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The Bullroarer - Tuesday 1st July 2008
Posted by aeldric on July 1, 2008 - 1:59am in The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand
SMH - Petrol protest causes F3 chaos
Traffic delays on the F3 are easing as a protest involving a convoy of hundreds of trucks begins to disperse in Wahroonga.
Motorists travelling from the Central Coast experienced significant delays and heavy traffic this morning after hundreds of truck drivers protesting against rising petrol costs took over two lanes of the freeway between the Caltex service station at Warnervale and Wahroonga.
ABC - Truckies to consider fuel blockades
The Transport Workers Union says truck drivers may consider blockades in their campaign to recover costs from rising petrol prices.
The Australian - World economy near tipping point: BIS
THE global economy may be close to a "tipping point" that could see it enter a slowdown so severe that it transforms the current period of rising inflation into a period of falling prices, the Bank for International Settlements said today.
In its annual report, the central bank for central banks said the impact of rising food and energy prices on real disposable incomes, combined with the reduced ability of financial institutions to make loans and high household debt levels may lead to a slowdown in global growth that "could prove to be much greater and longer-lasting than would be required to keep inflation under control."
Stuff.co.nz - Air NZ rides out fuel storm
Air NZ's bean counters are running scenarios of jet fuel at US$200 a barrel, asking at what point you park aircraft on the ground.
The Age -= High petrol prices hitting outer suburbs
The price of an affordable house in the outer suburbs for some is having to spend more than they can afford on the soaring cost of fuel, experts say.
As petrol prices close in on $2 a litre, the mounting fuel bill has made the decision to live further from the central business district (CBD) a financially painful one for those that commute by car.
For those who made the switch from the inner city, revisiting that choice is now very difficult, given high interest rates, in some cases stagnant house prices and fierce competition for property close to the CBD.
National Business Review (NZ) - Ormat to build $60m geothermal plant for Contact Energy
Contact Energy has entered into agreements with Nevada-based geothermal power company Ormat to supply and build a 23.3 megawatt binary power station in Taupo for $60 million.
NZ Herald - State outlay on public transport grows 24pc
Government spending on public transport will swell by 24 per cent in the next 12 months, but not enough to satisfy Green Party warnings about rocketing oil prices.
Roads will still claim about 80 per cent of a national land transport programme of $2.432 billion for the 2008-09 financial year, announced at the Beehive last night. Land Transport NZ's overall budget is up 12.5 per cent to $2.7 billion, after counting $273 million allocated to the police for road patrols and related safety activities.
The Australian - West Australian battlers brace for 49pc utilities hike
WEST Australian families face a 49 per cent hike in household electricity, gas and water costs within five years, despite the state's booming economy.
The WA Council of Social Service said thousands of families were already struggling to cope with disconnected power and reduced water supplies after they failed to pay their bills, and the situation was set to worsen.
SMH - Greenpower talks up CSG potential in WA
Greenpower Energy Ltd says it has identified the potential for commercial coal seam gas production from the North Perth Basin in Western Australia.
The explorer has identified contingent resources of 1.63 TCF of gas hosted in 10 prospects located close to the Parmelia pipeline, which transports gas from the Perth Basin at Dongara to Perth and Pinjarra.
NZ Herald - Full text: Helen Clark's speech on the launch of KiwiRail
[.....]
With growing worldwide awareness of climate change and the need for our country to be more sustainable, and with the price of a barrel of oil reaching an historic US$142, many nations are looking at rail as a central component of their economic infrastructure - and so must New Zealand.
[.....]
NewsTalk ZB - Oil companies considering another price rise
A another petrol price hike is likely, with all the major oil companies reviewing their pump prices.
It will be revealed later this afternoon how much prices will increase by.
Stuff.co.nz - - Contact Energy ups power bills by 10.2%
Marlborough Contact Energy customers can expect bigger power bills from today.
Contact spokeswoman Anne-Marie Shepherd said the average residential power bill will rise by 10.2 percent.
Contact
- anz at theoildrum dot com
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More proof that some greenies live in a parallel universe and thereby are some of the best friends the coal industry ever had. Bobs Hawke and Brown have ridden in on their pushbikes for a 25 year celebration of the Franklin dam saga
http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,23950628-5006549,00.html
I suggest that with safeguards the dam would have been environmentally benign and may have prevented Tasmania's heavy reliance on coal power imports via the Basslink HVDC cable. In April imported coal power made up a third of the State's grid supply, up from zero prior to 2006. With some it's all about form and not substance.
Tasmania has had to import electricity in recent years because a drought has left its hydroelectric dams too low to generate all their needs.
Having an extra hydroelectric dam would not have helped them, any more than building more dams in Victoria would help us with the water shortage part of our drought. Just because you put out a bucket doesn't make it rain.
The nominal rating of Basslink is 500 MW
The Maximum output of the proposed Gordon below Franklin scheme was 180 MW.
Although it is sad that Tasmania is using all this brown coal fired electricity, the G b F dam would not be able to cover for the electricity use of Tasmanians.
Note that most of the water that would have been in this reservoir would have been derived from the much larger Gordon system upstream... so in Kiashus example it would be more like filling a cup from the bucket that caught the rain thus using it a second time... an incremental increase in power to be sure... but no panacea.
Capacity doesn't appear to be the issue. Like the situation in Victoria, building large monolithic concrete structures does not necessarily induce the rain gods to bless the vessel made to receive their bounty.
Moderns are amused at the efforts of say the Mayans with their pyramids and the high priests expounding the virtues of there "system" for maximising the harvest. Substitute "dam" and "engineer" above - they both look foolish when the rain don't fall as promised and the harvest fails.
Thx for this response but a couple of things need to be pointed out.
First the 440 MW Gordon dam is only half way along the length of the river. A number of lower tributaries such as the Franklin greatly add to its outfall volume.
Second Tas Hydro admitted before the big autumn dry that coal penetration on the 1 GW State grid was 13% which is 130 MW. The second dam might have covered that a lot of the time.
Third I suspect but can't prove that dam levels are markedly lowered in summer to chase NEM spot prices of around $1 per kwh ie so mainland city folks can enjoy air conditioned shopping malls. Absent carbon taxes they can reimport coal power at 3c per kwh, which is the alleged 24/7 price paid by the local zinc and aluminium smelters.
As it happens the rains have come back for now but it took a while. What happens when both the rains and coal run out?
Then we might have to worship Helios, Zephyr and Poseidon by erecting appropriate monoliths to them ;-) ;-)
We could also try harder to stop burning stuff and conserve...
Like it or not, we still live in something resembling a democracy, and yes "the public" can be a fickle beast, but not building the dam was (I think) the will of the majority in this Commonwealth. Revisiting this issue when the cost/benefit outcome seems equivocal is not really a useful pastime... a sentiment echoed in yesterdays Mercury.
Speaking of which... in a hint of how clueless the Hobart council seems to be on the oil and climate issues... The Mercury covered a redevelopment proposal of the foreshore including "Four-storey car park built under Domain and Cenotaph" the very day that a taste of things to come was happening just around the corner...
You forgot Hades (god of the underworld) !
And Demeter for that matter, for biogas advocates...
Boof,there is no way that Gordon below Franklin could have been built without drowning the Franklin Gorge.This was the whole point behind the resistance to it.
To some extent hydro is an environmentally friendly power generation method.Building dams,for whatever reason,has been largely discredited and for good reason.
OK let's have a 2 part rule then
1) no drowning of pretty scenery by dams and
2) no burning of fossil fuels to make up the shortfall.
Somehow 2) gets forgotten.
Thats a good pair of rules - I approve.
Somone should look at putting some run-of-river stuff in in Tassie - not as much as a dam (or a big tidal power project in Bass Strait) but still useful and clean power.
Someone posted the following link over in The Drumbeat
Oil imports fall as drivers change road behaviour
I posted in response
Thought I'd repost over here for comments.
I found and posted that the other day. Someone pointed out that our "petroleum" imports were all crude oil liquid products, not just petrol for cars, and that they were up and down normally anyway. Like someone decides to build a billion dollar highway and zap, the big bitumen order they place puts demand for "petroleum" up by 10% that month.
So the demand is all over the place. Just as with looking at oil peaking or the climate changing, we have to look at a trend over a few years to really get an idea of what's happening, month-to-month doesn't tell us anything.
You gotta feel sorry for the truckies eh! Will the state governments be strong enough to save them from bankruptcy.
It would mean passing legislation across the country overriding existing contracts either by making them null and void and allowing fresh negotiations or preferably by stating that in all existing contracts the fuel componment is deemed to be $1 per litre with the bottom line of all contracts then being raised monthly to take into account the rising cost of fuel...
Some mongre freight forwarders are taking extra money from the client for fuel and failing to pass it on to the subie truckie!!!