SMH - Savings for public transport users

THE State Government is prepared to offer big discounts to users of public transport, along the lines of those flagged by Queensland for users of its newintegrated ticketing system.

Queensland plans to give commuters discounts of up to 67.5 per cent on some trips if they use its integrated ticketing Go Card. Every trip using the card will carry an automatic 20 per cent discount, rising to 35 per cent for longer trips. "As public transport usage continues to grow we will continue to look at other options to make it even easier for passengers to leave their car at home," a spokesman for the Transport Minister, John Watkins, said.

NZ Herald - Brian Rudman: Time to back up opposition with assurances and ideas

With the polls suggesting the National Party is sleep-walking its way into power, is it too much to ask the Government-in-waiting to come clean on how it plans to fund the electrification of Auckland rail?

Perth Now - Premier Alan Carpenter uses gas crisis to rally troops

PREMIER Alan Carpenter used WA's continuing gas shortages as a rallying call for delegates at the Labor Party conference.

Upgrading the crisis from the biggest challenge faced by the Labor Government in the past eight years to the biggest ordeal confronting the state in decades, Mr Carpenter put energy security at the top of the ALP's priorities heading into the coming election.

"The Varanus Island explosion and the loss of gas supplies brings into sharp focus the issue of security and sustainability," he said of the June 3 explosion at Apache Energy's Varanus Island gas production plant.

A lighter look, providing some useful definitions:
The Age - Why crude oil is an ungrateful commodity

Oil.
An extraordinarily ungrateful commodity - one of the worst. Didn't we invade Iraq on oil's behalf? And how did it repay us? By putting its price up, that's how. Sometimes having all the best weaponry just doesn't seem worth the bother.

Scoop.co.nz - Fonterra hits 15 per cent energy reduction target

Fonterra hits 15 per cent energy reduction target

Fonterra has achieved its second major energy efficiency milestone in five years, cutting the amount of energy used to manufacture its products by 15 percent since the 2002/03 season.

The reduction - which is equivalent to the total annual electricity use of around 100,000 households and will cut carbon emissions by about 230,000 tonnes per annum - comes just two years after the Company announced a 10 per cent reduction in its energy consumption per unit of output. The latest savings represent an additional 5 per cent.

And in our "Don't believe everything you hear on the radio" section:
Radio NZ - Prius found to use more fuel than SUV

The hybrid Toyota Prius car has been exposed as being less economical than a diesel SUV.

The Prius has been compared by a British motoring website with a Jeep Patriot and found to use half a litre more fuel per 100 kilometres than the SUV.

The reality can be found here. The article certainly argues that hybrids are hyped, and a good, economically-optimised diesel engine can put in a comparable performance. This was proved in the tests, which were very close, but the reality was that the Prius just snuck in ahead of the Patriot's engine, by 0.2 liters per 100 k. The Honda and Lexus hybrids did not do so well in their comparisons, so perhaps Radio NZ was thinking about one of these other hybrids.

Stuff.co.nz - Market warming to cheaper solar panels

THIS COUNTRY'S renewable energy sector could be approaching a tipping point as solar panels become affordable for homes and offices.

The involvement of large power companies is shaking up the sector and bringing down prices.

This week Elemental Energy, half- owned by giant power company Meridian Energy, will start leasing solar panels and micro wind turbines to its customers, allowing businesses to treat the cost as a tax deductible expense and considerably improving the technology's economic viability.

The Australian - Higher domestic air fuel surcharges

HIGH oil prices are continuing to force local airlines on to the back foot with rural passengers facing new fuel surcharges this week and Tiger Airways almost halving its Melbourne-Darwin services.

The moves are the latest in a series of cutbacks and fare increases to hit Australian travellers as airlines take action to offset the spiralling cost of oil.

They come as Virgin Blue is rumoured to be moving to delay aircraft deliveries as part of its strategy for coping with the oil price rises and softening domestic demand.

ABC - Truckies to stage F3 'go slow'

Hundreds of truck drivers will stage a 'go slow' day tomorrow on the F3, north of Sydney, to protest over wages, working conditions and rising fuel costs.

From 6:30am (AEDT), a convoy of truck drivers will travel at 60 kilometres an hour southbound on the highway from Wyong to Wahroonga.

The NSW Transport Workers Union says freight drivers are being forced into unsafe work practices to keep their businesses afloat.

It says some long-haul drivers are spending around $500 extra on fuel a day.

THe Australian - Climate change agenda heats up for Garnaut

TODAY is the unofficial start of the Government's July festival of climate-change policy. Professor Ross Garnaut opens the show today when he delivers the long-awaited draft report of his climate-change review to be issued publicly at the Canberra Press Club on Friday.

A day earlier, economist and Reserve Bank board member Warwick McKibbin will issue a paper questioning the effectiveness of the Kyoto model of national timetables and targets. McKibbin's model for a hybrid tax and trading scheme was dispatched in a speech given by Garnaut earlier this month, so the timing is curious.

Next week, climate change heads the agenda of the group of eight major economies (G8) meeting in Japan although oil prices may have something to say about that. And then we're back to Canberra for the release of the Government's climate-change green paper, over which Cabinet has been burning the midnight oil in the past few weeks.

News.com.au - Green electricity users face 'double bills'

GREENPOWER users will be double billed if changes to the new greenhouse gas reporting system are not made, says University of Adelaide climate change Professor Barry Brook.

This could cause the GreenPower national accreditation scheme to "implode" when an emissions trading scheme is introduced in 2010.

SMH - Iran threat to close oil strait

BEIRUT: The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards says Iran might shut oil lanes in the Persian Gulf if it were attacked by the United States or Israel.

NZ Herald - Jack Woodward: Fission trip wouldn't suit us

Faced with impending energy shortfalls and the need to reduce carbon emissions, many countries are looking again at the nuclear energy option.

Notwithstanding our plentiful renewable energy resources, some New Zealanders are keen for us to do the same. I believe the key issues of safety, nuclear waste management and nuclear proliferation will effectively rule out the adoption of nuclear energy here.