George Monbiot is Right/Wrong

EricMears

Cardew wrote: »

This whole section of MSE is dominated by a 'cabal' of PV owners

A strange choice of phrase !

From the OED ( see Link )

Cabal

A secret or private intrigue of a sinister character formed by a small body of persons.

A secret or private meeting, esp. of intriguers or of a faction. (arch. or Obs).

A small body of persons engaged in secret or private machination or intrigue; a junto, clique, côterie, party, faction

A strange choice of phrase !

I've never made any secret of owning a set of Solar Panels.

But I've never been invited to join the secret group that Cardew describes and indeed I find it hard to understand how he knows about it (when he claims not to be eligible for membership) when I don't.

If there is such a group, then perhaps the group secretary would consider inviting me to join ?


Just how many members called 'Cardew do we have ? Only this morning one of 'them posted this comment :-

Originally Posted by Cardew
. . . why get into a meaningless discussion other than to obfuscate.

Presumably the cabal investigator is a completely different person who just happens to share the same name ?

zeupater

Cardew wrote: »

1. You need to look at your post #19 again. The reason for my intervention was the 'justification' of PV FIT on the grounds that the 'poor' in rented council houses gained. This was my question:

"A question! Do you consider the fitting of PV to social projects and council tenants justifies the FIT scheme?".

When you turned the question round, I further stated:

"No idea, I suspect a very small proportion of the total number of installations. The great majority being owners of the installation or Rent a Roof companies."

2. To try and move the goal posts in your post above and include those houseowners(not tenants) who have had RAR installations as ‘poor’ is ludicrous.

In any case the question posed was about PV on rented council accomodation, not your definition of poor house owners. So your figures are just a nonsense.

3. I have never linked RAR installations to social housing.RAR companies only installed on privately owned houses - for the 25 year lease- albeit there doubtless will be some of those houses let.

4. I had read the link about 24% of properties 'assumed' to be aggregator. However the definition of 'aggregator' was given as an organisation owning 25 PV installations.



5. So my reading of the paper is that 76% are private owner schemes and the 24% aggregator will include all the RAR companies who have installed on privately owned properties and councils/housing associations who have installed on their rented properties.

6. So I stand by my statements that the great majority of PV installations are on an owned house and a small proportion on rented properties.

P.S. You gave the link - but it is a year out of date.

Hi Cardew

Are you sure that you've not been trained to be an opposition politician - plenty of opposition but no policy ....

Firstly, the debate is related to the Monbiot article which is continually referenced. The article doesn't concentrate on council houses, or any other form of tenure - it simply divides 'rich' from 'poor' and this has been the thrust of your own viewpoint in numerous posts. However, as each of the elements which are argued based on the article are deconstructed and shown to be outdated and largely erroneous, the debated position moves more towards a more semantic representation than both the article and original debating position could support .... I, and probably numerous others, simply see this approach as a desperate exercise to 'save face'.

Addressing the above-referenced post ...

I take it that the 'social projects' you raise are the 403 mentioned in Monbiot's article, which both yourself and he took as relating to community projects benefiting 'the poor', but, looking into the source data, look to be schemes which benefit the community such as village halls, community centres and churches ... as for the 'small proportion' referred to, this has been quantified by two forum members by referencing two completely different information sources, however this seems to have been, conveniently, overlooked ...

Point 2 has been partially covered in the above. There are two supporting positions referencing reports and associated data. Opposition simply for the sake of opposition with absolutely no intent to forward a supported viewpoint is not generally accepted as being the way to win support in a debate ... The reasoning behind my particular analysis was contained in the original post, as were caveats around the definition of wealth ....

Point 3. - The viewpoint held relating to pv seems to not take consideration of whichever form of installation ownership is being discussed- rich, poor, social, owned, RAR or whatever .... evidenced by your own recent post ...

" ... These council installations do nothing to counter the fundamental objections to the FIT scheme, namely that all electricity consumers pay for a subsidy to fund the FIT pot.

That the FIT money goes to a Council, instead of Rent-a-Roof companies or home owners is of little consolation to the OAP in a flat(rented or owned) ..." (http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=59819875&postcount=69)

... I do note that the post included the usual 'get-out-of-jail' clause by adding ".. in another council area.", however, that's really down to the individual councils to address on behalf of their own tenants, with people in the more astute LA areas gaining, and those within areas represented by officials having more ideological opposition to the scheme losing out, the solution obviously being tilted more towards a change in representation than a move of masses of OAPs to a different area - the clause therefore being moot.

Point 4. - yes there is a definition for the aggregator in the report ... the point being ??? .... From a logical point of view, almost anyone operating schemes which own >25 installations would likely be operating within either the corporate or social sector and will normally be providing systems to those without the financial ability to purchase their own systems ... which follows on to Point 5, which simply confirms the point raised. However, the reasoning for the analysis has been overlooked, that being ~65% of properties are 'owner-occupied' which on an asset based simplified split of the national housing stock would likely provide a decent representation of Monbiot's 'rich', which is directly comparable to the analysis which shows that 76% of pv installations are owned by the householder.

Point 6 therefore becomes irrelevant .... whatever the financial status of particular households actually is we see that the 65% of the housing stock which is owner-occupied, the 'asset-rich', own 76% of the pv installations registered under the FiT scheme. As can be seen, with the majority of the housing stock being owner occupied, even if every household within the UK had a pv system, it would follow that the majority of pv installations would be on owner-occupied properties and it's this point which supports the irrelevance of the point ... the figures actually describe a position more akin to equilibrium than disparity ...

As for the link given, it may be a year out-of-date, but it is the latest official government report which addresses information which is relevant to the discussion .... being a current & official report therefore makes it more relevant than an article in a newspaper which is itself designed to support a viewpoint formulated at least as far back as March 2010 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/01/solar-panel-feed-in-tariff), the content of which could so be easily deconstructed with the assistance of three years of hindsight ....

HTH
Z

spgsc531

Cardew wrote: »

I have no idea of the percentage; but have stated that "I suspect a very small proportion of the total number of installations. The great majority being owners of the installation or Rent a Roof companies."

Now you know full well I am correct in that statement, or you would prove me wrong - as would you know who!!

Do you really need to stoop to such semantic nonsense to curry favour with the clique.

So would you disagree with small proportion or not?

Oh dear cardew.

In my Council borough area there are 1562 domestic registered solar installations receiving FiT, according to OFGEM.

562 of them are Council properties, as I posted not so long ago.

I don't see any reason not to assume that those numbers are typical of many if not all borough areas in the Country.

Martyn1981

Cardew wrote: »

Lastly, I am not in the slightest bit interested in you 'understanding' my position on renewables.

No probs, never expected you to answer.

Mart.

PS Do you think it's just the two of us that know why you mustn't ever answer that question? :lipsrseal M.

Cardew

zeupater wrote: »

Hi Cardew

Are you sure that you've not been trained to be an opposition politician - plenty of opposition but no policy ....


HTH
Z

Hi Z,

Please read my post #36 again - slowly.

You asked the question about the percentage of rented properties with PV.

I see absolutely no relevance to that question in the rest of your post.

C

Cardew

spgsc531 wrote: »

Oh dear cardew.

In my Council borough area there are 1562 domestic registered solar installations receiving FiT, according to OFGEM.

562 of them are Council properties, as I posted not so long ago.

I don't see any reason not to assume that those numbers are typical of many if not all borough areas in the Country.

Really!

So that means 36% are council properties.(35.979% in case your red pen appears!)

The DECC link to which Zeupater and I referred shows that 76% of systems are owned by private householders. 24% are aggregator owned properties, and in that 24% are the installations fitted and owned by the Rent a Roof companies - who only fit to privately owned houses whose owners are prepared to sign a 25 year 'lease' on their properties.

One RAR company alone has installed over 18,000 PV systems.

It is not surprising why you cannot see why your 36% figure is not typical - it is in keeping with your lack of understanding of the subject.

You are far better reverting to your Modus operandi of snide remarks about other posters(including zeupater), posting information is not your strong point.

P.S. Congratulations - Martyn is now back to 'thanking' you so you must be forgiven; your logic will appeal to him.

Cardew

EricMears wrote: »

A strange choice of phrase !




A strange choice of phrase !

I've never made any secret of owning a set of Solar Panels.

But I've never been invited to join the secret group that Cardew describes and indeed I find it hard to understand how he knows about it (when he claims not to be eligible for membership) when I don't.

If there is such a group, then perhaps the group secretary would consider inviting me to join ?


Just how many members called 'Cardew do we have ? Only this morning one of 'them posted this comment :-


Presumably the cabal investigator is a completely different person who just happens to share the same name ?

Hi,
There is a certain irony in you complaining about obfuscation and then launching into a semantic discussion on the definition of 'cabal':cool:

How about this for a definition:

A cabal is a group of people united in some close design together, usually to promote their private views or interests in a church, state, or other community, often by intrigue. Cabals are sometimes secret societies composed of a few designing persons, and at other times are manifestations of emergent behavior in society or governance on the part of a community of persons who have well established public affiliation or kinship.

spgsc531

Cardew wrote: »

Really!

So that means 36% are council properties.(35.979% in case your red pen appears!)

The DECC link to which Zeupater and I referred shows that 76% of systems are owned by private householders. 24%(1) are aggregator owned properties, and in that 24% are the installations fitted and owned by the Rent a Roof companies - who only fit to privately owned houses whose owners are prepared to sign a 25 year 'lease' on their properties.

One RAR company alone has installed over 18,000 PV systems.

It is not surprising why you cannot see why your 36% figure is not typical - it is in keeping with your lack of understanding of the subject.(2)

You are far better reverting to your Modus operandi of snide remarks(3) about other posters(including zeupater), posting information is not your strong point.

P.S. Congratulations - Martyn is now back to 'thanking' you so you must be forgiven; your logic will appeal to him.

(1) The report states, as did Zeupater that 24% are assumed to be owned by aggregators.
(2) The report states 'at the end of 2011'. My numbers are as now, my borough may not be typical who knows. But clearly your

Cardew wrote: »

I have no idea of the percentage; but have stated that "I suspect a very small proportion of the total number of installations. The great majority being owners of the installation or Rent a Roof companies."

Cardew wrote: »

Now you know full well I am correct in that statement, or you would prove me wrong - as would you know who!!

Do you really need to stoop to such semantic nonsense to curry favour with the clique.

So would you disagree with small proportion or not?

was completely wrong.

(3)

Cardew wrote: »

This whole section of MSE is dominated by a 'cabal' of PV owners who attempt to justify PV and FIT simply because they have a system on their roof.

This is an internet discussion forum, and it is perfectly valid to present an opposing view. Namely that PV has severe limitations and that FIT is iniquitous.

Much more your style.

zeupater

Cardew wrote: »

Hi Z,

Please read my post #36 again - slowly.

You asked the question about the percentage of rented properties with PV.

I see absolutely no relevance to that question in the rest of your post.

C

Hi Cardew

As you are well aware, he post you referenced relates to post #35 (not #36) and addresses that post on a point-for-point basis which was done to maintain both context and relevance, which is open for all to see ....

The entire exercise was designed to establish whether there was a correlation between the question of 'rich' vs 'poor' and the installation of 'householder owned' vs 'other domestic' pv installations in order to test your own statement ... "I suspect a very small proportion of the total number of installations. The great majority being owners of the installation or Rent a Roof companies.". At the onset the outcome was unknown, and I was pretty surprised at the level of correlation which the analysis suggested, but at least a conclusion was formed based on hard-data, which in my view is preferential to resorting to posting ... 'I have no idea' when a major and relevant question regarding a viewpoint is asked, before continuing to maintain that the very argument for which there is both no supporting evidence or even 'no idea' what the answer could possibly be ....

Arguing the 'anti' without any form of supporting evidence is an exceptionally weakened position to start, maintaining a debate without even attempting to provide alternate analysis weakens the position further, and, quite frankly, attempting to spin the point through attributing alternative meanings to what was actually written strikes me as being a form of desperation ....

From many years of direct experience, this is nothing like the methodology which I would expect from any engineer, on any subject, especially considering that engineering is a fact & evidence based discipline .... what view would any lecturer or employer develop about approaching a solution founded on ideological bias and semantic argument rather than science, evidence and logic.

HTH
Z

Cardew

zeupater wrote: »

Hi Cardew

As you are well aware, he post you referenced relates to post #35 (not #36) and addresses that post on a point-for-point basis which was done to maintain both context and relevance, which is open for all to see ....



Z

Hi,

Not so, I asked you to read post #36 of mine.

Hi Z Please read my post #36 again - slowly. You asked the question about the percentage of rented properties with PV.

I see absolutely no relevance to that question in the rest of your post.

You asked a question, now to divert the discussion you want to discuss something that is of no relevance to that question.

I suspect that is because you know I am correct in that it will a very small percentage of rented houses.

So why not discuss the question you asked?

We know that 76% are privately owned, so the rented properties are in the 24% that include the Rent A Roof privately owned houses.

Is that not some form of evidence?

So let us address your question.

While we are at it - what do you think of spcsg531's figures?