There’s no such thing as a free lunch — and no such thing as free money. The cashed-up Boomers who thought they’d make a killing by feeding rooftop solar, subsidised by taxpayers, back into the grid soon came a gutser. Not only was the feed-in tariff taxable income, but, because it is in fact a strain on the grid, meant that fees are being increasingly levied.
Now, another mob who thought they were onto a free money scam are learning the hard way.
Landholders have been warned a loophole could leave them with enormous bills to dismantle solar and wind power infrastructure.
It’s only fair: after all, it’s exactly what the Green-Left have successfully demanded of mining companies.
For years now, mining companies have had to put up decommissioning bonds to make sure they clean up after themselves when operations end.
But Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner Andrew Dyer says the same can’t be said of wind and solar power projects.
These guys are grifting off the taxpayer and damaging the environment in a way that miners would never be allowed.
He said landowners may not realise that under the law, responsibility for cleaning up renewable power projects at the end of their lives defaults to them […]
He said it costs more money to pull down a wind turbine than to put one up.
“The cost of pulling a turbine down may exceed the revenue you get for 25 years, so that’s not a good outcome,” he said.
He cited one case of a damaged wind turbine in Queensland.
“The bed plate cracked and you couldn’t go near the turbine because it would fall on your head. That cost millions of dollars to take down with robots and explosives.”
MSN
But, if owners of wind and solar farms are to be charged with the environmental cost of cleaning up at the end of their life (a mere 25 years or so, in most cases), what about at their inception?
Should purchasers of wind turbines and solar panels pick up the cost of cleaning up the massive environmental destruction incurred in their manufacture? Should they pay compensation to the child slaves who mine the minerals?
Or are they just the continuation of what Orwell noted was the hypocrisy of “progressives”:
We all live by robbing Asiatic coolies, and those of us who are ‘enlightened’ all maintain that those coolies ought to be set free; but our standard of living, and hence our ‘enlightenment’, demands that the robbery shall continue.
That’s just as true of the robbery that lurks behind an EV, a wind turbine or a solar panel.
The question is whether the “enlightened” will ever pay for it.