Andrew Bolt: Anthony Albanese’s batteries plan would have working poor subsidising Teals-voting rich

Anthony Albanese’s new promise to give you $4000 to buy a battery to store power from solar panels will effectively make the working poor subsidise the batteries of the Teals-voting rich.

Global warming makes politicians go mad. Take Labor’s new promise to give you $4000 to buy a battery to store power from your solar panels.

“This is good for power bills and good for the environment,” burbled Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday.

To scare you even more, there are reports the Coalition may promise something similar.

Spare us. Let’s do what global warming believers hate, and work out the cost.

Albanese promises to spend $2.3 billion on these $4000 grants. Tap, tap, tap: that works out to helping 575,000 households.

But Australia has 11 million private dwellings, plus many private businesses which also qualify.

If this scheme was rolled out to every dwelling, not just a lucky few, it would cost a stunning $44 billion, just for batteries to store electricity and not to create it.

Sadly, that’s not all.

These grants cover less than a third of the cost of a home-system battery. You must pay the rest – around $9300.

If every owner of every dwelling coughed up for Albanese’s new deal it would cost $44bn. Picture: NewsWire

Who has that kind of money? Albanese’s grant will effectively make the poor subsidise the batteries of the Teals-voting rich.

But say every owner of every dwelling did cough up that cash. Tap, tap, tap – house owners would then pay $102 billion on top of that $44 billion from government, paid for by all taxpayers.

That’s crazy. That’s enough to buy about eight nuclear reactors from South Korea, at the price of the four it built for the United Arab Emirates. And nuclear generators mean extra electricity for everyone, rich and poor, in mansions or in flats.

Even better, nuclear power plants last four times longer than the solar panels on your roof.

These batteries don’t solve our power crisis. They’re a costly distraction.

No, no, says the Prime Minister – batteries will save you up to $1000 a year from your power bills!

Calculator says: “Careful!” It would take you at least nine years just to cover the cost of your new battery, even with Albanese’s grant. If you move homes before then, you probably lose.

Lastly, a PS. Albanese added this would be “good for the environment”,

But mining lithium and making lithium batteries takes vast amounts of water and electricity and creates huge emissions.

Disposing of spent batteries is an environmental nightmare.

And it’s all for nothing. Australia is too small to make any noticeable change to the climate.

To save our power system, batteries are not included.

Originally published as Andrew Bolt: Anthony Albanese’s batteries plan would have working poor subsidising Teals-voting rich