary business purposes. Which are already subject to a higher levy. (make the frivolous use permit more expensive again)
*much cheaper rego and parking, tolls and taxes for small personal all electric or highly efficient personal commuters, but only if they are shown to be part of a balanced RE grid connect package.

iii).Encourage large to medium sized RE grid connect generation plants and small all electric commuter plug in points at public transport hubs. You do this by making it economically viable for investors to be involved. The new RECs scheme if appropriately designed would do this.

Once it has been shown to people that you can still have complete freedom of transportation and be environmentally responsible and make wads of big biz wealth from it all they will be much more amenable to increased public transport infrastructure projects.