The Australian - Labor embraces wind power investment

THE Rudd Government's embrace of renewable energy is expected to usher in a second wave of investment in wind power, despite a two-year waiting list for turbines. Paul Curnow, a partner at law firm Baker & McKenzie, said the outlook was "very good", with investors who had been lying in wait since 2004 now ready to "bring all that potential to market".

The Government's national scheme will include a legislated target of 45,000 gigawatt hours of renewables-based electricity in 2020. This will ensure 20 per cent of Australia's electricity supply will be obtained from renewables by 2020. The Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 currently requires the generation of 9500 gigawatt hours of extra renewable electricity per year by 2010 -- enough power to meet the residential electricity needs of 4million people.

There are about 40 wind farms in Australia, and at a clean energy conference in Sydney later this month, delegates will be told by AGL Energy Ltd carbon and government affairs national manager Tim Nelson that this could turn into 250 over the next decade.

Mr Curnow expects the number to jump when the commonwealth and the states flesh out details relating to the target later this year. He noted that when the Howard government introduced its Mandatory Renewable Energy Target in 2001, there was a burst of investment which dried up when it was clear the government was not going to extend the scheme. "All the wind farms you see in Australia came out of that," Mr Curnow said.

SMH - Shell welcomes Kimberley hub proposal

Shell's executive director of gas and power Linda Cook has welcomed the Western Australian government's proposal for a single shared liquefied natural gas (LNG) hub in the state's environmentally pristine Kimberley region. Ms Cook told media at a conference in Perth that the Carpenter government's concept of a common user hub, to avoid ad hoc development of WA's LNG industry, was positive. Under the proposal, a single site will be selected for the processing of LNG extracted from the Browse Basin.

The Australian - Canberra to reject LNG hub

THE federal Government is set to reject Western Australia's plans to set up an independently operated, common user LNG hub in the Kimberley.

The Australian - BHP tips strong oil output growth

BHP Billiton Petroleum expects to lift its daily output by a compound 10 per cent a year for the next five years, according to chief executive Michael Yeager. In a presentation yesterday to the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association Conference in Perth tailored to meet the circumstances of BHP Billiton's proposed merger with Rio Tinto, Mr Yeager stressed that his division was the growth centre for the world's largest resources company. He said he was confident that by the end of the year BHPBP's production would be more than 10 per cent greater than in 2007, when the company was recording production at 123 million barrels of oil equivalent.

Scoop.co.nz - Parker: Wind energy in a sustainable New Zealand

Currently between 65 and 70 percent of our electricity is from renewable sources. Most of this is supplied from hydro generation, which varies depending on rainfall – while some comes from geothermal, and a small proportion from wind. The proportion of our electricity from renewable resources has been dropping since 1980, as coal and gas generation plants were built over the last 20 years have been used to higher capacity factors. We have now sent a clear signal to the electricity sector that the ship has to turn. We have enviable natural resources, and the economics of investment in renewables – particularly geothermal and wind – are already viable.

SMH - ASX eyes carbon trades in NZ

The Australian Securities Exchange wants the New Zealand government's emissions trading scheme linked to its Australian counterpart "at the earliest opportunity".

Adelaide Advertiser - Push for hot rock funding

GEOTHERMAL energy should get a 10 per cent share of the Federal Government's $500 million renewable energy fund to help drive its development, an industry body says. In its submission to the Garnaut Climate Change Review, the Australian Geothermal Energy Group said a $50 million share of the renewable energy fund would help the industry through its "proof-of-concept" stage.

The Australian - Rudd warns China on rising coal prices

KEVIN Rudd has warned China it must take the good with the bad on commodity prices and not to expect Australian intervention. As he prepared to travel to Beijing from London and huge coal and iron ore deals were about to be signed by Australian producers, the Prime Minister said sometimes China got good deals and other times Australian producers were better off. ...

Mr Rudd said China was obviously interested in a long-term demand for energy and resources. “We understand that, we are also operating in a free market and so there are some states in China that don't have access to energy and resources as market prices are regarded as too high,” he said. But he said when you look at Chinese-Australian contracts on LNG coming out of Western Australia into Guangdong in southern China those prices were only one thrid of the spot market price. “That's life in a commodities market. Our challenge is to make sure that it is conducted on market principles and in the overall framework of long term security of what's supplied, as we have over many decades with our friends in Japan,” he said.

The Australian - Coking coal price-spike 'temporary'

THE massive tripling in coking coal prices secured by Australian miners for 2008/09 is being called a temporary "spike" caused by the Queensland floods, and analysts are expecting prices to fall back significantly next year. However, 2009/10 prices are still likely to be around double last year's price, setting up the industry for several more years of windfall revenues.

The Australian - Coal group earmarks $1bn to clear east coast loading jam

THE world's largest coal-loading operation plans to boost its capacity by 65 per cent as part of a $1 billion expansion, in a vote of confidence in the resources boom continuing. Port Waratah Coal Services in Newcastle, north of Sydney, yesterday released details of the plan, to begin after 2010 and lift its coal exports over time to 140 million tonnes a year.

Upstream Online - Apache strikes at Julimar South-East

US independent Apache said it had logged 195 net feet of gas pay in its Julimar South-East-1 well on Western Australia’s North-West Shelf.

Upstream Online - Bacteria jab may give CBM a boost

Scientists at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) are investigating whether injecting coal seams with a mixture of certain kinds of bacteria and carbon dioxide can produce commercially viable quantities of coalbed methane gas.

SMH - Cost blow-out at Santos gas project

frogblog - What an odd title for an article