a paradigm shift coming to politician near you

Thanks Boot; I had seen the Canadian Tyrepower bigbox store approach to selling solar systems elsewhere but good bring it to mind.

The Tyrepower systems would likely be too small (being sold by pimply lads filling in from Tesco's on the weekend while paying for college and likely not being able to convince buyers to lash out big bucks for an appropriately sized system for a full house) for a VRB type battery.

I would push VRBs smaller (5-50kW) systems towards the small commercial sector (you know, Outback cattle stations, servos and small towns and inner-city airconditioning backups) rather than individual house holders.

The economics of underground coal gasification mated with an on-site generator got a lot better recently when the Papua New Guinea gas pipeline became a little more nebulous. The competition from the pipeline was always going to be one of the main competitors for the PCE plan.

Further out I see the conservative federal government coming over all green and clean in the next few months. The AEST and DEST (?) projects are due for next round announcements, the states are talking up carbon trading and GWB is going to have to eat huge amounts of humble pie to save his gas-guzzling presidency from destroying the Republican's chances of re-election for the next twenty years.

PCE has a lot of work ahead of it but the conditions are building for massive growth in the low-carbon energy sector. Underground coal gasification fits in between the very expensive solar/wind sectors and the high emission traditional coal sector. Increasing competition for natural gas (methane) in traditional uses will open the competitive position of syn-gas (CO-H2) for local use.

Go the Gas!