arena and cefc

There's a bit of interesting discussion going on over at CKK about these agencies and their relevance to geothermal drilling, in terms of
1) JV's between CKK and say PTR or KEN, or

2) CKK getting loans to expand rig fleets to allocate drills specifically to geothermal, perhaps by creating a green subsidiary as well as separate loans and grants to the geothermals to spend on drilling.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/hockey-pledges-to-revoke-energy-fund-loans-20111017-1ltec.html

Its as if the Hock has been listening to our discussion and just wanted to remind us how big of a risk his government is to growth in clean energy. Front page of the Sydney Morning Herald today:

'THE Coalition is warning investors in renewable energy not to count on money from the government's proposed $10 billion clean energy finance corporation, which it would abolish.'

'If there were legal obligations we would meet them but it would depend on the structure of any loans the fund had made … an at-call loan, for example, is revokable at any time,'' he said. ''We are warning people this is one of the things we will be repealing. They should not apply to or count on this entity for funding.''

'Announcing the appointment last week of a Reserve Bank board member, Jillian Broadbent, to advise on the design of the corporation, the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, said it was likely to make commercial loans, concessional loans and equity investments to close a 'market gap' in funding clean energy projects.'

'The clean energy finance corporation will be legislated next year and is due to start operating in 2013-14.'

To me it is just tragic what has happened to the carbon pricing debate in this country. Still, I think this policy will hold because the greens and sensible independents will be strong in the senate for a while yet. Shame the Coalition is wrecking the all important 'business certainty.'

Marmaduke, or anyone else, if you are interested maybe you have some insight or opinions into these agencies, the different types of loans and grants they will give, whether or not they would be available to service providers to geothermal like CKK and under what conditions (given they are also seeking work in oil and gas among other things)? Also whether a JV between a small drill rig company like CKK and Kuth or PTR would have any advantages (getting gov't support or otherwise).