Stuff.co.nz - Aerodrome fuel thieves caught
This story raises a question that has been on my mind a lot recently: Is there a point beyond which scarcity causes lower efficiency, not higher efficiency? A point at which scarcity leads to things getting spilled and broken, rather than being used sparingly and preserved?

Michael Bryant, co-owner of Air Manawatu, said it was not so much the theft of the fuel that bothered him but the fact that the aircraft had been tampered with.

"It's a real concern when someone tampers with an aeroplane."

The Australian - Jetstar ditches fuel surcharges

Jetstar said from midnight tonight, it would remove the $25 fuel surcharge on trans-Tasman services, the $35 surcharge on its short haul Asian services and the $68 surcharge on its international long haul services.

Stuff.co.nz - Transport budget chopped

Major cuts to transport projects are behind North Shore City Council’s ability to reduce rates rises over the next 15 years.

This is despite officers warning that congestion will get worse and the city may put multi-million dollar transport subsidies at risk.

Average annual spending on transport is planned to be cut by $12 million to $46m, compared to the previous 10-year plan.

Otago Daily Times - Evidence coal cheaper than wind

Coal is a cheaper investment than wind for electricity generators, even when taking costs of carbon into account, an Environment Court appeal hearing for Meridian Energy's proposed $2 billion Project Hayes wind farm was told yesterday.

Appellant Roch Sullivan called witness Bryan Leyland, a power-industry consultant from Auckland, to give evidence on the economics of energy generation in New Zealand.

Mr Leyland said given the decreasing cost of carbon per tonne, it would be cheaper for an electricity generator to invest in coal and pay for carbon credits than it would be to invest in wind and receive credit from offsetting carbon.

"At the moment, carbon per tonne is about $25, and the price is still going down. The best thing for New Zealand generators would be to pay up and shut up.

Radio NZ - Credit crunch, price drop chills oil prospecting

The search for oil and gas in New Zealand is slowing as finance dries up and oil prices stagnate.

Both cashflow and potential returns have been squeezed as premium crude has fallen from a high of $US147 a barrel last year, to around $US40 at present.

SMH - A deadly reminder that we must tackle climate change

I was born in Victoria, and over five decades I've watched as the state has changed. The long, wet and cold winters that seemed insufferable to me as a boy vanished decades ago, and for the past 12 years a new, drier climate has established itself. I could measure its progress whenever I flew in to Melbourne. Over the years the farm dams filled less frequently while the suburbs crept further into the countryside, their swimming pools oblivious to the great drying.

Climate modelling suggests the decline of southern Australia's winter rainfall is caused by a build-up of greenhouse gas, much of it from coal burning. Victoria has the most polluting coal power plant on earth, and another plant was threatened by the fire.

The Australian - Swan seeks second opinion on emission trading scheme

TREASURER Wayne Swan has asked a powerful House economics committee to judge whether the proposed emissions trading scheme is the best way to tackle climate change.

The move appears to throw its schedule for the introduction of an emissions trading scheme into doubt.

Herald Sun - China talk lifts Rio

RIO Tinto shares surged back through the $50 mark yesterday, amid mounting speculation the miner will unveil a $US20 billion ($A30.5 billion) deal with Chinalco at its full-year profit announcement today.

Investors gave the much-anticipated investment agreement a pre-emptive thumbs up, sending Rio shares jumping more than 6 per cent or $3.04 to $52 -- their highest level since November.

Chinalco, China's biggest aluminium producer, is rumoured to be in talks with Rio about the purchase of bonds that will convert into shares in the miner.

Business Day NZ - Shell mulls NZ sale

The New Zealand Refining Company says oil giant Shell is considering selling its New Zealand downstream businesses.

New Zealand Refining said Shell, its 17.14 percent shareholder, told it today it was undertaking a strategic review of its downstream businesses, which focus on selling the output of refineries rather than on satisfying customer needs.

The Australian - Blame the apocalypse on climate change or abortions
An overview of blame-fixing

Pastor Danny Nalliah, in a Catch the Fire Ministries press release, yesterday blamed the bushfires on terminations

PASTOR Danny Nalliah was not surprised by the bushfires due to a dream he had last October relating to consequences of the abortion laws passed in Victoria. He said these bushfires have come as a result of the incendiary abortion laws which decimate life in the womb.
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Climate doom-monger Freya Mathews in The Age thinks the cool change helped:

IT is only a couple of years since scientists first told us we could expect a whole new order of fires in southeastern Australia; fires of such ferocity they would simply engulf the towns in their path. And here they are. The fires we saw on Saturday were not "once in a thousand years" or even "once in a hundred years" events, as our political leaders keep repeating. They were the face of climate change in our part of the world. It was only by chance that a cool change came through on Saturday. What if the pattern of the heatwave that occurred in the last week of January had been repeated?

Bernard Salt in The Herald Sun explains the cool change is the problem:

THE bottom line is that Victoria has more people in more tree-change communities growing more rapidly than anywhere else in Australia. This is a matter of probabilities: a multitude of small communities scattered across bushland magnifies the probability that fire -- any fire -- will wreak havoc. But this exposure goes beyond the demographic. Melbourne is an accident of geography that is predisposed to bushfire, just as San Francisco is predisposed to earthquake.
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