My Wife and I have had a grid interactive system for almost eight years. It's our veggie patch. We didn't do it for the cheap power we did because we beloved the tech was good. Someone has to be the first. That's how things work, and while I do think the government should provide some incentives to create an Australian solar industry it should be on the back of market forces. Al Gore once said "we didn't moved out of the stone age because we run out of rocks". That's true, but we stopped using rocks because we found something better. Solar needs to be made better. There should not be mass government subs to put current solar tech on people’s houses the money would be far better spent on R&D. Maybe when solar is 50 or 60 % and cheap storage is available.
If you want to reduce your carbon foot print the reduce your energy usage in the end it will have a much less of a impact on the ecosystem.

Kenny

The money to provide infrastructure for sustainables is already available - all government has to do is stop subsidising fossil fuels.

"GOVERNMENT subsidies to some of Australia's electricity generation companies are so big they exceed the profits made by those companies, a report on energy and transport subsidies says.

Government support for the coal industry and coal-fired electricity is so generous that in some cases it has led to the construction of coal-fired power plants when other types of electricity generation would have been cheaper, the report by the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney has found.

Subsidies to fossil fuel energies, worth close to $10 billion, result in a serious market distortion, create an unfair disadvantage to renewable energy, and help increase greenhouse gas pollution, says the report, written by the institute's research principal, Chris Riedy, and commissioned by Greenpeace.

The report identified energy and transport subsidies in Australia during 2005-06 of between $9.3 billion and $10.1 billion. More than 96 per cent of that money flowed to fossil fuel production and consumption, with the remainder going to renewable energy and energy efficiency."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/public-purse-props-up-fossil-fuel-industries/2007/05/07/1178390228019.html

Fractelle, in drawing the discussion back to the fact that the article was about solar panels and not ALL types of available renewable energies, actually helps make my point as to the mischievousness, if not of the article as such, that of the idea of a feed-in tariff being for PV solar panels ALONE. There is no proposal for a feed-in tariff for other, or all, renewable energy technologies, and indeed in some recent reading I have done with respect to Australian governmental renewable energy encouragements, there is specific and express exclusion of wood-fuelled alternatives from benefit under any such programs.

However, I don't want to beat the drum on behalf of wood excessively. There are other equally viable alternatives. Why not help them achieve the necessary economies of scale?

Fractelle, in saying that "conventional energy purveyors will want to make up for the loss in income that will inevitably occur should all homes and industry become more self-sufficient" comes very close to answering this question. That part of the misbegotten national electricity market that is already 'privatised', together with the erstwhile intending purchasers of the now-stalled NSW power sell-off, all of which are CONVENTIONAL energy purveyors, want to preserve unto themselves the enormous profit opportunity represented by a non-self-sufficient grid-dependent captive market. What they want to do is 'privately' monopolise electricity supply and distribution.

Any move to renewable energy sources, whether driven by fossil-fuel price increases (peak oil, gas, coal), or mandated by governments as a response relevant to claimed climate change, will be funded by this same captive market. With the potentially viable renewable alternatives not yet scaled up, why should those who will fund the scale-up not own outright the new enterprise they themselves have to bring into being? Its technological basis is not proprietary.

80% of the Australian public effectively hold this view already.

Signing the petition on the basis of the argument presented in this article will be helping start a fire that may burn out signatories' futures. Don't do it. Backburn!

I would just like to add a note of realism to this argument. I concur absolutely with comments that seek to make the discussion inclusive of all technologies and the reduction in demand being central to all of this.

David Mackay has written an excellent book:

http://www.withouthotair.com/download.html

Its free of charge and whilst it focusses on the UK, its content could be adapted to Australia. Ironically, we are in worse position than the UK in demand terms but much better in renewable energy resources.

As someone who lived in a solar powered home for 10 years, I would have to say the most attractive thing about PV is no moving parts.
As to the economics, I lived several kilometres away from grid supply, so did it to try to save money.
Factoring in the cost of batteries, inverter, panels, gas fridge (very expensive) and most importantly back up generator, as well as wood fire for heat and hot water, my electricity bill was considerably higher than if I had connected to the grid, and -arguably- my carbon footprint was probably greater; although I accept forest gumpp's point about bio char.
IF I had had the capital to install a full PV system, without backup generation and gas fridge;
IF I could have been connected to the grid, and therefore not needed about $4k in batteries;
IF I had the capital to just line my home, much less insulate it;
It MAY have been ecologically justifiable, but still probably not economically feasible.
In my experience, self sufficiency is a game for the rich, not a viable alternative for the poor.
Although morally, I still think it should be.

In order to not be seen to be evading Fractelle's request that I suggest viable sustainable clean energy sources for home and industry other than wood and solar ponds, may I first offer up a combo of wave/tidally pumped elevated seawater storage - hydro generation and return-to-sea operating as a component of a/the grid, and second a day-time solar thermal powered coal (or wood) gasification - night-time Fischer-Tropsch synthesis gas-to-liquid fuel conversion process co-generating electricity from the associated 'waste' heat. (The catalysed Fischer-Tropsch reactions are exothermic.)

All this renewable stuff can generate electricity around-the-clock, since the storages necessary to compensate for the intermittencies involved are of solids, liquids, or gases, not the notoriously difficult-to-store electricity. Arguably no proprietary technology need be involved. And yes, you can utilize the existing grid, where it exists, for distribution (unless that has been 'privatised' too). The nitwits wouldn't have already 'privatised' the whole national grid itself, would they? Perhaps the authors use of the term 'nationalised' in association with 'feed-in tariffs program' was not just an apparent Freudian slip, after all.

You will note I ignore hot dry rock geothermal energy, which is touted as being, once scaled-up, capable of producing electricity at around half the current costs of coal-fired generation. I ignore it because I do not consider it fulfils Fractelle's sustainability criterion. Its exploitation is of the nature of the mining of an albeit claimedly large, but nevertheless finite, resource. Sooner than might be thought, one might encounter 'peak hot dry rock' at viable exploitation costs.

There is another reason I ignore, AT THIS TIME, HDR. I strongly suspect that in a number of ways solar pond/organic rankine cycle generated electricity is suspected by 'Big Oil', elements within or near to the Australian Government, and overseas investment houses, as being extremely competitive with HDR on many fronts.

The unnoticed elephant in the room is that, in Australia, a remnant public renewable electricity industry, well-led, could stand poised to substantially DISPLACE OIL!