Maybe the best way that Prime Minister Tony Abbott can prove that his Direct Action plan is as good as Barack Obama’s, is to match or even better the US President’s effort at solarising his Lodge.
Obama recently put a modest amount of solar panels on the roof of the White House, a symbolic gesture that replaces the panels – originally installed by Jimmy Carter in the 1970s – that were torn down by Ronald Reagan.
Seeing as Abbott is now getting taxpayers to fund a $4.5 million renovation of the prime ministerial digs, perhaps he could do what 1.4 million other Australian households are doing and install solar, thereby deducting the electricity bill, which presumably is also met by the taxpayer. If he acts quickly, he might be able to deflect some of the cost under the SRES scheme before he trashes the renewable energy target.
However, the array would pay for itself a couple of times over with clean electricity being generated worth $126,819 over the life of the system, and over the 25 years it would cut about 720 tonnes of CO2 pollution, or just under 29 tonnes a year.
It also would mean, the website said, that the PM was locking in lifetime low electricity prices for himself and future Prime Ministers of on-average just 14 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), which is a lot less than most of us are paying for our home power bills.
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