Category: Archive

Reva dream car runs into regulation roadblock in Aust

admin /18 December, 2006

If it were legal, the Californian-designed, Indian-made Reva vehicle would set you back $15,000 to buy, then 60c for every 100km you drove, reported Mark Whittaker in The Australian (21-22 October 2006 p32). That’s about one tenth of what Toyota’s hybrid electric, the Prius, costs over the same distance.

Safety rating lost in mid-Pacific: The Reva is not on the road in Australia, however, because the Federal Department of Transport and Regional Services (DOTARS) says it’s not safe. This is despite the fact the Reva is perfectly legal in Europe, and nobody accuses the EU of having lax safety standards.

Positive reception by Brits: British authorities have even encouraged the Reva’s use with free rego, and London’s mayor has exempted it from the city’s £8 ($20) congestion charge.

Sounds good: "Our high moral ground is zero pollution. You can charge it off solar, it costs nothing to run, and is more environmentally friendly," said a spokesperson for the manufacturer.

Get real: "Their [DOTARS] angle, their smokescreen, is: ‘This is not a safe car. It does not comply to our passenger vehicle standard.’ The media just think I’m trying to import an unsafe car, but the real issue is that we don’t have a classification for this type of car, so our only option is to make it conform to the same standards as a three-tonne SUV with a 300kW motor that can do 300km/h, as opposed to a 600kg car with 15kW of power and a top speed of 65km/h."

Eco Bank invests only in clean energy projects

admin /18 December, 2006

Housed in a four-storey mansion with a grand mahogany table and a ballroom for receiving United States senators and the like, Climate Change Capital manages $US1 billion ($A1.2 billion) in funds and is growing by the day, reported The Sydney Morning Herald (25 November 2006 p30).

Finance with a green focus: But it is no ordinary money house. Co-founded by environmental lawyer James Cameron in 2003, the bank invests in clean energy projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, then sells emissions credits generated by the projects on the new carbon market. It wheels and deals in hot air.

Veteran of climate change war: Cameron, 45, has spent 20 years battling global warming, including advising small island states during negotiations that led to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Kyoto kickstart to carbon trading: Effectively just two years old, the carbon market is worth at least $US22 billion. The top investment bank Morgan Stanley put $US3 billion into it last month, but what kickstarted it into life was the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in February last year.

Options 1 & 2: As a result, European and other countries are bound to reduce greenhouse emissions. That means European industry can either adopt cleaner practices in their plants or, if that is deemed too expensive, use the European Unions Emissions Trading Scheme to buy carbon credits from other companies that are emitting less than their allocation.

Option 3 developing countries: A third option is to use Kyoto’s Clean Development Mechanism. Designed to transfer funds and technology to developing countries to help them reduce emissions, the mechanism enables wealthy countries, companies or banks to invest in clean projects in poor countries and take the dividend not as profit but as carbon credits.

Climate currency: They can then use the credits to reduce their emissions debt or, as Climate Change Capital does, sell them to other companies.

For example: In September Climate Change Capital announced it was investing in a Chinese chemical company that plans to incinerate HFC-23 gases – a by product of manufacturing and rated nearly 12,000 times worse for global warming than CO2. The bank says that over six years the project will save the equivalent of nearly 30 million tonnes of CO2 emissions – more than a third of the annual greenhouse gas emissions of British households. It will then sell the credits, probably on the European market.

Petition to Senate claims Aussies don’t want expanded nuclear industry

admin /18 December, 2006

Senator Bartlett presented a petition to the Senate on 7 December 2006. It claimed that Australians do not need or want an expanded nuclear industry, including nuclear power in Australia.

Evidence against nuclear power: The petitioners said there is ample evidence that:

# (a) engagement in the nuclear cycle leads to growth in nuclear weapons and potentially dirty bombs;

# (b) uranium mining and enrichment and nuclear waste reprocessing are energy intensive processes that contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions;

# (c) uranium is a finite, non-renewable, energy source;

# (d) the nuclear cycle creates enormous amounts of long lived radioactive and toxic chemical waste for which there is still no long-term storage solution;

# (e) nuclear power is unviable without huge public subsidies;

# (f) nuclear power reactors take 10-20 years to build and cannot address climate change in the short-term; and

# (g) nuclear power generation is not accident free.

Govt asked to abandon nuclear plans: In view of this, the petition asked that the Federal Government abandon its plans to expand uranium mining, enrich uranium, and build nuclear power plants in Australia, and instead introduce a carbon levy, encouraging investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Nuclear waste transported through Sydney’s streets

admin /18 December, 2006

Environmentalist tried to intercept an early morning convoy which was transporting nuclear waste through Sydney streets. The convoy involved police, helicopters and firefighters. A Greenpeace boat tried to prevent the waste being loaded onto a ship  at the Port Botany Terminal.

Air pollution kills Asians annually

admin /18 December, 2006

Scientists have found air pollution, caused by increased urbanisation, is killing half a million people in Asia each year.

Bushfires will become a thing of the past

admin /18 December, 2006

The latest mathematical model has suggested that global warming will make bushfires a thing of the past by the end of this century. By 2050 there will be a 25% to 50% increase in the frequency of bushfires. By the end of this century, there will be no more forests to burn. Due to climate Continue Reading →