Porkahontas: why Kevin Rudd’s Solar Schools is really solar pork

Pocahontas was an Indian princess, the daughter of Powhatan, the powerful chief of the Algonquian Indians in the Tidewater region of Virginia.

Porkahontas, better known as Kevin Rudd, on the other hand, is a unionist prince, the powerful leader of a party who will say anything whilst standing for nothing, in his quest to win office.

Pocahontas was named Matoaka at birth, but it was her childhood nickname that travelled with her all the days of her short life. She died in 1617, aged 22. In the Powhatan language, Pocahontas means ‘the wanton one, the playful one or the irresponsible one’.

Examining Labor’s Solar Schools initiative, ‘irresponsible’ is indeed the first adjective that comes to mind.

Last Friday, Porkahontas rolled out yet another porcine barrel. This time in the form of $500 million to be squanderred on installing solar panels and rain water tanks in 9,612 schools across Australia (for details see this article in The Australian).

Sounds like a smart policy. ‘Proactive’ some said. Inspiring even. But are the environmental dividends worth $500 million?  Taking Labor at its word, we can expect a savings on greenhouse gas emmissions of up to 2.8 tonnes per school per year. Porkahontas did not provide a breakdown of how the $500 million would be divided between solar panels and water tanks, but let’s look at two scenarios: one where the full $500 million relates to solar panels, and the other where, say, the cost of the panels is $350 million (with the balance spent on rainwater tanks and other efficiency initiatives).

Furthermore, let’s be generous and assume the 2.8 tonnes is not (as Labor says) the maximum savings per school, but is really the average savings in greenhouse gasses. The table below summarises Labor’s Solar Schools Policy.

If Porkahontas gets his way, then we are all doomed to a very impoverished future, since under this plan, saving one tonne of CO₂ costs around $1,625. And if that’s not bad enough, what happens after the solar panels are installed in the schools, if, for instance, in exchange for support in the Senate, his comrades, the Greens insist on even greater savings? How much will it cost to install more panels over time in order to ‘save’ more greenhouse gasses?

Porkahontas has a clearly defined objective in mind, and it’s not to maximise the volume of greenhouse gasses saved per dollar of taxes spent.  Rather, it is to maximise electoral support for the ALP in niche constituencies: the hard Greens, the soft Greens, Gen X, Gen Y, the education sector and the renewables lobby. Labor wants to be seen as fresh (whatever that means) and to be viewed as doing something - anything - innovative on climate change, hence the novel Solar Schools program. And so what if his numbers don’t add up?

If Mr Rudd’s objective was indeed to reduce CO₂ emissions, what policy would he adopt? Well that’s a no-brainer. He’d subsidise mass transit. By that I mean make mass transit cheaper, or even free. And that doesn’t mean making motor vehicles artificially more expensive by raising (either federal or state) taxes, charges or tolls on them.

Persuading voters to change from travelling by car to using mass transit would yield enormous environmental as well as health-benefits. Unfortunately for Mother Nature, and for those with respiratory complaints, public transport policies do not command headlines. Nor do they grab the imagination. They play best to the inner city types, but will not significantly perk up Labor’s vote, given these voters are, in the main, already committed to the ALP. Put simply, there are no more votes in mass transit polices for Labor, hence the focus on fleeting issues like solar pork.

Motor vehicles are regarded by many as Enemy #1 when it comes to polluting the atmosphere. To reduce the harm they generate, one of three approaches can be adopted:

• convincing the public to drive less or use a lower emission car (such as Toyota’s wonderful Prius);
• have drivers use low emission fuels; or
• improve the economy of fuels available for sale.

The easiest option to promote is the first one: convince, or more correctly persuade, the public to drive less. If we took the money that Labor proposes to spend on Solar Schools and used it to promote greater utilisation of public transportation, would we get a bigger payoff in the volume of greenhouse gasses saved? Let’s see.

The Federal Government’s Australian Greenhouse Office (AGO) enumerates the kilograms of greenhouse gasses emitted per person per kilometre travelled using an array of transportation modes.

The figure below shows just how environmentally unsound private transportation is. When comparing a one-person car to a one-extra-person on mass transit system, the CO₂ emitted is 107 times as offensive (based on the AGO figure below that shows that 3 gm of CO₂is emitted per person per kilometre travelled on public transport and 320 gm per person per kilometre in a car). I have no background in environmental science, but 3 gm seems exceptionally low and this number is at odds with British estimates of 50 gm of CO₂ emitted per person per kilometre travelled by rail. That said, I have employed the (higher) British estimate in the calculations that follow. Even at 50 gm of CO₂ per person per kilometre, it’s abundantly clear that a policy of sweet talking citizens out of their cars and onto mass transit should be applauded. So the question is: on the basis of CO₂ gas saved, how does subsidising mass transit compare to the Solar Schools initiative.

Kilograms of greenhouse gasses emmitted per person per kilometre travelled using an array of transportation modes.
Source: http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/gwci/transport.html

As an example of a mass transit system that can be better utilised, let’s look at NSW Rail Corporation. As more and more people are persauded to leave their cars at home and hop on public transportation instead, total greenhouse emissions are set to fall.

The following points emerge from a study of the 2005-06 Rail Corp report (in tandem with the AGO data above). And two assumptions are made: first, that the average car travels 15,000 kms per year or 10,700 kms based on a per 5 day work week; and second, that if mass transit replaces the motor car, the same 10,700 per annum are travelled, only this time by public transportation:

• Rail passenger revenues $526 million per year
• Rail passenger journeys per year 274 million (or roughly 500k passengers per week day)
• Greenhouse gasses emitted by 500k one-person-per-car drivers:– 1.71 million tonnes
• Greenhouse gasses emitted by 500k riding mass transit: 267k tonnes
• Savings in pollution by moving people out of their cars and onto mass transit: 1.44 million tonnes
• Price to save one tonne of greenhouse gas per person $364 (ie $526 million per 1.44 million tonnes)

As can be seen, if the aim is to significantly lower greenhouse gasses then the focus must be on subsidising mass transit (1.44 million tonnes saved at $364 per tonne) rather than squandering taxes on solar pork (215k tonnes saved at $1,625 per tonne). See below:

While the price of $364 per tonne of CO₂ avoided is indeed high, it’s clear that the Solar Schools initiative is a ridiculously expensive way to combat climate change, but an affordable way to buy votes, I suspect.

Honesty in addressing greenhouse emissions is what’s needed. Incentives, not sanctions, are indispensible in order to cajole the public (and industry) to act responsibly. That does not mean slapping a tax on those consumers or producers whose behaviour is frowned upon by the gloom sayers of global warming.

Looking at public transportation for instance, the community already expects this service to be affordable and to be primarily subsidised by state governments.  Ideally, Federal intervention would involve direct payments to the states to cover the value of passenger revenues forgone as a result of abolishing fares.

But there are other ideas that come to mind: removing federal taxes on hybrid vehicles, given their trifling contribution to global warming; lowering (or eliminating altogether) car registration costs for such vehicles; exempting hybrids altogether from (state) tolls as the City of London does for drivers of the low emitting Toyota Prius.

Labor has already u-turned in their long march towards Kyoto II. The unionists now understand the folly of advanced economies signing on to such a flawed treaty, while the underdeveloped world is given a free pass to thumb their collective snouts at us.

I wonder, how long it will take Porkahontas to pivot 180 degrees on his Solar Schools initiative? And when, if ever, will we see him honestly and fairly tackle the real environmental bandit: the motor car.