The Bullroarer - Friday 18th September 2009

The Age - BHP warns of an energy shortage

BHP Billiton remains uncertain about short-term demand for commodities because of the lingering impact of the global financial crisis.

But it is in no doubt about the longer term, predicting looming global shortages in energy and copper as the industrialisation and urbanisation of China and India pick up pace.

And for good measure, it is also predicting that global steel demand will double over the next 15 years, underpinning long-term demand for the steel-making commodities of iron ore, coking coal, manganese and nickel.

NZ Herald - Greenpeace defiant over palm oil protest

Dairy company Fonterra has deflected a high-profile protest over its palm kernel imports, but Greenpeace says growing local and international discontent with the palm oil industry will force it into a turnaround.

The Globe and Mail - Peak oil expected in 2009: Macquarie

“This is our view – capacity has pretty much peaked in the sense that declines equal new resources,” Iain Reid, head of European oil and gas research at Macquarie, told Reuters.

Northern Territory News - Caltex in $300m remote fuel deal

POWER and Water has awarded a contract worth $300 million to Caltex for diesel and kerosene fuels to power remote communities for the next five years.

Remote operations manager Darryl Day said the deal covered 70 communities that would not be connected to the Blacktip pipeline, which was expected to begin delivering gas to major power stations within the month.

TV NZ - Renewable energy generation stays above 70%

A high level of renewable electricity generation has been recorded in the latest New Zealand Energy Quarterly, Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee says.

Brownlee says it showed that in the June quarter 70% of electricity came from renewable sources.

It was the third consecutive quarter where generation from renewable sources was 70% or more.

RigZone - Conoco Says Australia Could Be Biggest LNG Exporter

Australia could become the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, by 2020, the head of ConocoPhillips' (COP) Australian unit said Thursday.

Scoop.co.nz - SMELLIE SNIFFS THE BREEZE: A stinky climate deal

Sept 18 (BusinessWire) – No matter whether you’re up or downwind of it, this week’s political bargain on the Emissions Trading Scheme looks, sounds and smells like a dog.

NZ Herald - Doctors issue health warning ahead of climate conference

COPENHAGEN - Human society faces a global health catastrophe if climate change is not effectively tackled at the United Nations conference in Copenhagen in December, say some of the world's leading doctors.

Yahoo News - Australia in $60 bln Japan, S.Korea gas deals

CANBERRA (AFP) – Australia on Thursday announced liquefied natural gas (LNG) deals worth up to 60 billion US dollars with Japan and South Korea, raising its status as a major energy supplier.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Chevron Australia would supply three firms from the planned Gorgon field off the country's west, just weeks after joint venture partner ExxonMobil's record 41 billion US dollar deal with PetroChina.

"These contracts will deliver in the order of 70 billion (Australian) dollars worth of exports to Australia over the next 25 years," Rudd told parliament.

Yahoo News - Australia overtakes US as biggest polluter: report

Australians have overtaken Americans as the world's biggest individual producers of carbon dioxide, which is blamed for global warming, a risk consultancy says.

British firm Maplecroft placed Australia's per capita output at 20.58 tons a year, some four percent higher than the United States and top of a list of 185 countries.

Canada, the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia rounded out the top five. China remains the world's biggest overall greenhouse gas polluter, followed by the United States.

Maplecroft added that China and India's per person carbon production came in at just 4.5 and 1.16 tons respectively, in sharp contrast to their big overall figures.

Stuff.co.nz - NZ forester signs $1b deal for us wood pellets - reports

Mt Maunganui forestry company Des Wilson Forestry Ltd has signed a 15-year $US757 million ($NZ1.07 billion) contract to supply wood fibre to an American company commercialising its renewable bio-energy business.

In a coals-to-Newcastle deal, the NZ company will supply Sea 2 Sky Corporation with 250,000 tonnes of wood fibre over the first two years, increasing to 500,000 tonnes a year for the remainder of the contract. Sea 2 Sky is based at Ferndale, in Washington State, near the heartland of America's forestry industry.

ABC - Queensland farmers hope to use more water from coal seams

Farmers in Queensland's fastest growing resources region, the Surat Basin, say water from the coal seam gas industry has great potential in agriculture, provided it's treated.

Radio NZ - Small companies against NZ as global leader v. climate change

The majority of small companies think New Zealand should not be a global leader in the fight against climate change.

A survey of 1500 small businesses, conducted by Massey University's centre for small and medium enterprise research, found more than a half of small companies believe New Zealand should move at the same pace as other countries.

Professor David Deakins says there is uncertainty about the implications of New Zealand taking the lead.

The Australian - Labor ups attacks on opposition's climate stance

LABOR has seized on deepening divisions within the Coalition on climate change to attack the opposition as a disunited rabble.

Assistant Climate Change Minister Greg Combet led a concerted attack on the opposition yesterday over attacks by senior Nationals on Malcolm Turnbull's support for Labor's proposed carbon emissions trading scheme.

The Australian - Big polluters kick off climate talks

REPRESENTATIVES of the world's 17 biggest carbon polluters have kicked off a week of high-stakes talks on climate change with a discussion at the US State Department.

The main aim of the week of meetings is to bridge differences ahead of the UN December 7-18 climate change conference in Copenhagen, where a pact for curbing global warming beyond 2012 - when Kyoto Protocol obligations on cutting emissions expire - is to be crafted.

Negotiators will meet for two days at the State Department in Washington, then move to New York next week and then on to Pittsburgh.

The meetings come as Washington tries to resume a leadership role on climate change, and follow a warning from UN chief Ban Ki-moon that world leaders need to "get moving" on climate change.

The Australian - China unlikely to return as net coking coal exporter

CHINA'S appetite for foreign coking coal may moderate over the coming months, but the country won't become a net exporter again due to an overhaul of its mining sector and ongoing demand from coastal steel mills.

The Australian - High fuel prices may clip recovery

AIRLINES have been warned that rising fuel prices could re-emerge as a significant threat even as new figures show falling passenger volumes appear to be bottoming out or reversing.

ABC - Dairy group airs carbon tax fears

The South Coast and Highlands Dairy Industry Group says it will be very hard for Australian dairy farmers to compete internationally if a carbon tax is imposed on their cattle.

"BHP Billiton warns of energy shortage".

That is a no brainer.But they are also predicting(more like hoping) for improved markets for some minerals.They would say that,wouldn't they? Have to keep the old share price up and all.

There is a lot of complacency combined with wishful thinking in Australia and elsewhere.That disconnect from reality is just going to make the crash much more destructive.

I was re-visiting The Report to the Club of Rome.

In the business as usual model; 2017 is when per capita industrial output falls off a cliff. As far as I can tell this is the course that our ignorance has set us on. So I will disagree with BHP's doubling of comodities usage scenario.

Between now and 2017 there is only a slight increase in the consumption of commodities.

In the unlikely event that our reserves are found to be double what we think they are, then Pollution goes asymptotic. Not a pleasant thought.

In a way, Energy won't be "short", it will instead be (for the first time in 100 years) "expensive" and the forms of energy most likely to be relied upon as stop-gaps (Coal to Liquid Fuel, Food Crops to Ethanol, Tropical Rainforests to Palm Oil) are likely to exacerbate climate change and political instability.