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The Bullroarer - Thursday 28th August 2008
Posted by aeldric on August 27, 2008 - 11:27pm in The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand
ABC - Analyst warns of looming global climate wars
The prospect of global wars driven by climate change is not something often discussed publicly by our political leaders.
But according to one of America's top military analysts, governments in the US and UK are already being briefed by their own military strategists about how to prepare for a world of mass famine, floods of refugees and even nuclear conflicts over resources.
ABC - Govt backs mining despite shale oil ban: Lucas
The Queensland Minister for Infrastructure and Planning, Paul Lucas, says the decision to ban oil shale mining in north Queensland does not mean it is against mining.
Otago Daily Times - $1b fund persuades Greens to support Climate Bill
Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons yesterday said her party's support for Labour's emission trading scheme was based on the setting up of a $1 billion fund to be spent over about 15 years on insulating homes and making them more energy efficient.
Courier Mail - Ziggy Switkowski says Queensland needs nuclear energy
Courier Mail - $2m to size up climate threat to cities, coast
THE Bligh Government is funding a detailed study into how southeast Queensland should respond to the impact of climate change.
Premier Anna Bligh announced this week that the Government would spend $2 million out of its Smart State Innovation projects budget to fund an investigation into the ability of towns and cities in the region to withstand climate change impacts such as storm surges.
The Government is growing increasingly concerned about Queensland's preparedness for climate change impacts, particularly in low-lying coastal areas.
Stuff.co.nz - Falcon ditches lockable fuel cap
Ford Australia has raised the ire of Victoria's peak motoring body for building its new Falcon range of vehicles without a lockable fuel cap, increasing owners' exposure to fuel theft or tampering.
Every model in Ford's new FG Falcon range, including its high-performance FPV operation, misses out on the lockable fuel flap that was standard on the previous model and is also standard across the rival Holden Commodore range.
Stuff.co.nz - Mallard calls in Contact Energy wind farm project
Environment Minister Trevor Mallard says he intends to call in Contact Energy's proposal for a 180-turbine wind farm near Raglan to be considered by an independent board of inquiry.
ABC - Banking losses outstrip energy gains on market
The banking sector's weakness largely outstripped the gains in the energy sector today.
Woodside Petroleum's profits have been given a big lift by higher oil prices with net profit for the first half rising 67 per cent on last year's June half, to just over $1 billion.
The Age - Emissions trading scheme a tax: Nelson
The federal government's planned emissions trading scheme is nothing more than a tax, Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says.
The government is meeting with representatives from the transport sector on Thursday to discuss their concerns about the model it is planning to introduce from 2010.
"The emissions trading scheme is nothing more than a tax," Dr Nelson told reporters.
Stuff.co.nz - More reports of exploding energy bulbs
The Fire Service and Government watchdog Energy Safety have received more reports of fuming, smoking and exploding energy-saving light bulbs.
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Re: More reports of exploding energy bulbs
I've had one of those things disintegrate while I was trying to remove it. There were kids nearby. The later discovery of how much mercury we all got was very unpleasant.
This leads me to a general point. Somehow the left can't understand why people find them annoying. Yet the end of ordinary light bulbs truly symbolizes it. You just can't avoid the feeling that the left are dying for any excuse to boss everyone around. When the left has a real message it just gets completely lost because it seems to be yet another reason why we all have to do what they say. I certainly remember when we were all told we had to change our lifestyle because we were using too much of the planets resources. Then, without pausing for breath, we had to change our lifestyle because of global warming: and biofuels were a good idea. Say what!
General principle: If you think something should happen, but you can't get it to happen by getting the price signal right (and making sure people actually experience the price signal), then you're WRONG. Micromanaging people's lives is a way to make people turn against you, even if there is a real problem that needs to be solved.
Robert,
I'll respectfully disagree and say that the price signal is right, because the overall cost (bulbs + electricity) of your lighting is greatly reduced.
However, your mention of accidental breakage did make me curious about the correct disposal of Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs).
From the US EPA
So, nothing to worry about then!
;-)
Two points: (1) Yes it is right, so if people still want to use old fashioned bulbs for safety they should be allowed to. (2) However the big problem with electricity and natural gas use is that people don't get the price signal on use: yes we get a total bill, but whether an electric bulb is any significant part of that is completely mysterious. The days when energy was too cheap to meter (in detail) are passing. The government's legit job is to make sure people get price signals.
Which reminds me of another story. When it was suggested in Britain that people get feedback on the costs of heating, this was strongly opposed by people saying "The elderly will turn their heating off and freeze to death when they see the cost ticking up." Information is not allowed because people behave more rationally in ignorance! Do you get the feeling that some people feel threatened by a world where people respond to price signals instead of to rules and regulations.
P.S. Isn't it annoying that we have to say "natural gas" instead of "gas" because the Americans call petrol "gas". Maybe I'm just in a mood to be annoyed by anything.
I'm not so sure that your British story isn't just an urban (political) myth, but I do agree that people and organisations should be provide with more / better information about their energy usage and its cost.
I'm hoping to have a post on smart meters and smart grids up in the next month so we can talk about the issue further then.
Regarding tungsten filament museum pieces, I still have a couple (and a lot of halogen downlights) but I remain unrepentant as I'm on 100% green power and have chosen to eliminate my carbon emissions that way. There is (as a ageneral rule) more than one way to solve each problem and mandating solutions usually isn't the best way of going about it.
Robert,
I do apologize for our sloppy use of the English language. Perhaps you can get the other kiwis to start using "NG" like I do.
On a more serious note. Regarding that ban on oil shale mining, has it been done via strip mining? Any sense of the efficiency of such efforts? As you may know, we also have many billions of bbls of "potential" oil in our Colorado oil shales. But given the environmental damage and lack of water resources they are off the table so far.
Re: micromanging rule makers.
This isn't a disease that the left alone suffers - authoritarian conservative nitwits are just as bad as their left wing equivalents - they just have a different set of fetishes to make rules about and use as an excuse to boss people around (which the whole "war on terror" scam has demonstrated pretty comprehensively).
Al Gore is usually considered "left" wing (admittedly this is something your average anarchist or socialist might find laughable) and he has proposed that the best way to solve global warming is to impose carbon taxes and then give the money back in cuts to other taxes. That seems like the best way of sending a market signal that everyone gets - yet right wingers often oppose this in favour of heaily regulated cap and trade schemes...
I still don't gethow taxing me on one hand but then giving back the money to compensate me for the tax take is going to do anything!The carbon tax is supposed to make you use less of the stuff which means the price needs to increase realtive to the means by which it is purchased. Ohterwise its just a Polish Blanket trick.
The point is to make fossil fuel derived energy more expensive (preferably more expensive than clean alternatives) and thus encourage you to substitute for alternatives or become more efficient in your energy use - not to make you poorer.
If your power bill goes up by 20%, and the source shifts to solar and wind to replace coal, but you are compensated with a 5% tax cut, you end up no better or worse off - but your carbon emissions (and vulnerability to fossil fuel depletion) goes away - thats why it's the right solution.
Before ranting proper... I would like to point out that NZ has much laxer, or looked at another way, more "liberal" rules governing DIY house wiring. Unlike OZ where all work must be done by a qualified electrician. This might potentially be a factor.
If you followed the stringent US EPA guidelines above, unless you actually stuck your nose in the tube pieces and inhaled deeply, your exposure to the ~5mg of Hg is very very small.
Never mind that these and other guidelines are also written by those nanny state lefties! God damn them , not only are these goody goodies trying to minimise the overall load of Hg to the environment, the largest being due to coal fired power stations, ~10 % of the power from which has to light those tungsten filament museum pieces; But God Damn if they aren't also trying to save us in the event of a tube breakage! Will their incessant nannyness never cease in their quest to deny me the freedom to pollute the environment and hurt myself!
The issue is either that the policy has not had a good public education program... OR some people have failed to take it in and properly educate themselves; preferring instead to see some left wing conspiracy. Curiously the motivation for this particular conspiracy is "to boss people around"... not money... not power... just... bossines. Interesting motivation.
Well, generally people are in favour of the pollution being in someone else's backyard, or everyone's equally, rather than their own. This is why for example we have lots of people promoting electric cars yet not saying anything against coal-fired power stations. That the emissions will just be moved from tailpipe to smokestack is fine by them. Likewise, with mercury from coal-fired stations as against mercury from CFL.
Pollution is alright, so long as some other bugger cops it, not me. You can't make me responsible for my own emissions, that's communism or something.
Gwynne Dyer and friends may "get it".
Meanwhile,back in God's Own Country (good old Queensland,mate)nobody,well,almost nobody,"gets it".
Bit sad,but,Such Is Life.
One from the Australian on a mysterious solar power technique developed at UNSW - Nicole has a Eureka moment - twice
The patent is here:
http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?wo=2007059578&IA=AU2006001773&DISPLA...
But I'm not sure if that reduces the mysteriousness!
- I still can't work out if the nail polish goes into the inkjet or into the pizza oven...
:-)
Maybe it's under the rubber gloves...
Cripes - thanks for providing the link, but its as unintelligible a patent as I've ever come across.
Does anyone have a simple diagram and basic explanation of what this thing is ?
Kuepper presented the paper in Anchorage last year, its abstract is here.
In the electrical world, there are resistors and conductors; that is, materials which resist electrical current passing through, and materials which allow it. In between the two are semiconductors, materials which resist a bit but also conduct a bit.
Silicon is a semiconductor. When the light strikes it, a little bit of electricity starts up, but it finds it difficult to get anywhere. So you can't just get a big slab of silicon, put it in the sun, put copper wires on the corners and get lots of electricity. Instead you get a thin layer of silicon (thinner stuff resists less and conducts more) and you put conductors all over it.
Usually those conductors are printed by a photolithogtaphic process, a bit like it's done with computer chips. This is slow and expensive. Kuepper's inkjet method promises to make this quicker and cheaper.
The major thing of getting the silicon and making it pure would remain. It's just the final printing this makes easier.
The paper is available from here
I'm not convinced that this is something that developing countries will pick up... just because some academics think so.
It may however lower production costs if it lives up to the creators promises.
One from the SMH - It's survival of the fittest
Another verse in the sad ballad of Peter Garrett - Garrett changes tune on uranium
A half hearted defence.
On Lateline (transcript 2m) Garret made it clear that although he disagreed with the party line, he would follow it. And let's be clear, if he did actually think of stopping 1 or 2 mines it would only be a matter of minutes before the heavy hitters got rid of him.
He probably argues that at least he is enforcing the strongest available standards available to him.
Can you imagine Marn Furson or similar operative in this portfolio?
"Envioment? What about working famlies?"
Perhaps as Garrets star sinks, we might offer small (even half hearted) thanks that it's not worse, because it could well be.
Just a thought.
Of it could certainly be worse - its just sad that he is now reduced to toeing a party line and not doing and saying what he really thinks.
:-)
Nice one.
Party policy is decided largely by caucus, by all the elected MPs of that party. If he disagrees with party policy, he can always resign his ministerial position. This would go a long way towards altering party policy.
Whereas just fiddling about the edges of it, not so much.