Category: Archive

Australians want wind and solar power, not nuclear

admin /2 March, 2007

Australians want to see greater investment in renewable energy, such as wind and solar power, and cuts in the amount of coal used to generate electricity, an opinion poll suggests, reported The Sydney Morning Herald (27/2/2007, p.5).

The new poll on wind energy confirms overwhelming public support for wind power and for increaed government support to clean energy. The poll, by the Australian Research Group Pty and commissioned by Aus WEA, shows that 95% of respondents support the use of wind power. 

Nuclear power least popular: Support for nuclear power came a distant last, with only 33 per cent of 1200 people polled by the Australian Research Group supporting uranium as a power source.

"Clean-coal" supported by 70pc: The Australian Research Group poll found 91 per cent support for installing more solar panels, 82 per cent for more wind farms, and 70 per cent support for investments in clean-coal technology.

Cut power use: Reducing the amount of electricity used in the first place was supported by 78 per cent, while only 46 per cent of people supported a carbon trading scheme.

Australia’s first large wind turbines at Mawson Base, Antarctica are now generating power in Antarctica. This is the first serious attempt by any nation to use wind power generation in Antarctica, on a large scale, to reduce the use of diesel power. By adding a third turbine next summer, the station expects wind power to supply 100 per cent of its energy needs 75 per cent of the time. The turbines must deal with winds in excess of 300 km/hr.

BP rewards retiring CEO for oil leaks, explosions, delays and pollution

admin /2 March, 2007

BP paid chief executive John Browne shares worth about $US4 million ($A5 million) in an annual performance bonus that covers the time when BP experienced a refinery explosion and pipeline leaks, The Australian Financial Review (23/2/07, p.49) reports.

Bonus shares: BP’s bonus plan granted Lord Browne 380,668 shares “in respect of the performance period 2004-06”, the London-based company said on 22 February. Lord Browne announced last month he would resign in July, more than a year earlier than planned, after investor confidence was eroded by criticism over a 2005 fatal refinery blast, pipeline leaks and shutdowns in Alaska, and probes into energy trading manipulation.

Slashed growth forecasts: Earlier this month, BP slashed forecasts for production growth, in part because of equipment failures and delays at two key oil and gas projects in the Gulf of Mexico. The London Pensions Fund Authority is among BP shareholders suing the oil company over alleged governance and management errors.

Serious stock falls: BP stock fell 8.3 per cent last year, making it the third-worst in the UK’s FTSE 100 Index. The investors who are suing have asked an Alaska state court judge to prevent bonus and severance payments to management, according to filings in the lawsuit.

"They don’t deserve it": “As our lawsuit says, we don’t think Lord Browne deserves any extraordinary compensation given what has happened to the company under his stewardship,” said investor lawyer Bill Lerach, of the San Diego law firm of Lerach Coughlin Stoia Gelle Rudman & Robbins LLP. "None of the top executives who have been part of Browne’s management team deserves any extraordinary compensation.”

Alaska, Texas setbacks: BP set aside $US1.6 billion to compensate workers after a blast killed 15 people and injured hundreds at its Texas City, Texas, refinery in March 2005. BP was also forced to shut down more than half its 400,000-barrel-a-day Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska in August after oil leaked from pipelines that hadn’t been adequately monitored for corrosion. Normal production resumed in mid-October at the largest US oilfield. Other BP directors also received payment bonuses.

PM in secret nuclear reactor talks: believes it’s `the cleanest and greenest power’!

admin /2 March, 2007

ALP leader Kevin Rudd asked Prime Minister John Howard why the government was holding talks with private companies about building nuclear reactors, during parliamentary question time on 27 February 2007.

Govt in secret nuclear talks? Opposition leader Rudd asked the Prime Minister: "Why is the government, through the industry minister, having secret discussions about building nuclear reactors while the government continues to refuse to increase Australia’s mandatory renewable energy target (MRET)?"

PM "happy to tell the world" of talks: Prime Minister Howard replied: "I had a discussion with Ron Walker. I am very happy to tell the world. One Saturday morning, Ron rang me. It was not about racing tips—neither of us is very interested in racing—but it was about something else. It was about the middle of last year. He said that he, Hugh Morgan and Robert Champion de Crespigny had decided to register a company that could be interested in nuclear power."

Nuclear power is "an option": "I said, ‘That’s a great idea, Ron, because you know my view on it.’ I do not know what this is all about. My view and the view of the government about nuclear power being an option is well known. Whether it ever goes any further will be a matter for commercial decision."

Nuclear power generation currently prohibited: "I remind the Leader of the Opposition that the laws of the Commonwealth and the states as they now stand prohibit any nuclear power generation in Australia. We will address that issue in relation to the Commonwealth when we give our detailed response to the Switkowski report. We will examine nuclear power and we will recognise that the mandatory imposition of a high MRET will do great damage to Australian industry. That was why we were not prepared to go further when we brought out the energy white paper."

MRETs industry burden risk: "It is not right for the Leader of the Opposition to say that I reject MRETs. I do not; I think they should be measured and not place an unreasonable burden on Australian industry."

Nuclear power "greenest power generation source": "Let me return to the central point. If this nation is to have a sensible debate about climate change, we have to look at the cleanest and greenest power generation source of all, and that is nuclear power."

US pours money into ethanol

admin /1 March, 2007

eeking to encourage motor fuel production from materials that are cheaper and more abundant than corn, the Energy Department said yesterday that it would provide up to $385 million in six bio-refinery projects that would produce cellulosic ethanol, a type of ethanol that can be made from nonfood crops and agricultural waste.

The awards, to be made over four years, are called for under the 2005 Energy Policy Act. They will advance President Bush’s goals of making the cost of cellulosic ethanol competitive with gasoline by 2012 and of reducing America’s gasoline consumption by 20 percent in 10 years, Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman said at a news conference in Washington.

Dozens of ethanol refineries that use corn are planned for construction over the next two years. But Mr. Bodman acknowledged yesterday that corn alone would not be enough to achieve the ambitious goal of taming what Mr. Bush has called America’s “oil addiction.”

Because of constraints on farmland and the need for corn in the food supply, corn-based ethanol can produce only up to 15 billion gallons of ethanol, less than half of the 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels the president set as a goal by 2017 in his State of the Union speech in January.

Australian taxpayers to carry burden of BP’s CO2 dumps

admin /28 February, 2007

Dr Tony Espie, Senior Adviser of CO2 Storage at BP United Kingdom, told the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Science and Innovation on Monday, 30 October 2006 that filled CO2 dumps were safe enough to pass back into public ownership after a certain period.

Greatest risk early in injection process: Espie said: "Our perception of the risk profile associated with the storage project actually sees the major risks appearing early in the life of the project. So, as we start injecting, there is always the potential that there are surprises in the geology that simply cannot be detected. As you go forward in time and you start to build up that experience, then those risks actually start to decline".

Solidification process keeps gas down: "And then you get the additional safeguards coming in: a number of those trapping mechanisms that you were referring to earlier start to kick in. You get trapping of gas in the pour space. You get dissolution of CO2 into the water. Once that happens, it becomes heavier. It starts to sink, so it is no longer likely to release to surface. Over long time periods, you can get reactions between CO2 in the dissolved water and the minerals, so you start to produce the solid minerals".

Safe enough for public ownership: "So our view is that by the time you get to closing a site you are starting to look at something which is very stable. The risk profile of it is starting to reduce very significantly. For that reason, we think it is something which is then appropriate to pass back into public ownership".

State assumes liability after "stabilisation": Chair Petro Georgiou said: "Coming back to the point in a non-combative fashion: in the arrangements you have reached in Scotland, in the UK, and in California, who is responsible for the long-term management of CO2? We are looking at a real-life regulatory regime. What is the arrangement?" Espie said: "The proposals in the UK are that liability will revert to the state once the site has been closed and has gone through some sort of stabilisation verification process".

Gunns happy with ATO tax breaks

admin /27 February, 2007

The Australian Taxation Office announced on Tuesday 5 February it was denying tax breaks for non-forestry rather than forestry schemes, with varied impacts on stocks exposed to horticulture schemes including Timbercorp (one of the most exposed), Great Southern Plantations and Select Harvests, while other industry players like Forest Enterprises, Farads and Gunns emerged unscathed, reported The Australian Financial Review (08/02/2007, p.24).

Uncertainity looms large over fate of forestry schemes: It was possible that huge stock price falls on February 6 would prove an overreaction. On the other hand, while the forestry industry was protected because of the broader good of planting trees, one wondered whether it was only a matter of time before the tax arrangements on timber schemes were also altered. Even if the rules for forestry plantations didn’t change, regulatory risk would hang over the sector and, importantly, that could hurt sales of forestry MIS products as well as non-forestry schemes.

Gunns may lose: Gunns might yet feel the heat. It made around 20 per cent of its revenues from MIS, including forestry but also wine and walnuts. Its main forest products business was facing margin pressure from the higher Australian dollar, high fuel prices and the weak east coast housing market. Another company indirectly affected was Chiquita Brands South Pacific, the fruit company 80 per cent controlled by a joint venture between Timbereorp and Costa Brands in a deal that was meant to exploit Chiquita’s assets such as its blueberry farms. The venture failed to get to 100 per cent following their bid after 14 percent shareholder MMC Contrarian refused to sell.