STCWA - Catch the bus? It could soon look like this

Giant "superbuses" could be making their way along Brisbane's streets as early as next year as part of the State Government's bid to improve the public transport system. Premier Anna Bligh first announced in March that the government would launch an international search for high-capacity superbuses as part of a plan to improve the carrying capacity of Brisbane's bus network. ... The superbuses will be able to carry up to 200 passengers, almost three times the capacity of our current buses, which is around 70.

STCWA - May Newsletter

frogblog - It’s not my fault

The Prime Minister is in this morning’s Press telling Colin Espiner that the government’s woes are not its own doing ... That’s all true to an extent, but you could equally argue that the Government ignored predictions that all those things were coming. Peak oil theorists have been suggesting for decades that at about this point in time oil prices would begin to spike dramatically as we entered the point where we had used up more than half the oil on the planet.

SMH - $19 a tonne: the price to pollute

AUSTRALIA finally has a price for carbon emissions. In a symbolic trade between two of Australia's oldest companies, carbon emissions have been given an initial price of $19 a tonne before the Federal Government's emissions trading scheme begins in 2010. When it begins, power users could be liable for nearly $12 billion in extra electricity costs a year.

SMH - Italian connection for trams

A LIGHT rail line running for 2.3 kilometres along Leichhardt's bustling cafe strip has been investigated by the State Government as part of a large-scale expansion of Sydney's light rail network. While cabinet deliberates on a $152 million light rail extension to Circular Quay and Summer Hill, the Herald can reveal the Government has examined the feasibility of the city's Little Italy becoming a light rail hub. More than half a century after the tram network was uprooted, an enlargement of light rail is firmly on the Government's agenda. But the Government has also received an internal recommendation that it build a separate light rail line to Leichhardt.

The Age - From the sea, the new generation that comes in waves

IT HAS been called Australia's first underwater wave farm. The power of the ocean, Bass Strait, to be precise, will be harnessed to provide electricity for 500 homes on King and Flinders islands, with Tasmania and Victoria to follow if all goes well. The two prototype units will be installed on the seabed near the two islands next year, following an agreement between Hydro Tasmania and Biopower Systems, the Sydney-based developer of the units.

ABC - Fish and chip oil fuels newlyweds' road trip

Two newlyweds have arrived in Brisbane on their eco-friendly four-wheel drive adventure using fish and chip oil instead of fuel.

UPI - Solar orders canceled across Australia

Australia's solar industry was hit by the repeal of homeowner rebates. Workers have been laid off and orders have been canceled following the federal government's decision to end rebates for home solar panels.

Business Spectator - Queensland Gas breaks production record

Queensland Gas Company says its daily production rate has hit a record of 105.2 terjoules across 100 wells, almost a 20 per cent increase on the previous record of 90 tj.

SMH - Rich pickings? Thieves strip olive trees

Thieves have stripped a NSW Hunter Valley olive grove of its fruit in an overnight raid, the latest of a series of such bizarre thefts. Quentin von Essen, who runs an olive grove in Lovedale, was alarmed to find that all but two of his 400 trees had been stripped of their olives earlier this month.

ABC - Premier leaves for NZ visit

The Tasmanian Premier is heading to New Zealand to examine the country's climate change projects. Paul Lennon will spend four days meeting New Zealand ministers and inspecting two geothermal power stations.

Peak Energy - Going Offshore In Deepest, Darkest Africa

The Australian reports that local oil company Beach Petroleum has won the right to explore for oil in Tanzania. I had a look at Tanzanian offshore oil (in the Indian Ocean) a few years ago in "Stand On Zanzibar" - Beach is going offshore in a different way though, into the waters of Lake Tanganyika, where oil seeps have been noticed over the years.

Peak Energy - Can You Feel Which Way The Wind Is Blowing ?

Peak Energy - Golden Shield: Keeping An Eye On China

Peak Energy - Steampunk: "As a subculture, we are not the spawn of Satan"