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The Bullroarer - Monday 16th June 2008
Posted by Phil Hart on June 15, 2008 - 8:25pm in The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand
TRAIN, tram and bus passengers would never have to wait more than 10 minutes between services under an ambitious proposal put forward by a public transport lobby group. The Public Transport Users Association yesterday launched its Every Ten Minutes To Everywhere campaign at a forum on transport and climate change at Melbourne Town Hall. If the Government was serious about reducing car use in Victoria, it had to make public transport a feasible option for many more people, PTUA president Daniel Bowen said.
You're going to need to raise the level of the debate Kevin, cause you're not going to win it this way:
The Australian: Cut fuel prices Kevin, voters say
VOTERS are overwhelmingly unhappy with Kevin Rudd's handling of soaring fuel prices and reject his plan to deal with the problem, a new poll has shown. A Nielsen poll reported in today's Fairfax papers has found more the three-quarters of voters want the Federal Government to intervene to bring down the cost of filling up. And in worrying news for the Prime Minister, most of those back Brendan Nelson's call for a cut in excise over Mr Rudd's national FuelWatch scheme.
Practical measures?
The Age: Rudd welcomes Saudi plan to boost oil output
A spokeswoman for Mr Rudd said: "Calling on OPEC nations to increase the supply of oil is one of several practical measures the Government is taking to help motorists deal with the rising costs of petrol.
SMH: Homes stuck on road to nowhere
THREE out of every 10 new households in Sydney to 2013 will be vulnerable to rising petrol prices because the State Government has failed to overturn car dependency in western suburbs, a university study has found. Rising petrol and inflation costs are putting large areas of outer western Sydney at risk of social isolation, according to a report by Griffith University. The study, Planned Household Risk: Mortgage and Oil Vulnerability in Australian Cities, found the divide between eastern and western Sydney was deepening when it comes to reliable and efficient public transport.
SMH: Australian breakthrough snapped up - by eager Americans
FORMER Sydney University professor Dr David Mills couldn't find funding for his giant solar power plants in Australia, but US investors had no qualms wagering at least $40 million on the idea.
Dr Mills' first factory for the mass production of "solar parks" will open in Las Vegas later this month. It hosted a gaggle of interested Australian politicians last night in Nevada, including the NSW Environment Minister, Verity Firth.
The power plants, conceived in Dr Mills's Sydney University lab, will reflect sunlight with mirrors to boil water and use the steam to spin turbines, generating electricity for a price not much higher than that of a coal-burning power station.
But, unlike some solar power systems, they can function when the sun isn't shining by storing heat in insulated chambers for a rainy day, and continue steadily feeding power into the grid.
SMH: They build a suburb, then find the buses don't fit
IF YOU think petrol prices are hurting, spare a thought for the residents of Glenmore Park, who live in one of Sydney's transport black holes.
Glenmore Park, opened in 1990, was designed without consideration for public transport, an urban planning expert says. The bus company serving the area says it is difficult to manoeuvre around, and residents say buses are infrequent and unreliable.
SMH: When is a bike not a bike? When it's electric
THEY might look like a solution to the rising oil price and global warming, but a court ruling has found some motorised bicycles cannot be legally used on NSW roads - even though the Roads and Traffic Authority previously advised owners they could. As many as 10,000 such bikes, known as E-bikes, may have been sold in NSW on the basis that they did not require registration, and all users had to do was wear a helmet and obey the road rules. The law specifies that "pedal cycles" with "one or more auxiliary propulsion motors" up to 200 watts do not require registration.
Sunday feature article in The Age: Driving towards a changing world
THE oil shock is threatening to change the way Melburnians live, move and spend. Five years ago, a litre of unleaded petrol was hovering at about 80 cents, as oil on the world market broke the $US50-a-barrel barrier. Even then, the rise was cause for alarm.
Now, unleaded petrol is tipped to reach $2 a litre as world oil prices continue to rise. One overseas investment bank says the price could reach $US200 a barrel in the next two years, while others predict a slide back to about $US100. Either way, the fuel price is beginning to influence everything we do and the changes seem likely to be permanent.
Stuff.co.nz: Petrol price inquiry 'a cynical exercise'
LATEST: The Government's inquiry into petrol pricing is a cynical move that would not make a difference to prices, National Party energy spokesman Gerry Brownlee says.
SMH: Macquarie Park rail links don't add up
A GOVERNMENT plan to make Macquarie Park the fourth-largest CBD in Australia, behind Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, may be undermined by the NSW cabinet's decision to dump the North West Rail Link.
The Age: Orang-utan plea fails to move panel on palm oil
A WILDLIFE campaigners' bid to force food manufacturers to list palm oil on product labels has been rejected by federal authorities. The campaigners blame the expansion of palm oil plantations across Indonesia and Malaysia for rainforest destruction that is pushing orang-utans towards extinction.
Asian fuel subsidies are pushing petrol higher, govt says
Asian countries will be pressured to remove fuel subsidies that "distort" the demand for petrol and push up prices, the federal government says. The Rudd government argues subsidies and price caps prescribed by Asian countries to promote development are artificially inflating prices across the region.
Stop selling our oil so cheap!
The Age: WA feeling the heat from gas crisis
WESTERN Australia's gas crisis will hit the market hard this week as high energy costs force some businesses to shut down and lay off workers.
The WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry has estimated 14% of 83 companies it has surveyed may shut down or will be shutting down soon.
Apache Energy says it will be two months before partial gas supply is resumed from its Varanus Island gas plant, where a June 3 explosion cut off one-third of the state's domestic gas supply.
SMH: Good news month for car-share schemes
WITH petrol prices soaring and public transport overcrowded and unreliable, an increasing number of people are sharing the burden of owning a car.
Charter Drive, a car-sharing operator that enables one car to be used by up to 10 people, is experiencing growth in membership as people try to reduce expenses.
ABC: Hydrogen forum brings hope to energy industry
Scientists hope an international forum on hydrogen starting in Brisbane today will lead to breakthroughs in energy technology.
Yes, a talk-fest is just as likely to deliver a hydrogen breakthrough as anything else. (Sorry, I'm in a cynical mood today)
Desperate motorists driven to steal petrol
SKYROCKETING fuel prices have triggered a growing spate of "drive-offs" from service stations across NSW, prompting authorities to consider tougher measures to battle the petrol pump war.
NZ Herald: What can the Government do to regulate the fuel industry?
Oil companies will have their pricing structures scrutinised by a Government-ordered inquiry. Commerce Minister Lianne Dalziel says she was looking forward to the oil industry explaining to the public, through the inquiry, "why it takes so long for price decreases in crude oil to come through to the New Zealand petrol pump and why it is so quick to get the price increases through".
Stuff.co.nz: Running out of energy
It is not easy to imagine Energy Minister David Parker attempting a rain dance, but he could be forgiven for a little jig at the prospect of the country finally living up to its pluvial reputation.
News that rain has been falling in the headwaters of the rivers that feed the southern hydro lakes must have been greeted warmly. While Parker has displayed a remarkably good poker face in recent weeks as the Clayton's electricity crisis (the crisis when you're not having a crisis) unfolded, he and the Cabinet must have been close to panic.
Scoop.co.nz: What happens when the lakes run dry next year?
What happens when the lakes run dry next year and the year after?
New Zealand’s electricity consumers have again been left vulnerable by the failure to ensure this country has adequate long term energy supplies, Sustainable Electricity Association New Zealand said today. The launch of yet another winter power saving campaign tonight should be a wake-up call for this country’s electricity policy makers, said SEANZ Chairman Brendan Winitana.
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Krudd could point out that Asia's fuel subsidies are essentially a form of negative excise. Thus a subsidy cut is in effect an excise increase. By not cutting excise Australia and Asia are going the same way. However I would add the sweetener that a chunk of excise revenue will hence be dedicated to public transport and the like. I'd also bring a 'no frills' carbon trading scheme forward to July 1 2009 so people can see where it is all going ie petrol, electricity, gas.
Not sure if frequency is the key to luring people to buses, more like finding the optimum times.
While Ausra's solar thermal with overnight storage may appear to be modestly priced I believe it will require 100% standby generation by other means. The real cost must allow for that.
Somebody has to defend solar thermal in Gav's abscence..
Any single power plant has to be redundant.. ie you can lose capacity from any one plant (or several) and still be able to maintain surplus generating capacity.
Once we have a large collection of solar thermal with storage, we'll have a nice base capacity that can quickly adjust output to match demand. In the event of a really long, widespread cloudy period, we'll just fire up one of those dirty old coal fired power stations again for a few days. Eventually we'll get to a point where we don't even need that.
I really can't see why it's so difficult. One half of solar thermal is large scale manufacturing of mirrors and steel structures. The other half is steam turbines which the power industry already knows and is well equiped to do. They don't care whether the steam was generated in a coal fired boiler or a concentrating mirror array.
This is how I'd cost it;
case 1 - overbuild the CSP to cover the average load most of the time. Then you have the financing cost of the extra plants which are underused.
case 2 - there are no problems meeting the average load and dispatchable power can be turned off or throttled back. Not so bad.
case 3 - the average load is increasing but there is just one CSP plant. In that case new dispatchable power is needed to cover the rainy week.
So I only think case 2 will suit CSP. Put it this way I wouldn't want to be in hospital connected to a machine that goes 'beep' if CSP was the main power source.
BTW in SW Tas today there was fog til 3pm when it lifted and the temp hit 4.2C. My PV meter recorded just 1.2 kwh; I'm normally looking for 6-10 kwh. Thank heavens for firewood heating.
Although I'm somewhat sceptical about the smooth transition to renewables for electricity, I am none the less rooting for them (in the American context of course). The gen sets themselves are standard equipment so some cost saving could be made if we married up CSP with gas turbines. Waste heat from the gas could be recovered and potetially stored in the same storage as the CSP uses.
I can see this sort of hybrid power station being a much less operational risk and have more up time than a pure CSP.
It's a pity B&B Power is in the shit as this is something those cowboys might just have jumped at.
Still doesn't solve transport problems though as Get Up is asking the pollies to solve.
I'd grossly overbuild CSP. The excess, unused capacity can be used to generate Ammonia (or even Hydrogen if you felt like throwing money away) that we could then export to nearby countries so they can keep the lights on.
With New Zealand in a huge drought, and somewhat further south than prime Solar areas in Australia, sending them Anhydrous Ammonia to burn in their power plants instead of resorting to Fossil Fuels sounds like a good idea to me.
Should the worst happen and 'cloud covers all of NSW for weeks on end' (to use an opponents hyperbole), the generation being used to create Ammonia can be moved into sending the electricity into The Grid.
I've been having a huge argument on another forum on just this subject. The other side of the 'debate' continues to claim that distibuted (which our current generation scheme already is) CSP is vulnerable to local weather intermittencies. His logic escapes me.
Hi again Boof,
Kevin Rudd should should hold his nerve, if Nelson's 5 cent tax cut is such a good idea, why didn't he and his Liberal colleagues introduce it in the past 11years? Same reason Rudd shouldn't introduce it.
Would agree that carbon trading should be brought forward and especially applied to petrol ASAP, its one area where people can quickly cut back by either driving less, or changing to a more fuel-efficient car( even an older model). Harder to replace energy used for commercial transport, manufacturing, cooking, except perhaps go on a diet!
Electricity is so cheap considering what it can do, taxing the carbon used in production isn't going to reduce use very much,except really wasteful applications such as electric resistance room heating, over-the -top Christmas lights, etc.
As well as a national carbon cap I think electricity retailers should employ Carbon Cops. They should assess a fair use quota for each household and penalise excess. For example allow air conditioning for frail seniors but make no allowance for hair dryers, Christmas lights, jacuzzis etc.
Carbon cops, eh? Have you been playing the climate challenge game, too? I'd never heard of the idea until that.
I suppose if we can have Water Patrols, why not. I had some bloke wander through my front garden the other day poking around among the bushes, I think he was looking for drip feed hoses. Yeah, because those waste megalitres. Here's me in a three-person household on 120lt/day and some dickhead is poking among my bushes. Brilliant. It should be based on how much you use, not what for. It makes no difference to reservoir levels whether I have ten minute showers using 100lt of water and have no garden, or four minute showers using 40lt and put 60lt on my garden. What matters is that I used 100lt.
Likewise, with carbon emissions. What matters is how much we emit, whether our emissions come from Christmas lights or driving a Hummer or heating for our poor old Gran is irrelevant to the world's climate. What matters is how much we emit.
Rather than prohibiting this or that kind of carbon (or water) use, it's much simpler and fairer to have a tax. Just tax fossil fuels and timber/paper products the moment they come into contact with the economy, whether dug up here, imported or whatever. Like any other taxes and charges, give a rebate for the lower income part of society - pensioners already pay half as much for gas in winter, and half as much for water year round. Direct the revenue raised into renewable energy, mass transit, reforestation and the like.
Boof,
I can't agree that one source of carbon should be singled out, that's the idea of a carbon cap, you can choose the most efficient source of energy based on which releases less carbon. In time electricity will become a low carbon source as more wind and solar displaces increasingly expensive(due to the carbon cap) coal. Natural gas may still be needed for peak electricity back-up in winter. If you impose an electricity cap, this will encourage more NG use for heating all winter, rather than using electricity for running heat pumps.
Re: "three-quarters of voters want the Federal Government to intervene to bring down the cost of filling up".
My initial thought about this survey was that Peak Oilers would be amongst the 20% of the respondents not demanding that the government "do something". However, the ABC's "7:30 Report" made me muse about this when they interviewed Kevin Rudd this evening.
The interviewer, Kerry O'Brien, to his great credit painted a clear picture of the effect of Peak Oil on petrol prices and invited Kevin Rudd to admit that prices are likely to keep on rising (although allowing for the odd market step back.) Rudd simply wouldn't bite, and stated that "no one knows" the direction of petrol prices. (This is sounding like the standard Government response now, Finance Minister Tanner also used it recently. Sigh!)
However, O'Brien's later questions surprised me. He seemed to be arguing that if oil prices are due to inexorably increase, then the Government should drop the fuel excise. So O'Brien seems to be both PO aware, and in favour of lower prices?
Personally, I'd always thought that *higher* taxes on fuel would be desirable from the PO point of view, because they stimulate faster adoption of alternatives and conserve the resource. But does anyone out there think that eliminating the excise would have some merit from a PO point of view?
It is hard to imagine any politician arguing for an increas in petrol taxes. We are about to see the political debate on whether to leave petrol out of carbon trading so I guess you'll get an answer then.
If they did cut the excise it would have the effect of exposing the public to full market forces and would release the government from the eternal whinge about how high fuel prices are due to the taxes. This may actually have the effect of short term relief but longer term volattility faster than it might have occurred.
I could support a cut or elimination of excise from petrol if there was a general education campaign and then a plebiscite of the people to decide what should happen. My guess is that the poulation would see why cutting it is not a good idea and would vote no. That process would galvanise the peak oil issue in the public realm if people had to vote on it. I find most people mouth off a fiar bit, but if they have to vote on something they will generally make an effort to learn something about it. And becasue we have compulsory voting, the vast majority of Australians would at least have to think baout the isse. If teh yes vote (abolish excise) was carried then we would have nobody to blame but oursleves when the ELM effects come knocking at our door.
I'm just speaking from personal experience, but out of everybody I have tried to educate about PO in my circle of family and friends, I have only had one success story. Everybody else (including my geologist father-in-law) has laughed it off as the latest Y2K conspiracy theory.
So I am not very optimistic about the general public's ability to suddenly "get it"... at least not until the rationing kicks in.
My 2 bits.
I believe that when the ETS comes in, excise will be abolished. So bring it on, I say!
I doubt it. Maybe 15 years ago, but today, Australians will almost always vote with their wallet. Cheaper petrol must be good, right?
"...three-quarters of voters want the Federal Government to intervene to bring down the cost of filling up"
Well that includes me. But the type of intervention I want to see is that which assists and encourages consumers to use less fuel. I want to see pamphlets in every letter box with fuel-saving tips. I want see ads on TV encouraging ways to reduce your car usage. I want to governments spend *more* on public transport then they do on roads, rather than far far less as is currently the case. And I want to see the excise reindexed to the CPI, so that fuel costs increase steadily.
All of those things will do far more to reduce the cost of filling up than FuelWatch schemes or excise cuts.
The transcript of Rudd's interview is now up (just the first bit quoted below, it gets even more convoluted later on)...
I'm of the opinion that the only solution to high fuel prices is higher fuel prices. Kill demand so much that people stop using it to haul their ever-increasing arses around in three metric tonne vehicles.