Aussie Guy E-Cat <aussieguy.e...@gmail.com> wrote: My point was we need a reliable grid for a very long time and that any > wholesale removal of grid load will destroy the companies that maintain the > grid and generate the energy that 30,000,000 Australian connection points > need virtually 24/7. . . .
I agree we will need it for a long, where a "long time" is the amount of time it takes to replace nearly all HVAC equipment now in use. That's about 30 years. A little more for some large installations such as factories. After that we will not need it. Maintaining it would be like maintaining the coaling stations used by the U.S. Navy after every ship in the fleet was oil-fired. It would be like maintaining the full long-distance US passenger train network circa 1900, with hundreds of empty trains running every day, like ghosts. Unless you limit those going off the grid to no more than 2 or 3 % per year > and charge them the grid fees maintenance fees for that privileged, there > is no way governments will allow mass movement off any of the supply and / > or waste disposal grids. The government will have no choice in this matter. People will abandon the network. Perhaps for some number of years the government will be able to compel them to contribute to the network cost even though they are not using it. This might be a good idea. But after a while people will be fed up with that and they will demand the surtax be ended. Since Australia is a democracy the government will be compelled to bend to the will of consumers. People will sometimes allow governments to trample on the rights even in democratic nations, but they will not allow governments to take thousands of dollars away from them every year to give to private corporations for no reason, to maintain a useless, abandoned, rusting infrastructure. Gas stations and power lines will vanish as surely as sailing ships and steam locomotives did in the past. This will take many years, obviously. - Jed
