The Bullroarer - Thursday 10th July 2008

ABC - Energy and water users told to cut consumption

Victoria's biggest water and energy users will be required to come up with a plan to cut their consumption.

More than 250 sites across Victoria, including hospitals, shopping centres, the Melbourne Zoo and universities, will be affected.

Stuff.co.nz - The world they will inherit

When Hawke's Bay farmers Greg and Rachel Hart's eldest child, George, was born four years ago they began to think about the world he would inherit.

[.....]

"Our agricultural economy is based on digging up phosphate on the other side of the world with oil-driven machinery, taking it to a port, shipping it here, trucking it to the manufacturing plant, putting it back on a truck to bring it to the farm and flying it on to paddocks.

"It's totally unsustainable and will not work if you put expensive oil into the equation."

The future availability of phosphate fertilisers is also in doubt, Mr Hart says. "This is another finite resource which has taken millions of years to form and will have been used up in just a few generations unless we re-evaluate the way we are producing food.

"Business as usual is not an option," he says. "We have to change. We owe it to our children."

Otago Daily Times - Air NZ freezes salaries of top executives

National air carrier Air New Zealand Ltd says it is freezing the salaries of its most senior executives and reviewing its non-essential operations.

Pay increases for managers on individual contracts will be achieved through a headcount reduction or increased productivity, chief executive Rob Fyfe said in a statement.

Air New Zealand has 20 top executives in this country earning more than $250,000 each, with two earning over $800,000 and one on $1.6 million a year.

But they can earn more if they fire people. Tell me again why firing maintenance staff should earn a reward for management, I must have missed something there.

NZ Herald - Hunted fuel-pill peddler made same claim in NZ 16 years ago

A man who attracted more than $80 million from investors marketing a "fuel saving petrol pill" in Australia was referred to the New Zealand Commerce Commission for claims he made with a similar product 16 years ago.

Tim Johnston, 51, chairman of the company Firepower, which bought Australia's leading basketball team the Sydney Kings, is being sought by authorities.

It is suspected he is living an upmarket life in London.

News.com.au, Daily Telegraph - Servos caught holding back petrol on cheaper fuel nights

PETROL stations have been caught red handed holding back cheap fuel - forcing families to pay higher prices later in the weekly "discount" cycle.

Thousands of motorists have been lining up on Tuesday nights as bowsers suddenly appear "out of use" during the cheapest time of the week.

The Age - State admits transport strategy is a failure

THE 25-year blueprint for Victoria's overloaded road and public transport system — priced at $10.5 billion — has failed to develop key transport strategies, the State Government has conceded.

The admission about the 2006 Government transport strategy comes as Premier John Brumby oversees a new plan for the state's transport needs.

Stuff.co.nz, The Nelson Mail - Fuel thieves hit pumps and vehicles

Skyrocketing prices have caused fuel thefts to double in the Nelson region, and police are urging people to secure their supplies.

The Age - Vic could 'spearhead' low carbon economy

Victoria is well-placed to spearhead Australia's drive towards a low carbon economy, the federal government's chief climate change adviser says.

Speaking prior to a public forum to promote his draft report on tackling climate change, Professor Ross Garnaut said Australia and the world were facing major changes and challenges in reducing emissions.

But, he said, the states and cities best-placed to steer the global push towards low carbon economies were those with the skills and capacities in managing, financing and engineering the resources sector, with Melbourne and Victoria leading the way.

Farm Online, Stock & Land - Oil madness to only help wool

With synthetics being a competitor to some broader apparel wool, growers should take heart that record petrol prices are not all bad news.

AWI market intelligence chief economist, Paul Deane, says the wool to synthetic price ratio is presently at about 3.6:1 and the wool to cotton ratio is 4.8:1.

"Wool is currently looking more competitive from a price point of view," Mr Deane said.

SMH - Garnaut's diabolical tax problem

Ross Garnaut's ''diabolical problem'' will consume debate for some time to come. That the fine line can be trod, however, between needless destruction of wealth and the transformation to a sustainable economy is not out of the question.

When Garnaut said Australia had a diabolical problem he wasn't referring to rising sea levels or receding glaciers. Rather, it was the dilemma of needing to tax industry for carbon dioxide emissions when the emissions of this country alone can have no meaningful effect on the global problem of climate change.

ABC - Victorian Premier John Brumby says up to six solar energy plants could be built across Victoria.

A solar plant will be built in north-west Victoria, but Mr Brumby, who is in Bendigo today, says the region is well placed to have more.

ABC - Gas crisis to cost industry billions of dollars: CCI

A shortage of gas in Western Australia due to an explosion at Apache Energy's off-shore processing plant is predicted to cost industry more than $6 billion.

ABC - Power supply under threat

new report shows Victoria could experience electricity shortages under an Emissions Trading Scheme.

The State Government's latest Infrastructure Audit says the private sector will be reluctant to invest in new power infrastructure in an uncertain market.

According to the report, this would result in possible shortages in electricity supply, especially during summer peak periods.

Energy Networks Association Chief Executive, Andrew Blyth, says the report highlights the need for a carbon scheme that will reduce risk for energy generators.

Ideas for Victoria

1) dynamite Hazelwood power station like they did Yallourn

If I recall Hazelwood produces 1.3 kg of CO2 for every kwh of electricity.

2) take over an adjoining State since the Mildura solar plant is right on the border.

Agree about decommissioning Hazelwood.

At least Brumby is starting to make noises about building lots of solar plants (isn't the Mildura plant within Victoria ? thats what the press reports have been saying).

Apparently he visited the Ausra plant in Nwevada last month (as did Captain "coal lover" Bligh) - so they might be starting to understand what large scale power generation in the future looks like.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/brumby-planning-to-plug-victoria-into-...
http://www.theage.com.au/world/from-stem-cells-to-solar-power-brumby-joi...

Mind you, Brumby is getting a seemingly well-deserved shellacking at the Business Spectator.

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/The-path-of-least-res...

The Brumby Government trumpeted this week that it had signed a contract to “facilitate” the development of a $750 million, 400MW brown coal power station to be built jointly by Chinese state owned power group Harbin and HRL, a private company believed to be backed by Kerry Stokes. The plant will be funded by a $50 million grant from Victoria and a $100 million grant from Canberra, pledged by John Howard. Harbin, which is based in a brown coal sector in China, will contribute $500 million.

The proposal trumpets the use of a process called integrated and gasification combined cycle (IDGCC), which essentially cooks the coal before it is burned, removes as much water as it can and thereby reduces brown coal emissions by around 30 per cent.

To hear the Victorian government talk about the technology, you’d think they had found the secret of turning water into wine. But in fact, it’s just turning brown into black. Because that is what the technology achieves: it reduces the emissions of brown coal to the same level as black coal, or as one climate campaigner described it – from “really appalling to merely appalling.”

Brumby’s description of the technology as “clean coal” is disingenuous at best. If the technology was applied to existing brown coal power plants, the investment would be sensible. But this is for a new power station that will spew an extra 2.5 million tonnes of Co2 into the atmosphere each year. And this when other technologies such as gas fired power stations, not to mention renewables and energy efficiency opportunities, are readily available.

The timing of the announcement is also curious. On Monday, the brown coal power generators were warning that an emissions trading system could spell the death of them. On Tuesday, they announce a new brown coal power station.

Why, ask some in the oil and gas and renewable industries, did the Brumby government make such a commitment just three days before the release of the Garnaut report, and two weeks before a government paper on emissions trading? One of the Brumby arguments is that Victoria has no alternative for its energy needs. That’s highly debatable, but whatever happened to the concept of a national grid, where alternatives can be readily sourced elsewhere?

Last month, Brumby was happy to have his photo taken at the solar thermal plant being developed by Australia’s leading solar scientist David Mills. Perhaps he didn’t get the irony. The solar thermal plant, predicted to provide base load power around about the same time as Brumby’s cherished new brown coal plant swings into production, is located in California, where Mills moved in 2006 because he could receive no support from Australian governments.

There are innovative solutions aplenty. Most of it centres around the creation of smaller, more discreet power stations – be they fired by gas, geothermal, wind or biofuel sources – rather than the monolithic installations favoured in the coal era. There are good reasons for this, not all of them environmental.

Victorian pollies sure haven't got a monopoly on being off with the fairies.A couple of days ago some fool in the QLD government was forecasting a doubling of Queensland coal exports by 2030.
The second runway at Brisbane airport is still a goer,apparently.Mega tunneling under the Brisbane River and the CBD for roads.Well, I suppose they will be able to take trams or trolley buses.
The large wind farm West of Ballarat is still being held up because of concerns about bird strike,even Brolgas.In all my travels in Australia I have seldom,if ever seen Brolgas within cooee of thickly settled places.Unlike humans,they have a modicum of sense.
Jesus wept.

I think we must set a performance criterion for solar baseload. I'd make producing at least 25% of nameplate capacity for 6,000 hours a year, say by end 2009. No cost target as yet though if the plants have to be triplicated across wide areas that's triple cost. The 154 MW focusing heliostat project does not appear to have storage
http://www.solarsystems.com.au/154MWVictorianProject.html
and the Solar Tower proposal is actually on the NSW side of the river. For Victoria to have even minor solar baseload that could require widely separated large plants with storage at say Nhil, Mildura and Orbost assuming suitable transmission exists. Even then full backup is probably required. Big biscuits ie billions.

I'm not saying solar baseload is a myth just that it will be extraordinarily difficult and expensive in a single State like Victoria. To keep the dream going Brumby must visit solar plants one month then carbon capture plants the next which should spin things out for a few years.

Second story on The Age homepage today:$8 petrol tipped for 2018.

Seems a bit optimistic to me. I'd put money on seeing actual shortages at the pumps before then.

The rising price is intended to reduce demand thereby balancing so that no shortages actually take place.

Key word "intended"! I'm willing to bet some from of rationing or prioritising will be put in place before it reachs $8/L. And at some point petrol becomes such a scarce commodity that many petrol stations cease to be viable businesses. Before that point, there will be days where some petrol stations simply miss out on what's available to go around.

Many petrol stations are already unviable businesses - if they have to rely on petrol sales (watch the Insight program I linked to earlier in the week).

They make their profit from selling food and other items, or from servicing cars - most of them make a loss on the fuel sale component of the business...

Actually I did, and I suspect the reality is that, yes, some independent retailers are making a loss on petrol sales for some of the price cycle, but I don't believe a petrol station would bother the hassle of maintaining itself as a petrol-selling business if it were truly making no profit at all on selling fuel for any period of time.
I have noticed a couple of local 7-11's rip out their petrol pumps. With petrol becoming more expensive, there could potentially be more viability in small local grocery stores and the like, which might be a logical market to switch into.

Stuff.co.nz - The world they will inherit
Good story

Nice to see people actually 'doing it' and trying to make a difference within the reality of their own situation