The Age - Fostering a state of innovation

WHAT might our world look like in two years? Will this long drought finally be over, or could we be living with the near certainty of permanent climate change? Can we be sure that the US dollar will still be the international reserve currency? Maybe Chrysler and General Motors will have joined Austin, Morris, Packard and Hupmobile in the automotive history books. Could various forms of "back-door" protectionism have altered the globalisation equation as governments seek to preserve jobs for their own citizens?

ABC - Arrow pays $400m for gas field stake

Arrow Energy is buying out its partner's stake in the Tipton West coal seam gas fields on southern Queensland's Darling Downs. Arrow will spend $400 million in a mixture of cash and shares to acquire Beach Petroleum's 40 per cent stake. The Tipton West field, west of Brisbane, supplies gas to the Braemar Power Station south-west of Dalby.

The Age - Cyclists pay heavy toll on roads

CYCLING injuries have soared in Victoria in recent years, but it is not clear whether the activity is becoming more dangerous or just more popular. Research by doctors at The Alfred hospital and Monash University found the number of cyclists at emergency departments between 2001 and 2006 had risen 42 per cent, hospital admissions by 16 per cent and major trauma by 76 per cent.

The study, in The Medical Journal of Australia, found that almost 26,000 cyclists were treated in hospital emergency departments over the five years. Of this number, more than 10,000 were admitted and 47 people died. But the authors warned that they had not been able to source accurate data on the number of people cycling in Victoria to see if this had increased in line with injuries.

SMH - Filling fast: a desert parking lot for the world's idle aircraft

OLD jets come to Arizona, empty engine pods shrink-wrapped in white, and tall red tails fading to pink in the desert sun. More will come soon. Some will never fly again. Airlines have announced plans over the past year to take 1700 planes out of service because fewer people are flying. United Airlines is retiring all 94 of its Boeing 737s by the end of this year, and Northwest Airlines has cut its old DC-9 fleet by about a third. The number of aircraft in storage has jumped 29 per cent in the past year to 2302, says Ascend Worldwide, an aerospace data firm. That includes 930 parked by US operators alone.

Peak Energy - Did the Oil Price Boom of 2008 Cause Crisis?

The WSJ points to a Brookings Institution paper (pdf) by James Hamilton of Econbrowser looking at the link between high oil prices last year and the credit crunch / financial crisis - Did the Oil Price Boom of 2008 Cause Crisis?. I think trying to pin the blame solely on oil prices is wrong (bad lending practices and foolish borrowing practices were the primary cause) but they certainly contributed to the bust (or at least prevented the housing boom from becoming even crazier).

SMH - We're driving to disaster, rail guru warns

THE state's most respected transport bureaucrat has broken an eight-year silence to condemn the NSW Government's botched handling of Sydney's transport system. "The fact is we have not built the infrastructure that will be needed in the future," Ron Christie, the former Co-ordinator-General of Rail, said in an exclusive interview with the Herald.

The transport guru slams the Government for abandoning vast tracts of western Sydney while spending huge sums in areas that are already well served by public transport, for example the M4 extension and the CBD Metro.

The Age - Slowing the flow as poll pledge turns dry

MELBOURNE'S two most important rivers face a dire future, with the State Government planning to prolong a controversial suspension of environmental flows. Plans for the suspension of Yarra River and Thomson River flows to extend into 2010 means the Government is almost certain to fail a key election promise from the 2006 campaign.

The Age - Death toll soared during Victoria's heatwave

Health authorities believe Victoria's record-breaking heatwave might have contributed to the deaths of about 374 people. As temperatures soared between January 26 and February 1, so did the state's death toll with a 62% jump from the same time last year. Victoria's chief health officer Dr John Carnie today revealed 980 people had died during the week compared to a mean of 606 deaths for the previous five years.

SMH - Buildings asked to supply own power

BUILDING operators in the city are being told to use their own stand-by power generators and to cut consumption today to avoid further widespread blackouts this morning. An emergency generator has been brought in to keep the Harbour Tunnel open, a sign of the extent of the problems facing the electricity network.

SMH - Clean coal remains a faraway dream

When the Academy Award-winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen used their talents a few weeks ago to make an anti-ad ridiculing clean coal, industry lobbyists were not happy. When Robert Kennedy jnr branded clean coal in America "a dirty lie", and suggested some coal executives should face criminal charges, they got really upset. This state's most passionate coal advocate, the head of the NSW Minerals Council, Nikki Williams, reacts to Kennedy's name with a mix of outrage and sorrow.

But the coal industry and, more importantly, Australia's politicians, should come to grips with the reality that it is beginning to lose its social licence to operate in Western democracies. And the strategy of holding up clean coal as the Holy Grail for the industry's greenhouse problem is not working.

frogblog - Howard’s attack on aboriginal communities condemned by UNHCR

The UN Human Rights Committee has condemned the 2007 Howard Government Northern Territorial Intervention. The intervention was a response to a report on child abuse in NT “Little Children are Sacred”.

There were protests all over Australia and in NZ condemning Howards intention to legislate for government management of the aboriginal land, much of it having potential for uranium mining, while refusing to invest in education, housing or long term medical care for the aboriginal communities.

frogblog - Virus battery could power cars, electronic devices

Scientists at MIT have built a lithium-ion battery using a genetically modified virus to assemble both the anode and the cathode of a battery. ...

This is truly cool stuff. Cracking the energy storage limitations on any front increases our chances of weaning transport from its oil addiction, oil being such a light, convenient and energy dense carrier of sunlight.

As a culture we are still in denial about our profligate waste of all the ancient sunlight we burn just to pop out to the dairy for a pint of milk. Some day soon, probably within our lifetimes, we’ll need to start living within our means - namely within our solar budget.

Peak Energy - eSolar and computing power

Peak Energy - Platinum Free Fuel Cells

Peak Energy - Geothermal Mapping In The US

Peak Energy - Remixing Concrete

Peak Energy - Wind power could meet all US electricity needs

Peak Energy - Transition Town Detroit ?

Peak Energy - What Kent Kresa Might Bring to GM