Category: Archive

Reduced tillage makes only small diference: "Lesion nematode populations under pastures were more variable – possibly due to movement of soil and water from adjoining cropping blocks. Changing from conventional tillage to reduced tillage or direct drilling has had beneficial effects on general soil microbial activity but the impact is small and inclusion of pasture leys has a much larger beneficial impact due to greater and more continuous inputs of organic matter.”

Long fallows a bad idea: Bell said long fallows common to the northern region severely impacted on some components of the soil community and reduced its ability to carry out key functions such as assist crops to accumulate nutrients and to suppress the build up of pathogens like lesion nematodes.

Queensland Country Life, 4/1/2007, p.17

Costly but possibly worth it: "I understand it is would be an expensive 18-kilometre trek, but certainly the apple industry, which is worth $30 million a year, could be given a substantial boost in these tough times if it had a more secure water supply than it currently has. I call on the water minister to instigate a cost-benefit analysis to see what it would cost to send this water south to Harcourt and compare that with the benefits that would accrue to the apple industry and other industries associated with the Harcourt Valley".

Scheme not efficient enough: Drum said: "The project will take about 15 megalitres a day from the Epsom area. It will go through Bendigo and up to the Spring Gully Reservoir. From there it will be sent to a few sports ovals and recreation reserves along the way. Some of it will be sent out to Eppalock to be used to replace environmental flows, but a large percentage of it is allocated to simply run back down very inefficient drains and back to fill dams on quite a few hobby farms". Under the current scheme quite a lot of this water will go, not to be wasted, but it will also not be put to its best possible use".

Reference: parliament of Victoria, Legislative Assembly Daily Hansard, Thursday, 15 March 2007

Erisk Net, 15/3/2007

The majority of Australians oppose the building of nuclear reactors and only slightly less are in favour of expanding uranium mining according to a new poll, which signals problems for both the federal government and opposition. The poll taken by Green pulse at the end of last month found that;

•  only 29 per cent of Australians were in favour of nuclear power, 51 per cent were opposed to it; and

• 20 per cent were undecided.

This is in contrast to a recent Newspoll that found 45 per cent of Australians were in favour of building nuclear reactors, although they were asked in the context of combating global warming. The new poll is a blow to Prime Minister John Howard who has consistently argued that nuclear power should be a central plank of the energy mix over the next 100 years, as it is the only baseload power source that generates almost no greenhouse gases.

"Six out of 10 Australians are concerned or very concerned about the country adopting nuclear power," Green Pulse found. The poll of 1000 voting age Australians will be welcome news for green groups and the Labor Party, who say nuclear power is too expensive and is at least 15 years away. They argue the country would be better to focus on wind, solar and geothermal power which can be installed almost immediately and would produce no harmful waste, which must then be stored for hundreds of years.

The poll also found that 46 per cent were opposed to expanding the local uranium mining industry, 27 per cent were in favour and the same number were undecided.

This is a potential problem for the Labor Party which will vote whether to scrap its "no new mines" policy at next month’s national conference. Despite the opposition of many on the party’s left, including frontbencher Anthony Albanese and environment spokesman Peter Carrett, most expect the motion to succeed. This would allow new mines in South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory to begin the production and export of uranium, which is becoming an increasingly popular energy source in China, India and Europe.

Not surprisingly the poll found coalition voters were significantly more likely to support the expansion of uranium mining. Green Pulse found that 73 per cent were opposed to storing waste in Australia, while only 18 per cent were in favour of it.

The Australian Financial Review, 12/3/2007, p. 9

Source: Erisk Net  

The Global Wind Energy Council reported a record boom in the wind energy markets across 70 countries for 2006. Despite formidable political barriers, wind power has earned its place as a mainstream energy source.

Geographically Australia is 15 times the size of Spain, with only half of Spain’s population. With around one thirtieth of Spain’s population density, Australia has a phenomenal capacity for wind generation that remains untapped.

Beyond Zero Emission’s Renewable Stationary Energy proposal shows that Victoria can generate 12,000MW of wind power using only 1% of its land area. This estimate is based on already available commercial technologies, as well as requiring robust policy frameworks and political commitment.

Beyond Zero Emissions have marked out Victoria’s opportunity to move its energy supplies to near-100% wind power, boosted by gas and hydro in peak periods. Gas and hydro boosts would eventually be replaced by solar
thermal technologies, resulting in 100% of Victoria’s energysourced entirely from renewables.

"Developments worldwide show that the global wind energy industry is clearly competitive in big energy markets, achieving sustained growth despite being denied excessive subsidies that fossil-fuel industries and other non-renewables enjoy" said Matthew Wright, author of BZE’s Renewable Stationary Energy scoping document.

Spain aspires to be sourcing 30% of its electricity from renewables by 2010, half of this to be supplied by wind power. At the sub-national level autonomous regions including Navarra have aimed to source 100% of their energy requirements from renewables by 2010.

With the introduction of state based renewable energy targets, Australia’s political climate is just right for planning a national
energy transition to 100% renewables.

Wind power’s established role as one of Europe’s mainstream energy sources has yet to resonate in Australia. Now that Spain has demonstrated the success of wind power to supply a significant proportion of its required energy, Australia’s wind power production should now take off with the support of matured wind generation technologies and sophisticated turbine models.