As the moves to the low carbon economy continue, many of the ideas that we believed might get there are unwinding. In recent days we have had biofuels exposed as doing more harm than good and, ergo feed in tariffs. We have had windfarms, we will have tidal power and we all know about nuclear power. Some short comings have come as no surprise, biofuels in the tropics being one, others are more complex.
Take as example feed in tariffs. Very few technologies can generate power at the same cost as existing technologies.
If that were the case, market economics would mean that we would be using them. Traditional sources of energy, relatively speaking are cheap, and have relatively speaking become cheap as we get clever about energy efficieny. To combat the cheapness of existing energy, and encourage others to generate their own electricity and generate it locally, the idea of feed in tariffs was conceived where the price of power generated from renewable sources would be guaranteed to create a market and encourage investment. It was guaranteed at a high price to ensure its viability, often by Government regulation. Until recently this was universally deemed a good idea. Now, we are being told that it isn't because the costs to subsidise feed in tariffs could be better applied elsewhere principally on other technologies.
This kind of debate is not really helpful. What most commentators, who don't run businesses, need to realise is simply, there is always another better way of doing things, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't hold your course. In the case of feed in tariffs, it creates one behaviour so often missing in modern societies, and that is personal responsibility. Feed in taiffs make people think in terms of their own consumption, while potentially reducing the demand for infrastructure elsewhere. By making people think about what they create, use and feed back creates a great behaviour, that will help in all aspects of the environment debate. In this case, it isn't just about economics. But don't worry, as commonetators get paid for bad behaviour, expect another scare in the coming months. Pick on biofuels in certain geographies but not feed in tariffs. We need power to be more expensive so we use it less.
