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The Generator news service publishes articles on sustainable development, agriculture and energy as well as observations on current affairs. The news service is used on the weekly radio show, The Generator, as well as by a number of monthly and quarterly magazines. A podcast of the Generator news is also available.
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  • Report counts homes that will go under

    Mr Sartor confirmed that he was challenging a judgment in the Land and Environment Court which found he was under an obligation to consider climate change flood risks when he approved the $150 million Sandon Point development.

    The plan called for hundreds of new houses on open land between Thirroul and Bulli in Wollongong.

    Mr Sartor told the Herald that Justice Biscoe, erred in finding that the minister had a mandatory obligation to consider whether climate change would lead to an increased flood risk.

    “The Sandon Point approval was overturned on a technicality,” he said. “If that interpretation of the law stands it would mean that future approvals would be less certain because you can’t foresee all the things that you might have to consider in the future.”

    The case is going to the NSW Court of Appeal in July.

    The sea level report, released this month as part of the state’s climate change plan, says rising waters and increased storms will affect “virtually all aspects of occupation on low-lying coastal areas”. Low-lying coastal areas could suffer from the “Venice effect”, in which more frequent high tides could inundate suburbs.

    The first phase of aerial laser mapping covered 1400 square kilometres of the Hunter and Central Coast and found the homes, plus other buildings, 73 kilometres of roads and 164 square kilometres of residentially zoned land were less than one metre above current sea level.

    It suggested mid-term responses such as building sea walls along urban beaches and longer-term strategies involving “managed retreat” from the water’s edge. Coastal development is expected to “exacerbate risks from sea-level rise and increases in the severity and frequency of storms and coastal flooding by as early as 2050”, the report said. It notes that climate change planning is essential to the NSW coastal development policy “to ensure future urban development is not located in areas of high risk from natural hazards including sea level rise, coastal recession, rising water tables and flooding”.

    A NSW Opposition MP, Michael Richardson, accused Mr Sartor of avoiding his responsibilities as planning minister. “Frank Sartor says the impact of sea level rise on coastlines is an issue for Climate Change Minister Verity Firth,”he said. “If that’s the case, why did the planning department produce this document?”

  • Farmers and Nationals back Hemp

    Agriculture could take on a new direction, according to NSW Member for Barwon, Kevin Humphries, who this week pledging his support for the Hemp Industry Bill 2008.

    Mr Humphries said the the bill would enable low-TCH hemp to be cultivated and supplied for commercial production and other legitimate purposes.

    Speaking to the Parliament, Mr Humphries said he believed the hemp industry was a significant player as a fibre crop, with hemp already successfully grown in the Darling Downs and Wide Bay areas of Queensland.

    “Places such as Barwon, because of the nature of the soil, the climate and water availability has the capacity to ramp up hemp production quite quickly,” Mr Humphries said.

    Mr Humphries said hemp currently grown in the Darling Downs is exported to France for processing, as Australia cannot get a mill to establish this value-adding process.

    “Australia is short of a fibre-processing mill, which would create jobs in regional areas not only for domestic consumption but also for export and the creation of such a mill is vital.”

    Superior paper pulp, biodegradable plastics, automotive and aerospace components, animal bedding, absorbent materials, textiles, building products and insulation are some of the by-products of hemp fibre.

    “We have the capacity, with our sustainable agricultural practices and our environmentally friendly techniques for fibre production, to build a new industry.”

    Moree’s Ross Munro, who was involved in a pilot project in Dalby, believes there is great potential for an industry in NSW.

    Mr Munro is one of a number of growers in the Moree area working in collaboration with Ecofibre Industries, instigating hemp trails in the district and designing relocatable milling plants.

    Phil Warner, Ecofibre Executive Farming Director said that to overcome current transport conditions and compete in an international, heavily subsidised, market Australia needed to become more efficient in the way hemp is processed and handled.

    He said there were currently developing new harvesting and module building techniques based on those used in the cotton industry, allowing 60-80 percent of the crop to be processed in the field.

    Mr Warner said the relocatable milling systems would also compensate for Australia’s varying seasonal conditions and with hemp internationally dual cropped and processed for food and fibre, it had a huge market.

    “Canada’s hemp industry has grown from a value of $50,000 to $50 million in six years,” Mr Warner said.

    Mr Warner said he was disappointed that it had taken NSW so long to investigate the possibilities of the industry.

  • Queensland’s $2m cattle-rustling problem

    “Laws relating to stock identification, stock theft and food safety have been set up to protect the industry and commercial cattle producers,” Mr Harsant said.

    “We believe a specialist prosecutor is the best way to ensure that those breaking the rules are prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and that penalties imposed are appropriate.

    “Stock theft and fraud is a specialist area of law involving many quite complicated industry systems and laws. With many new technologies aiding the development of a case against ‘cattle duffers’, including NLIS and the use of DNA markers, the police have even more complex forms of evidence being brought into a case.

    “AgForce believes only a prosecutor with significant experience will be able to bring a case through to a successful outcome, and we have written to the DPP’s acting director Paul Rutledge and Attorney General Kerry Shine with that request.”

    Mr Harsant said he expects other industry groups will support its request for a new specialist position and invited intensive beef producers, dairy farmers, stock and station agents and livestock transporters to today’s meeting to enable a supply-chain approach to finding solutions to the problems.

    “AgForce is keen to ensure that the paperwork burden on producers is kept to a minimum but we also need to ensure our $3.7 billion dollar beef industry is protected from fraud and stock theft, and that brands and earmarking are effectively used to identify the owners of stock.”

  • Gas companies hope to divert arctic disaster

    Methane hydrate isn’t a familiar term to most, but it is gaining popularity in the energy sector. In the realm of energy R&D, methane hydrates are being evaluated as a potential fuel for the future. Some believe there is enough methane in the form of hydrates-methane locked in ice-to supply energy for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years.
    The fuel of the future may be ice that burns

    Methane hydrates, a promising natural gas resource, are believed to reside throughout the globe in sea-floor sediments and permafrost.
    Lorie Langley, who is leading ORNL’s Gas Hydrate program for the Fossil Energy Program, believes ORNL can contribute significantly to DOE’s and Congress’s research agenda. Last month President Clinton signed the Methane Hydrate Research and Development Act, which authorizes approximately $50 million over five years to develop an understanding of the nature, behavior and abundance of this clean-burning energy resource.

    Explains Langley, “Gas hydrates are clathrate compounds. A clathrate is simply a structure in which water molecules under certain conditions bond to form an ice-like cage that encapsulates a gas molecule, known as a guest molecule. When that guest is a methane molecule, you have methane hydrate.”

    Methane hydrates, which form at low temperature and high pressure, are found in sea-floor sediments and the arctic permafrost. They can be scattered through several-hundred-meter depths and at various concentrations. The gas hydrates being evaluated by ORNL researchers are methane hydrates and carbon dioxide hydrates.

    Although some research has been carried out in the past, little is known about the location, formation, decomposition, or actual quantities of methane hydrates. However, national and international research and exploration over the last 20 years by various governmental and industrial entities have resulted in general agreement that methane hydrates should be evaluated as a potential primary energy source for the future.

    The growing demand for natural gas points to a need for this resource, Langley says. “The United States consumes about 21 trillion cubic feet of natural gas per year. We import three percent of that. Demand is expected to grow to 32 trillion cubic feet by 2020.”

    The natural gas infrastructure is growing also. Much of industry has already converted to natural gas. Public utilities are headed that way as well.

    DOE’s research agenda is structured around four major R&D elements: resource characterization, production, global carbon cycle, and safety and sea-floor stability.

    Estimates on how much energy is stored in methane hydrates range from 350 years’ supply to 3500 years’.
    Resource characterization: This is essentially the baseline research toward understanding how methane hydrates behave, where and how they occur and what energy potential they actually represent. This work will require extensive data management, computer modeling and laboratory and field studies.

    Production: Methods of harvesting methane hydrates will have to be developed. Langley emphasized that production methods for methane hydrates will be evaluated and will probably be similar to those of the oil and gas industry: depressurization, thermal stimulation or possibly solvent injection.

    Global carbon cycle: Since methane is a greenhouse gas, understanding methane as a primary gas or a trace gas will be important in today’s climate change initiatives. Hydrates are being evaluated as a potential storage mechanism for CO2 sequestration and for storing methane for use as a transporation fuel. Langley points out that although methane when burned is a clean fuel, more information is needed on the emissions from various methane sources to fully understand its atmospheric implications.

    Safety and sea-floor stability: The oil and gas industry continues to explore deeper beneath the ocean floor. Industry has concerns about drilling through hydrate zones, which can destabilize supporting foundations for platforms and production wells. The disruption to the ocean floor also could result in surface slumping or faulting, which could endanger work crews and the environment.

    Hydates, the small specks, have been formed in ESD’s Sea-floor Process Simulator.
    Langley and ORNL Fossil Energy Program Manager Rod Judkins recently wrapped up a call for proposals for methane hydrate research. Research is already in progress: ORNL researchers currently are developing and producing hydrates in the Sea-floor Process Simulator in the Environmental Sciences Division and have completed support for the installation of a research well in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Data fusion and resource assessment activities are under way in the Computer Science and Mathematics Division to develop a model that will better estimate the resource. Proposed projects in crystallography by the Metals and Ceramics Division will provide hydrate structural data through neutron diffraction.

    “Estimates on how much energy is stored in methane hydrates range from 350 years’ supply to 3500 years’ supply based on current energy consumption. That reflects both the potential as a resource and how little we really know about the resource,” Langley says.

    “ORNL is and will continue to contribute to all four of the research areas. Methane hydrates have the potential to offer a clean source of energy, but we need to know much more about this ice.”-B.C.

  • Ferguson buries millions of dollars with CO2

    Resources Minister Martin Ferguson has unveiled draft legislation to establish the world’s first framework for carbon dioxide capture and geological storage (CCS).

    Mr Ferguson said it involved capturing greenhouse gas emissions, predominantly from coal-fired power stations, before they reached the atmosphere. The gas is then injected and stored deep underground in geological formations similar to those which have stored oil and gas for millions of years, he said.

    “With 83 per cent of Australia’s electricity generated from coal, no serious response to climate change can ignore the need to clean up coal and the Government’s establishment of a CCS framework represents a major step towards making clean coal a reality,” he said in a statement.

    “CCS is essential for the long-term sustainability of coal-fired power generation and the potential of new industries such as coal-to-liquids, which could improve Australia’s liquid transport fuel security.”

    Mr Ferguson said the draft legislation had been referred to the House of Representatives Primary Industries and Resources Committee to conduct comprehensive review before the bill was introduced to Parliament later this year.

    The legislation establishes access and property rights for injection and storage of greenhouse gases into a stable sub-surface geological reservoir in commonwealth waters more than three nautical miles offshore.

    Mr Ferguson said the legislation provided for appropriate consultation and multiple use rights with other marine users, including fishing and petroleum industries. It ensures pre-existing property and use rights are properly preserved.

    “Australia has the capacity to inject and store a significant amount of its carbon emissions in these reservoirs and my Department, through Geoscience Australia, is assessing numerous sites for geological storage,” he said.

    Mr Ferguson said the work of Geoscience Australia, plus government support of CCS research through the CO2 Cooperative Research Centre, placed Australia at the forefront of this pioneering technology.

  • Budget fails to impress Greens

    The Rudd Labor government last week introduced a means test for the government rebate toward the cost of rooftop solar panels for domestic use. THe implication of the rebate is that households earning more than $100,000 each year will not get any financial assistance if they want to go solar. The move has infuriated climate change activists, enviromentalists and the solar industry. The Greens leader, Bob Brown, described the move as “an exocet missile into an industry at the forefront of fighting climate change.” In the same media conference he described Brendan Nelson’s move to subsidise petrol consumption as “perverse”. 

    Other budget items that attracted widespread criticism include the funding of major roadworks and a slow response to the return of water from irrigators to the Murray Darling. It is projected that the nation’s transport will be forced to move increasingly to rail because of spiralling oil prices. France has announced it will commit no new money to roads and infrastructure development will be primarily rail.