The Great Feed-In Tariff Debate

George Monbiot recently laid into the concept of Feed-In Tariffs, which are designed to encourage micro-renewables, saying this had been a complete disaster in Germany, that it was a middle and upper class tax perk and that it was anyway the wrong end of the telescope because energy efficiency had to come first. See here for his vitriolic outburst.

He's right on the last point - that we need to get on with the energy efficiency work, but I think he's wrong on the others. Germany's Feed-In Tariff has been a great success and as a result the industry is now almost self-financing. I also don't see any other way to kickstart the renewables revolution when the cost of carbon pollution is so low.

See here for a good critique of Monbiot from Alan Simpson.