The Bullroarer - Monday 28th July 2008

Sydney truckies join national shutdown
Post your own local updates and news links in comments below.

Truck drivers are meeting in Sydney's west as part of a national shutdown of some trucking services. The nation-wide industrial action began at midnight last night and is expected to last for two weeks.

The Long Distance Owners and Drivers Association is campaigning for an increase in base wages, better safety standards and the removal of the fuel excise.

ABC: Sydney car use leak 'not surprising'
Time to get your rulers out folks.. there's more extrapolating to be done - it's the only way to predict the future you know!

The New South Wales Opposition has seized on leaked Transport Ministry documents that show Sydney car use is likely to climb beyond the State Government's 2016 targets.

New figures, released by the Transport Data Centre, show public transport patronage has climbed rapidly towards 2016 targets.

Herald Sun: Petrol prices a concern for businesses

HIGH petrol prices have joined more traditional factors on the list of concerns among small business operators.

A recent survey commissioned by telecommunications provider 3 Mobile shows that high petrol prices and increasing transport costs are putting significant pressure on small businesses.

According to the survey of more than 1000 businesses around Australia in June, 93 per cent of respondents agreed that rising petrol costs were having an impact on their organisation.

SMH: Petrol price woes a threat to wheels for meals

The 62-year-old pensioner enjoys his volunteer work for the local Meals on Wheels service, but as fuel prices continue to soar, he has found he is not only giving up his time but his money in order to help out.

"The cost now is starting to get a bit out of hand," he said. "I'm close now to leaving. If [the fuel price] stayed up about $1.70, $1.80 [a litre] I would have to rethink, which I'm kind of doing now. I would miss it because I do enjoy talking with the men and women I do the run for."

Investors cool to oil shale discoveries
Disclosure: Phil Hart does not own oil shale stocks.

WAS it memories of burned fingers or speculators' capitulation to the bear market?

Whatever the reason, no one is getting excited about oil shale. It may be one of those stories that will -- unlike uranium and phosphate -- creep up on people rather than go into overdrive from the beginning, especially if oil prices cement themselves at some level over $US150 a barrel.

Essendon man spends $49,000 on fully electric car

HIGH petrol prices have driven one man to spend $49,000 on a car that only travels 85km before needing eight hours to recharge.
...
Climate change and high petrol costs motivated the Moonee Valley climate action group co-founder to part with $32,000 to convert his $17,000 hatchback to electric.

He admitted it was expensive but reducing carbon emissions was critical. "The price of peak oil is going through the roof but the electricity tariff is pretty well rock-solid," Mr Keech said.

Oil bogeyman approach won't reduce emissions

AUSTRALIAN motorists have been frightened into greenhouse submission. A shocking CSIRO report issued earlier this month warns of petrol prices of up to $8 a litre by 2018. There are few buttons hotter than petrol prices to get public attention on the future cost and availability of transport energy.

The eye-watering projection of a 500 per cent increase in petrol prices is based on one small section of the Fuel for Thought report, which models a doomsday scenario of imagining if the exhaustion of the world's oil reserves peak oil was already upon us.

This headline-grabbing analysis by the CSIRO curiously eschews mainstream oil demand and supply information, instead relying on data from Peak Oil Netherlands Foundation, which predicts a peak in oil supply in 2010 and a subsequent 3 per cent decline in supply every year thereafter. PONL describes itself as a group of citizens concerned about the effects of peak oil.

Public transport can't save planet

PUBLIC transport is often recommended as a solution to congestion in our cities and as a way of reducing the fuel costs of working families.

Two cautions are needed regarding this suggestion. First is the increased cost to governments from any increase in public transport patronage. Victoria has been successful in increasing annual passenger trips from 351 million in 2001 to 383 million in 2005, but the public transport budget has also increased from $1.34 billion to $1.92 billion over the same period. This works out to a cost of $19 for every trip increase, and is much higher than the average public transport subsidy for the entire Melbourne network of trains, trams and buses of about $4 a passenger trip.

The second caution, and this sounds counter-intuitive, is that increased public transport patronage will probably decrease social equity.

Premier John Brumby warns of dangers in growing too fast

JOHN Brumby has conceded Victoria's population growth is pushing its limits, thanks to the baby boom and immigration. The Premier said pressures on the transport and health systems showed the need for caution. In his strongest comments yet on the state's booming population, he said: "I think we are probably at the limits of growth."

And Mr Brumby said it had been impossible to predict the problems facing public transport, particularly as a result of increased demand. "No one could have (predicted it)," Mr Brumby said, "and nor could have anyone predicted the petrol prices.[Funny, I thought I did predict it? About four years ago to be precise.]

Cross-city rail tunnel likely

PREMIER John Brumby has given his strongest indication yet that the Government will build a multibillion-dollar rail tunnel to tackle Melbourne's public transport congestion crisis. Mr Brumby told The Age several train lines were already at full capacity, and the rail tunnel from Sunshine to Caulfield proposed by transport adviser Sir Rod Eddington was "obviously about increasing capacity".

Good grief,if Brumby is saying that there are limits to growth maybe there is hope yet that the other state Labor retards might wake up to the insanity of the KRudd&Co immigration policy.
Seeing as how it is the state and local governments who have to wear a lot of the pain through providing infrastructure to cope for the hordes maybe they might put pressure on the Feds.
As a Queenslander I would be confident in predicting that ABlighh&CO will be the last to wake up.
With all the coal up here we can sure handle heaps more people.Stuff the environment,stuff the lifestyle,up the Boosters and lets crowd together like rats up a drain.

Well - I think NSW might challenge you for the "last to wake up title". We seem hell-bent on shipping out coal as fast as we can too..

Not to mention the "leaked" NSW Govt. predictions that Sydney car use is growing out of control - no matter what!

I betcha their scenarios didn't include the CSIRO's $8 a litre petrol projection! - So these road usage forecasts probably aren't worth the paper they're printed on. (But that's not visible to the punters, because it's a "leak" not a "report"...)

Who does this "leak" serve, I wonder? I expect to see a lot of "emergency" plans to dig more privatised road tunnels. (Although I do wonder if more private capital will be forthcoming after the collapse of the last two private tunnel companies.) It should at least get the NSW construction industry lining up to tip some of the proceeds back into the Pollies' election funds.

PS. Phil, tonight's news made it sound like the Nationwide Truckies Strike may be a non-starter (at least this time).

Nigeria oil cut by rebel attack

Only 130,000bbl/day, but in the current world ambience should be good for a $10/bbl jump in crude.

Here in NZ, our trucker's protest came in with a roar and went out with a hiss a few weeks ago. We also have big plans to build vehicle tunnels underneath Auckland while our decrepit rail system languishes. Typical!

Victoria has been successful in increasing annual passenger trips from 351 million in 2001 to 383 million in 2005, but the public transport budget has also increased from $1.34 billion to $1.92 billion over the same period.

You would think that given that those additional 32 million trips seem to "cost" nearly 5 times more than the first 351 million would lead one to search for a deeper explanation. Instead we get a caution about "increased cost to governments from any increase in public transport patronage". John Cox must be one of the few people suggesting that the budget increase has led to passenger trips increase, totally ignoring that at the same time oil doubled in price. Also the PTUA has a page about the accounting devices used to inflate the public transport budget figures.

RE Essendon man spends $49,000 on fully electric car

He got ripped. I couldn't spend $35k on a conversion even if I tried. Even buying high-end BRUSA or Siemens will only cost you about $10k - 12K for something sized for a Getz (<80kW). Using Lithium Iron Phosphate (instead of Lithium Cobalt) batteries will cost (for about 100km range, allowing for 20% reserve on top of the 85km, uning 125wH/km, 12.5kWh @ 65c/wH in a volume purchase) $8125. Add in another $1000 for cables, switches etc, and you're still only looking at a shade over $21k.

If you use DC equipment instead of AC ( ADC and Kelly instead of Brusa/Siemens, for example), the costs come way down (but they don't have as many cool features).

Bear in mind these are prices for one-off conversions. If GM/Ford can't do the same thing for significantly less, they shouldn't be in business.