Category: Archive

Archived material from historical editions of The Generator

Queensland Gas doubles production

admin /21 June, 2007

Queensland Gas Company (QGC) Ltd will spend $260 million to ramp up production to meet growing demand for natural gas as a cleaner alternative to coal.

QGC received some money to play with in March, when its shareholders voted in favour of a $327 million partnership with power retailer AGL Energy Ltd.

AGL took a 27.5 per cent stake in QGC, spurning an $812 million takeover offer by US investment firm TCW Group and an earlier, $710 million tilt at the company by rival Santos.

Through a $260 million development plan announced Thursday, QGC will aim to double sales next financial year and double them again the year after.

The Brisbane-based coal seam gas specialist expects to sell around 12 petajoules (pj) of gas this financial year, 30pj next year and 60pj in fiscal 2009.

 

NSW Govt goes ahead with desal plant

admin /21 June, 2007

Sydney, Thursday 21/6/07 

As the State Government pushes ahead with its controversial plan to build a desalination plant, Sydney’s dam levels hit the half full mark today.

As of 3pm, the city’s dams were 50 per cent full, up 10.8 percentage points on the previous week thanks to heavy rainfall over the catchment.  Last week’s mark was 39.2 per cent.

The dams are now at their highest since May 2004 but Water Utilities Minister Nathan Rees yesterday said the $1.9 billion desalination plant would go ahead regardless of dam levels.

Widespread rains across the state have also lifted spirits in the bush, with nearly 100 per cent of NSW receiving some rain in the past month.

However, based on May data, 80.3 per cent of the state remained officially drought afflicted, down from 83.3 per cent in April.

Google builds biggest private solar installation

admin /20 June, 2007

Google.org to fund more than $10 M to accelerate plug-in hybrid and vehicle-to-grid technology.

by Meghan Murphy, Contributing Writer
 

View Image

Photo Credit: Google.com

 

I thought that I was heading down to Mountain View, California, to check out the unveiling of the Google headquarters gigantic solar power installation yesterday, which at 1.6 megawatts (MW) is the largest installation of solar on a single corporate campus in the U.S. But the size of the array was only the tip of the iceberg.

"Clean energy technology can dramatically shift how we make and use energy for our cars and homes by charging cars through an electric grid powered by solar or other renewable energy sources, and selling power back to the electric grid when it’s needed most. This approach can quadruple the fuel efficiency of cars on the road today and improve grid stability."

— Dr. Larry Brilliant, head of Google.org

Dogma and delusion over renewables

admin /18 June, 2007


By Haydon Manning – posted Monday, 18 June 2007

Mark Diesendorf’s new book on renewable energy, Greenhouse Solutions with Sustainable Energy, (UNSW Press) is likely to receive plenty of comment if the last few days are anything to go by.

His work on renewable energy is laudable and for the most part informative. But it is also rather dogmatic and driven by conspiratorial notions of how government works: something Diesendorf shares with Clive Hamilton. One can only hope this will not become the vogue among environmentalists disgruntled with the machinations of the imperfections of liberal democratic life.

I’m perhaps best described as a “competent generalist” who prepares lectures in environmental politics and strives to present, as objectively as possible, various angles on climate change debates and less carbon intensive energy options for Australia, and in particular, China and India. I make no claims to any expertise on renewable energy science but have a fair grasp of the virtues of geo-thermal (and back this with share purchases). And lately I’ve focused on nuclear power debates – currently two articles are under review with journalists.

My problem with Diesendorf’s book, and for that matter with an organisation I’ve long been a member – the Australian Conservation Foundation – is that a very hackneyed 1970s style anti-nuclear rhetoric is employed in the vain hope that this will help bolster the case for renewable energies such as, solar, wind, bio-mass and geo-thermal.

500 Multinationals act on global warming

admin /17 June, 2007

A Report on “Multinationals’ Political Activities on Climate Change” said that US multinationals played a significant political role in influencing private and public policy towards climate change, often acting collectively.

ExxonMobil influenced US govt: US State Department papers obtained by Greenpeace under the freedom of information legislation showed that the US government’s position on climate change partly resulted from input from the Global Climate Coalition, of which ExxonMobil was a prominent member (Vidal, 2005), reported The Guardian (8/6/2005).

Identical climate change position: This confirmed what many had already suspected in view of the close resemblance of Exxon’s position to those of the US government, in their joint rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, of binding approaches to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG), and emphasis on the unsolved scientific evidence of global warming and the negative impact on international competitiveness.

NSW promotes ‘clean coal’

admin /17 June, 2007

Technology touted by the NSW State Government as a solution to coal’s climate change pollution was not certain to be commercially viable until the Upper Hunter’s giant Anvil Hill coal mine had run its course, according to the Federal Labor Party and industry experts reported in The Sydney Morning Herald.(9/6/2007, p. 9) Controversial Upper Hunter Continue Reading →

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