Solar nexus
RECENT letters about solar electricity causing power prices to increase need a response. I invested over $5000 five years ago in solar panels and a solar hot water system. I did this rather than buy a new car, because I believed I was being environmentally responsible and I am a pensioner with a limited income.
I do receive 28c/kWh for the excess electricity I produce, thus saving Aurora from releasing more water from its storage facilities and allowing it to sell more electricity to the national grid. The electricity I produce for 28c/kWh doesn’t go to the national grid, it goes to the next person on my local grid, probably next door. Aurora charges that person 28c/kWh for the electricity I produce, so there is no cost to Aurora other than maintaining the grid, which they have to do anyway. Because I am helping supply local electricity needs, it saves Aurora from importing extra energy when storage capacity is low or demand is high.
Alms for indigenes
AS an atheist I choose not to bring religion into my argument and it’s not about forgetting or ignoring, it’s about looking to an all inclusive harmonious future. We’ve come a long way but obviously some people choose to dwell in the past. Today’s Indigenous people are well cared for by the Australian taxpayer, it’s how these alms are spent that should be questioned.
Good news
TWO positive news items recently caught my eye. The first was a report that Japanese audiences and players participating in the football World Cup removed all their own rubbish before they left venues. The second was the incredible calmness, dignity, resilience and respect demon-
Pedder tragedy
READER David Keyes’s suggestion the Huon-Serpentine Impoundment is a “most beautiful adornment to the natural landscape” (Letters, July 21) is ridiculous. If the true Lake Pedder, with its enormous quartzite alpine beach, was still here, it would be a global attraction of greater value to Tasmania than Freycinet or Cradle Mountain. Tasmanians were stripped of this by pig-headed politicians. The only thing more ridiculous is Mr Keyes’s desire to destroy the Franklin River.