A few more stories (glad to see aeldric is back on board after the break) :

ABC - Qld gas industry remains safe from financial crisis.

One of Queensland's largest gas providers, Santos, says the sector has been insulated from job losses which have hit the mining industry. Several companies, including Xstrata, Macarthur Coal and Oz Minerals, have announced more than 500 job losses in the past month as a result of the global financial crisis.

However, Santos says the demand for energy from clean sources remains strong. Santos commercial vice-president Rick Wilkinson says any short term downturn in the market will not have any impact on long term projects. Mr Wilkinson says the company is on track to deliver the world's first coal seam gas to liquefied natural gas project in Gladstone in central Queensland by 2014. "I think generally there is a long term gas demand," he said. "I think that the emissions trading scheme that is coming in will favour gas - it's a clean energy and will be a nice bridge to the renewable gas, renewable energy requirements of the future."

ABC - Company plans to sell central Qld mine.

Mining company Anglo Coal Australia is planning to sell its coal seam gas interests in the Dawson area in central Queensland. The company says the move will allow it to concentrate on developing its coal mining operations near Moura.

ABC - Santos begins recruiting 600 staff for LNG plant.

Mining company Santos has begun a recruitment campaign to find staff for its liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant on Curtis Island, near Gladstone. Santos yesterday announced it will set up an office in Brisbane for up to 600 staff involved in the project. The initial engineering and design work is expected to begin next month.

Company spokesman Roger Kennett says the $7 billion project has not been affected by the global financial crisis. "We're conveniently placed - we're in the energy industry but we're in gas and in particular with our coal seam gas its a very clean energy," he said. "That puts us well-favoured in this particular turndown. It's not impacting our business as such and we're still in a growth phase."

SMH - Defence warns of climate conflict

RISING sea levels could lead to failed states across the Pacific and require extra naval deployments to deal with increases in illegal migration and fishing, a Defence Force analysis says.

"Environmental stress" has increased the risk of conflicts over resources and food and may demand greater involvement by the military in stabilisation, reconstruction and disaster relief, the analysis, prepared by Defence's strategic policy division, says.
It warns there is a risk of a serious global conflict over the Arctic as melting icecaps allow easier access to undersea oil and gas deposits.

SMH - Apache, Santos to revive WA gas projec

Apache Corporation and Santos are seeking to revive a $900 million natural gas project in Western Australia after signing an accord to sell the fuel to an iron ore venture proposed by Citic Pacific.

The restart of work on the project, involving the development of the Reindeer gas field and the onshore Devil Creek processing plant, depends on signing contracts for engineering and construction by mid-March, Houston-based Apache said in a statement yesterday. Previous contracts worth $390 million with Clough Ltd. were scrapped last month after the project was halted.
Citic Pacific said yesterday a unit had signed an agreement to buy gas from the Reindeer project for seven years starting in the second half of 2011. The contract is worth $US1.3 billion, assuming an oil price of $US50 a barrel, it said. The value of Australian mining and energy projects fell 4% in November from April as the economic outlook worsened, the government's commodities forecaster said.

SMH - Choking to death in the suburbs

Parking was at a premium because, except for the locals and the leisured few who can wait on the bus system, every one of the sweltering thousands drove there. Hence the smog.

This will be remembered as one of the great ironies of modern planning, that the system we call suburbia, whose main promise was sunshine and fresh air for all, ended up destroying those things for everyone. Even now, people - thinking people who should know better (and do, in fact, but somehow choose not to) - defend suburbia on the basis of how nice it is to wake up with birds and trees outside the window.
And it is nice. There's no denying it. I like. You like it. We all like it. And that's the point, really. Because just as one binge is fine but every weekend means you're an alkie, or one house among the gum trees is fine, but millions? Millions of suburban houses means millions of cars, millions of smog-belching passenger kilometres and millions of kids with chronic asthma and bronchitis.

SMH - Coal mine expansion approved despite concerns about city water supply

THE State Government has approved another massive coalmine expansion south of Sydney, on condition the mining giant BHP Billiton leaves buffer zones around rivers that feed the city's water supply.

The environmental assessment of a new section of the Dendrobium mine noted that longwall coal extraction would be likely to crack the earth and drain swamps in the catchment area but decided that the level of damage was acceptable.
"On balance, the department believes that the modification's economic benefits sufficiently outweigh its environmental costs and that it is therefore in the public interest," the assessment report from the Department of Planning said.

SMH - The year of climate porn and fanta pants

The big trend for the year was the growth of environmental language: of ecocentrism, referring to the philosophy in which the ecosphere is more important than an organism or human activity; of plastic soup, referring to a mass of plastic on an ocean gyre; and of climate porn, referring to alarmist predictions about the progress of global warming

Re the SMH article on the Dendrobium mine - "On balance,the department believes that the modification's economic benefits sufficiently outweigh its environmental costs and that it is therefore in the public interest" - Department of Planning.

Well,that's it in a nutshell.The usual short term thinking focused only on the "economy".

Homo Economicus - destined for a fall.

Bit of a shame that NZ has produced oil like crazy from the Tui field. It may have been wiser to keep it in the ground as a kind of strategic petroleum reserve instead of increasing world oil production by 0.1%.

Such short termism will be the death of a lot of us I fear.