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The Bullroarer - Monday 9th February 2009
Posted by Phil Hart on February 8, 2009 - 8:56pm in The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand
The Age: Canberra gives solar cell factory thumbs up
AS PRESSURE increases to boost renewable energy sources in the face of global warming, the Federal Government has declared that a company that wants to manufacture solar cells is of "strategic importance" to Australia. Considerable home-grown expertise on renewables has been lost to Australia in recent years, with local innovators unable to win financial backing.
Now a company called Spark Solar Australia has been awarded "major project facilitation status" by the Federal Government for its planned $60 million high-tech solar cell factory.
South-east Advertiser: Motor bike use up to beat economic woes
THE number of motorcycles and scooters on Brisbane streets has doubled in the past five years and the slowing economy is driving the boom. Queensland is leading the nation’s growing preference for two-wheeled transport with an increase of 66.3 per cent in the past five years compared to the national bike registration figure, which has risen 10.6 per cent in the past 12 months.
The Daily: Push bikes to greener pathways
Sunshine Coast Council and the state government are spending a massive $9 million on cycling and walking paths this financial year as the push to shift people out of private cars gains momentum. A similar amount, with equal contributions from council and state, is also expected to be spent in the 2009-2010 financial year. The money is targeting missing links in existing cycling networks and the reconstruction of paths of inadequate width to be shared by both pedestrians and cyclists.
Stuff.co.nz: Marine energy the 'perfect' plan
New Zealand is perfectly placed to turn its "fantastic" marine energy resources into real power, a visiting expert says. Henry Jeffrey, from Edinburgh University, has been in Wellington with a British renewable energy delegation.
Wellington is the site of a proposed marine energy project by Neptune Power that could result in a test turbine being underwater in Cook Strait by year's end.
ABC: Fire spares Loy Yang power station
It appears Loy Yang power station in Victoria's Gippsland region will be spared from a bushfire. Energy Minister Peter Batchelor is being briefed on the fire situation at the coal-fired power station near Traralgon. It was feared the fire in the Strzelecki Ranges would reach the station's open-cut coal mine and possibly the station itself.
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Firstly I'd like to express sincere sympathy for the victims of what is now Australia's greatest-ever natural disaster, the bushfires in central Victora.
We can all help with an immediate cash donation:
- Red Cross 1800-811-700. (Very busy this morning, but easier to get through this afternoon.)
- Salvos 13-SALV (13-7258)
But how much of this disaster is really "natural"? I just did a TOD search and discovered that the word "firestick" gets no hits, so here are a few thought-provoking references that you may not have seen before.
By way of introduction; the Oz bush and animals have all evolved over at least the last 15,000 years (post ice-age) in an environment with regular burning by the Aboriginal people, who of course had to bring their kids up in this forest, and had no means of escaping fire, therefore they had to control it.
The landscape ended up with a "mosaic" of different vegetation ages, which would impede the progress of wild fires started by lightning, etc. Eucalyptus trees evolved into this situation (before people arrived Australia was mainly covered in casurina/pines). People were burning the mature bits of the mosaic all the time - a situation remarked on by the early British navigators and explorers. But now we have had 200 years with no people living in the forest, the mosaic is gone and we get these huge conflagrations hundreds of kilometres wide every 15-20 years. Worse still, we have exported our eucalypts to California, Portugal, Greece etc. which is why these places go up with a bang every so often.
Here's a piece of sterling advice from 15 years ago:
http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/publications/series/paper3/fi...
Last year, the bureaucrats in Victoria seemed to be getting the message, but as far as I can see their call wasn't acted upon in time...
Victorian govt urged to triple burn-offs
What's this got to do with energy? How about a massive reduction in greenhouse emissions?
Indigenous rangers slashing savanna bushfire emissions
And don't forget the massive amounts of energy that our society already spends fighting what now appear to be "un-natural disasters"
Not totally sure what your point is?
Its all very easy to blame the "bureaucrats"... but its not like they haven't had burn offs that then escaped! A damned if they do and damned if the don't position. Not to mention the considered opinion of letter writers later complaining that their washing got dirty due to successful burn offs.
As to the wonderful management of Aboriginal peoples, there is also the theory that firestick farming was a response to the previous "management policy" that saw the destruction of the megafauna. "Adopted" not so much as a method to control fires but to briefly increase range lands for kangaroo and other prey.
In any case, I seriously doubt that the bureaucrats will be allowed to set burn offs as the temperatures continue to increase... a situation not faced by previous firestick managers of the land.
As the flora was once changed from pine and cassuarina to eucalypt the likely consequence of continued fires of this intensity will be the further loss of the remaining forest lands... with dramatic flow on effects for the hydrologic cycle of SE Australia.
The only thing that "cheered" me slightly after reading The Age today was that the majority of published letters made the link between climate, coal and government inaction.
You are right that land use must change... are there votes in that yet?
Announcement:
Inspect an operating Oil Drilling Exploration well.
Great South Land Minerals Limited (a subsiduary of Empire Energy)
Has an Open Day at their Belluvue Site This Sunday Febuary 15.
The Site is in Tasmania Roughly between Hobart and Launceston.
Free buses are departing From Hobart GPO and Devonport Post Office at 10 AM
For Further information http://www.gslm.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=169&Itemid=82
I hope to post a report of the day :-)
Regards,
AusDarren
There is oil in Tasmania ?
We'll look forward to your report ?