Archived material from historical editions of The Generator
According to APA Business Development Manager Rudi Petrig, APA Group was not happy with the plan by eight retailers – under the REMCo Retail Market Rules in Western Australia – to change gas pricing rules under the national gas pool plan. APA Group (APA) owns, or has an interest in, over 10,000km of gas transmission Continue Reading →
Read it in the Warren Advocate
Recent rainfall over the Warren shire has boosted spirits and water levels for the coming year. Warren town recorded 177.6mm of rain over the December period, and the new year has brought further increases in water availability for irrigators, graziers and industry in Western NSW.
Water Utilities minister, Nathan Rees, has announced a number of increases in allocations as well as easing some of the restrictions for licence holders and stock and domestic water users in the State’s central and far west.
“Rural communities have been doing it tough trying to survive this drought for years so it’s heartening to start 2008 with some good news about water,” Mr Rees said.
“Christmas rains have boosted water supplies enough to deliver much-needed increases for local irrigators and landholders in the Macquarie-Cudgegong and Lachlan valleys as well as other parts of the Barwon-Darling catchment.
The announcement by General Motors chief executive, Rick Wagoner, that the car giant believes oil production has peaked and the world needs to move to a post oil energy model has opened a complex debate about the interaction between global warming and oil depletion. The Sydney Morning Herald scooped the world’s newspapers with the story on January 15, thanks to Australia’s easterly longditude. The ABC’s 7.30 report upped the ante on January 18, interviewing local car makers, politicians and environmentalists.
The debate has now moved beyond whether oil supply can actually keep up with demand, to what the impact of oil depletion on society will be. One significant point raised by a number of commentators is that any alternatives to oil require significant energy inputs to manufacture. In other words, the creationg of alternative energy will be considerably more expensive than oil has been and will compete with food and stationary energy requirements for its production.
Listen to the Generator’s compilation on the impact of Peak Oil
NSW member of parliament, John Kaye, pointed out that burning fossil fuel to create electricity to drive cars is less efficient than putting the fossil fuel directly into the car. He estimates that converting the Australian transport system from petroleum to electricity would cause an 18 million tonne increase in our annual greenhouse gas emissions.
Th
e newly installed Australian Labor government has reversed a decision by the previous Howard administration to sell uranium yellowcake to India. Canberra has said it will ban such sales to New Delhi until it agrees to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
The previous Liberal-National coalition had followed a commitment by the Bush administration that allowed the sale of the resource despite New Delhi’s refusal to sign the treaty. Then-Prime Minister John Howard defended his government’s policy saying it would bring India more into the mainstream, forcing it to provide assurances over the disposal of the uranium. He continued with this policy even after lawmakers stalled the United States-India agreement in the Indian parliament.
Opened for signature on July 1, 1968, the N.P.T. is designed to prevent the proliferation of nuclear material throughout the world. The treaty currently has 189 signatories of which five are in possession of nuclear weapons: the United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China.
Four nations are not signatories: India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. All four either have admitted possessing nuclear weapons of are suspected of carrying out nuclear weapon programs.
DETROIT, Michigan (AFP) — Toyota Motor Corp. will produce a small fleet of plug-in hybrids by 2010, the Japanese automaker’s chief said Sunday.
The plug-in hybrid will go head-to-head with US rival General Motor Corp’s Chevy Volt, which is also expected to hit the road in 2010.
The test fleet of plug-in hybrids is part of a broader environmental sustainability plan, Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe announced at the Detroit auto show.
Toyota also plans to introduce two all-new dedicated hybrids at next year’s Detroit auto show, one under the luxury Lexus brand and the other under the Toyota mark.
They will be based on the same technology which runs Toyota’s popular Prius.
"These two introductions will move us closer to our goal of selling a million hybrids per year in the next decade," Watanabe said.
From the Sydney Morning Herald THE world’s biggest car maker, General Motors, believes global oil supply has peaked and a switch to electric cars is inevitable. In a stunning announcement at the opening of the Detroit motor show, Rick Wagoner, GM’s chairman and chief executive, also said ethanol was an "important interim solution" to Continue Reading →