Stuff.co.nz - Solid Energy $60M Project

Solid Energy has started drilling as the first step in a $60 million extension of its Buller Stockton open-cast mine already the biggest coal producing mine in New Zealand.

SMH - Profits mask bank problems: analysts

Martin Weiss at Weiss Research called the surge in earnings "bogus", and a result of tricks including an easing of mark-to-market accounting rules.

"Regulators have now agreed to let banks cover up their toxic assets by booking them at fluffy-high values, bearing little resemblance to actual market prices," he said.

Scene Queenstown - Earnlaw’s dying embers

A 97-year coal seam for Queenstown’s Earnslaw vintage steamer expires soon – but our Lady of the Lake won’t be grounded.

Coal producer Solid Energy closes its Ohai Opencast Mine in Southland at the end of June after losing a major contract, which means a new power source is needed for the familiar coal-fired steamer.

The Earnslaw, launched in 1912, had its boilers designed and built to suit the local coal.

Bloomberg - Gorgon Project May Get Environment Approval in Days, West Says

April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Chevron Corp.’s Gorgon liquefied natural gas project may win environmental approval “within days” from Western Australia’s government, the West Australian reported, citing the state premier.

The Australian - Shares fall on Centennial Coal's report

CENTENNIAL Coal has cut its full-year earnings because of falling prices, a move punished by the market, which sent its shares plunging on the news.

The Australian - Santos shares resist drop in oil price

SANTOS has delivered its lowest quarterly revenue in four years as it was hit by slumping oil prices and production declines from ageing fields.

Shares in the Adelaide oil and gas producer rose on the results, however, as Santos maintained full-year production guidance and said it had made progress by developing its flagship Gladstone liquefied natural gas project.

ABC - Bushfires intensifying as they feed climate change, scientist warns

PETER CAVE: Scientists are warning that bushfires will get more intense because they're feeding climate change.

Radio NZ - Oxfam issues critical warning over climate change emergencies

A report by Oxfam has warned a predicted increase in the number of people affected by climate disasters could overwhelm emergency responses.

The report named the Right to Survive calls for reforms of humanitarian systems in order to cope with the precited mayhem caused by climate change.

It predicts that in six years time the number of people affected by climate disasters could rise by 54 percent to 375 million people worldwide a year.

Stuff.co.nz - No coal seam gas any time soon

L&M Petroleum is two years away at least from possible commercial production of coal seam gas in western Southland.

ABC - Analyst says coal exports won't be overtaken by coal seam gas

Despite recent activity in Queensland's natural gas sector, an analyst says coal will remain the dominant energy export for some time.

SMH - Electric car pumps energy back into grid

Australian engineers have developed a plug-in hybrid electric car that not only generates power but can pump it back into the grid, potentially reducing running costs.

And for the CC deniers out there:

Adelaide Now - Professor Ian Plimer's climate change book sparks debate

MINING geology Professor Ian Plimer, from the University of Adelaide, has reignited debate on the issue of climate change with a book for "the average punter".

Heaven and Earth. Global warming: the missing science was launched in Adelaide this week by former Premier Dean Brown. The book professes to "destroy every single argument that has ever been raised about human-induced climate change".

But the University of Adelaide's climate change Professor Barry Brook says it "pushes mainstream science out of context, again and again".

The Australian continues:

The Australian - Catastrophists keep up brainwashing

I hated Knowing, as Evan expected, because of its propagandistic promotion of the theory of human-caused, catastrophic climate change, aka "global warming".

The Australian - Climate change science isn't settled

MANY people think the science of climate change is settled. It isn't. And the issue is not whether there has been an overall warming during the past century. There has, although it was not uniform and none was observed during the past decade. The geologic record provides us with abundant evidence for such perpetual natural climate variability, from icecaps reaching almost to the equator to none at all, even at the poles.

The Australian - At last, the answer to climate change: global mass suicide

THE animal rights movement has introduced a Copernican revolution into Western moral discourse. It has removed humanity from the centre of moral discourse and has placed alongside humans other, non-human, sentient beings. The environmental movement has further widened this moral discourse by emphasising a moral responsibility of care for the natural environment as a whole. Each of these movements has developed in response to humanity's violent treatment of other sentient beings and humanity's pollution and destruction of the Earth's ecology and stratosphere. Whether the environmental destruction set in place by humans can be halted or reversed remains a pressing and open question. This paper argues that the efforts of governments and environmental bodies to prevent environmental catastrophe will not succeed if such actors continue to be guided by a general modern idea of technological and social progress and an attitude of speciesism. From the standpoint of a dialectical, utopian anti-humanism, this paper sets out, as a thought experiment, the possibility of humanity's willing extinction as a solution to a growing ecological problem.