Impose a capital gains tax at the same rate as any other form of income. But. If you improve a buildings thermal performance to a specified level (5 star or whatever) then you get to keep your capital gain tax. Gee, watch those greedies run! Gee watch those greedies turn greenies!

Electrolysis is around 75-80% efficient. It is the conversion back from hydrogen to electricity that is the real problem for using hydrogen in cars and for storing electricity. Vehicle use also has the problem of low energy density, i.e. stored hydrogen is bulky. BJ has pointed out in a previous thread that hydrogen is tricky to work with, leading to metal embrittlement.

Trevor.

Also Hydrogen from electrolysis and as a medium for energy storage is a pipe dream right up their with flying cars and fusion reactors.

Its only when demand-side management isn’t enough that we should revert to pumped storage or similar electricity storage systems. (One that I have mentioned previously is the vanadium flow battery.)

Of course if we have enough renewable energy, we don’t need to store the excess at low demand periods. We can use it instead, to generate hydrogen by electrolysis for example. (NZ already manufactures hydrogen from natural gas for ammonia/urea production and for use in the oil refinery.)

Another option is to use the seasonal excess for aluminium production, and to cut back such production when the lakes get a bit low, thus using the aluminium as a storage system. Of course the MEUG would prefer us to avoid the low lakes so they don’t have to cut back production and can thus be more profitable. However they are profitable enough during the wet years.

I’m not sure it makes economic sense for NZ to import low-grade coal to burn in our North Island power stations to send power most of the length of the country to a smelter which takes imported bauxite and smelts it to become aluminium which we then export, along with the CO2 which we will have to pay for.

Trevor.

Here is a proposal: the government offers everyone (home owners and landlords) an interest free loan (up to a reasonable limit) to install energy conservation measures in their house (insulation, double glazing etc). This loan would not need to be repaid until the house is sold.

What do you think of the idea? When the house is sold, you would presumably be able to increase the selling price a bit because insulation etc would be viewed as a postive thing to have, so you probably wouldn’t be out of pocket once you repaid the loan. On the other hand, if you don’t sell the house for a long time, the loan will be so minimal (because of inflation), that you will have essentially got very cheap insulation.

The country as a whole will benefit from the saved energy (and the need to build less infrastructure etc), which will probably more than offset the interest costs if the government needed to borrow the money for the conservation measures. Furthermore, warmer houses will probably have a beneficial effect on peoples health. Finally, but not least, the enviornment will benefit.

Coal used to be used directly to heat houses. That was incredibly innefficient and smoggy so we switched to indirect use via coalfired power stations. Likwise farmers used windmills to pump water from wells into storage tanks. Then governments insisted on rural electrification so now they use electricity to pump water from wells “on-demand”.

For a change to renewable to work smoothly we need to change back to thinking about direct use. When we do this we discover new storage options. For instance heat from solar HVAC can be stored in concrete floors and wall for use when the sun isn’t shining.

To the limited extent that we do have to think electricity then farmers can use windmills for pumped storage micro-hydro. Possibly large industrial compexes, tall office buildings, hotels and apartment buildings could too. Houses are too sheltered.