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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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  • NSW minister quits, Keneally faces another reshuffle

    NSW minister quits, Keneally faces another reshuffle

    ABC June 4, 2010, 12:20PM

     

    The New South Wales Premier is facing another cabinet reshuffle with today’s resignation of the Juvenile Justice Minister, Graham West.

    A spokesman for the Minister says Mr West has become frustrated with political process and the daily commute from Campbelltown has also taken a toll on his family.

    He says his resignation as minister is effective immediately and he will not be contesting his seat at the March election.

    In a brief statement Premier Kristina Keneally has thanked Mr West for his contribution to the community and the cabinet.

    “Mr West has served the people of NSW well, and I am sure he will continue to do so in the future,” she said.

    Former juvenile justice minister Barbara Perry will act in the role for the time being.

    The Government says it will not announce a replacement for Mr West until after the state budget on Tuesday.

    The New South Wales Government has lost a parliamentary secretary and two ministers in the past month.

    At the start of May, Karyn Paluzzano resigned as a parliamentary secretary and then stepped down as an MP after a public hearing by the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

    David Campbell resigned as transport minister on May 21 after he was filmed leaving a gay sex club. He remains the member for Keira.

     

  • No Disaster declaration for storm

    No disaster declaration for storm

    AAP June 3, 2010, 5:00 pm

     

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    Storm victims in northern NSW are being told to contact their insurers, with the state government unlikely to declare it a natural disaster area.

    Emergency Services Minister Steve Whan said agencies were in the process of assessing the extent of damage in Lennox Head after the town was hit by a waterspout and 150km/h winds.

    “At this stage it looks like most of the damage is to private properties rather than public infrastructure,” Mr Whan said in a statement on Thursday.

    “That means it does not appear the event meets the fixed national criteria for natural disaster relief, but we will wait for the assessments to be completed before making any determination.

    “I encourage those with damage to their homes to contact their insurers or appropriate authorities to report the damage.”

    The wild weather tore roofs from buildings and destroyed at least 12 homes, leaving six people injured.

    The town has since been shut down with downed powerlines cutting electricity supply to about 500 homes.

    Lennox Head Mayor Phillip Silver was expected to appeal to the minister to make a natural disaster declaration.

    Such a declaration typically means that councils, not-for-profit organisations, small businesses, primary producers and some other organisations are able to apply for funding or loans to aid essential repair works.

    Mr Whan said Community Services could provide assistance for low-income earners who are uninsured and whose primary residence has been damaged.

    “This assistance helps with the cost of replacing essential household items and structural repairs,” he said.

    “People can contact the disaster welfare line on 1800 018 444.”

    Premier Kristina Keneally is preparing to fly to Lennox Head where she will join Mr Whan about 7.30pm (AEST) on Thursday.

    She will inspect the storm damage and speak with affected residents, many of whom are at the town’s Bowling and Sports Club which has been set up as an evacuation centre.

    Volunteers are on standby in the region for possible further flooding and damaging weather conditions.

    “Some people are likely to be isolated so if possible they should stock up on essential food and medical supplies now,” Mr Whan said.

    “Farmers and others living and working along the rivers should immediately lift pumps and relocate livestock and equipment to higher ground.

    “The SES has already carried out two flood rescues at Ballina and I would again urge people not to drive, ride or walk through floodwaters or allow their children to play in swollen creeks or stormwater drains.”

     

  • Google-Powered Geothermal Drilling System Could Reduce Costs

     

    This method, previously used to fracture granite and marble for commercial use but effective only in surface or close-to-surface applications, is now being applied to deep-well geothermal drilling, but with water as the medium instead of air.

    Not only does the method save money by not using drill bits, which break or wear out, costing crews thousands of dollars and hours of time, but drilling is continuous and considerably faster – 30 feet per hour as compared to traditional drilling’s top speed of 10 feet per hour.

    The company at the forefront of this newly repurposed technology, Redwood City, California-based Potter Drilling, says that it intends to use the reinvented process to make drilling geothermal wells cheaper and more environmentally friendly. The technology can also be used, to equal advantage, in carbon sequestration, nuclear waste storage, and mining operations.

    Potter has already received funding from Google (Nasdaq:GOOG), the world’s best-known Internet search engine and online advertiser.

    For Google, it’s part of an overall investment of more than US$30 million in renewable energy announced in 2008, $10 million of that earmarked for geothermal alone and divided among three geothermal companies/projects: AltaRock Energy, Inc., $6.25 million, including whatever was spent for its now defunct initial geothermal project at the Geysers in California; Potter Drilling, $4 million, in two payments, to develop large scale Enhanced Geothermal Systems, or EGS; and Dallas, Texas-based Southern Methodist University Geothermal Lab, $489,521, to map and evaluate U.S. geothermal energy resources.

    More support will come from the U.S. Department of Energy, which has committed US$5 million to Potter’s initial drilling efforts in Raymond, California.

    There, in the past year and a half, the company has drilled holes ranging from one to four inches in diameter, 1,000 feet deep, to demonstrate the advantages of its hot-water spallation drilling method, which relies on the fact that rock types do not all expand the same amount when heated, resulting in stress and fracturing, the latter releasing the steam needed to power a geothermal energy system.

    Geothermal energy can also be developed from hot water – either liquid already in the ground, or surface water pumped in and heated by hot rock formations – but this form of geothermal typically produces less energy because of the lower temperatures involved. (Water becomes steam because of a material phase change at 100 degrees Celsius, or 212 degrees Fahrenheit).

    According to the Geothermal Energy Association, geothermal energy has the smallest land-use footprint of any power generation technology, including both traditional sources like coal and oil, and newer, renewable sources like solar and wind.

    It is also more reliable than solar and wind, and can be used for baseload electricity generation; every geothermal energy plant built in the last century is still in production, even though production values may have fallen as a result of poor construction or sealing (as is also the case with the BP Gulf oil disaster), or carbonate clogging.

    The single drawback to geothermal energy is the high cost of initial development, but if Potter Drilling has its way, that problem may be solved in the near future, leading to the sort of geothermal energy development that could power seven million American homes in the near term, and potentially almost the entire nation when EGS technology is perfected.

    Jeanne Roberts is a freelance writer on environment and sustainability issues. In her previous life, she worked as both a reporter and a communications specialist for a major public utility. Her most recent book, Green Your Home, approaches environmentalism from a consumer’s perspective.

    This article was originally published on the media outlet EnergyBoom and was reprinted with permission.

  • Countries agree to spend big to save world’s forests.

     

    The Oslo Climate and Forest Conference, attended by representatives of 52 countries, agreed on a non-binding framework to funnel aid promised by the rich world and set up monitoring standards to ensure money flows are based on solid results. Such frameworks are known as Redd (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) programmes.

    “The outcome of this meeting could be the first comprehensive component for a future international agreement on climate change [since Copenhagen],” World Bank chief Robert Zoellick said in a televised address from Washington DC.

    In Copenhagen, global leaders failed to deliver a legally binding deal on manmade emissions. Rich nations did agree, however, to provide $30bn from 2010-12 to help poor states combat global warming, rising to $100bn a year by 2020.

    The US, the UK, Australia, France, Japan and Norway had specifically agreed on $3.5bn from 2010-12 to save forests, a pool of money which has now grown to $4bn (£2.75bn), according to Norway.

    “There is no way to mobilise that much money without mobilising the private sector,” Norway’s prime minister Jens Stoltenberg said, referring to a plan to spend $30bn on forests and other fast-track green financing until 2012.

    Deforestation and forest degradation wipes away an area the size of England each year and is responsible for 17% of global carbon emissions – more than that made by the world’s cars, trains and planes combined, according to UN data.

    “Reducing deforestation and forest degradation can provide the largest, fastest and cheapest cuts in carbon emissions,” Stoltenberg said. Such efforts could achieve “a third of the cuts in carbon emissions needed by 2020”, he added.

    Norway, which is rich in oil, yesterday formally announced $1bn in aid to Indonesia to help protect forests in the south east Asian nation, which has been quickly clearing trees for palm oil plantations. It has a similar deal with Brazil.

    Growing populations, agriculture and the timber industry have all reduced tropical forests from the Amazon to Indonesia, where it has become more profitable to cut down natural forests.

    “Today, the market values forests more destroyed than standing,” said Papua New Guinea prime minister Michael Somare.

    “We must find a way to value forests more alive than dead.”

    To push people to protect forests, as well as to attract private sector financing, it will be essential to set up a global price for carbon emissions, either via a market or a carbon tax.

    “This is a good day – it rebuilds trust in the international community’s ability to confront climate change,” said Abyd Karmali, global head of carbon markets at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

    “What is needed is a bit more assurance that the carbon price will be there and that the private sector will have input how the system of green financing is set up.”

    Prince Charles was among the speakers at the conference, after being invited by Stoltenberg.

    The prince told the delegates that three years ago experts warned him how serious the deforestation problem had become.

    He said: “However, the great positive difference between the summer of 2007 and today is that we now have a serious group of governments – with none showing greater leadership than Norway – who are prepared to work together to find a durable solution which will effectively tackle the drivers of tropical deforestation.”

  • BP clashes with scientists over deep sea oil pollution

     

    BP’s chief executive, Tony Hayward, said it had no evidence of underwater oil clouds. “The oil is on the surface,” he said. “Oil has a specific gravity that’s about half that of water. It wants to get to the surface because of the difference in specific gravity.”

    Hayward’s assertion flies in the face of studies by scientists at universities in Florida, Georgia and Mississippi, among other institutions, who say they have detected huge underwater plumes of oil, including one 120 metres (400ft) deep about 50 miles from the destroyed rig.

    BP’s claim is likely only to further anger environmentalists and the White House, which has grown increasingly suspicious of the company’s claims to be frank and transparent on developments. The president’s environmental adviser and director of the Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, Carol Browner, has accused BP of misstating the scale of the leak.

    “BP has a vested financial interest in downplaying the size of this,” she said on CBS television. “They will pay penalties at the end of the day, a per-barrel per-day penalty.”

    Ed Markey, chairman of the House of Representatives environment committee, has also accused BP of underplaying the scale of the disaster and suggested that it may have a criminal liability.

    “The fine that can be imposed upon them is based on how many barrels [pour in to the sea]. It could wind up in billions of dollars of fines,” said Markey. “They had a stake in low-balling the number right from the beginning. They were either lying or they were incompetent.”

    In the White House, under increasing criticism for not taking charge of the effort to stop the spill, some officials are saying they have been misled by the company or kept in the dark at key moments.

    The Politico website reported that the Obama team was incensed that the company failed to inform it for a day and a half after suspending the failed “top kill” operation to plug the spill using rubber tyres and mud.

    Obama is expected to hold his first meeting today with the leaders of an oil spill commission he established to make policy recommendations about US offshore oil drilling. The commission will be similar to those that looked into the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 and the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979.

    Also today, US attorney general Eric Holder will meet federal prosecutors and state attorneys general in New Orleans. It will be Holder’s first trip to survey the damage before what legal experts believe will be a criminal investigation into the disaster.

    The dispute between the administration and BP comes as the company readies its latest effort to contain the flow of oil in to the sea, following the failure of top kill. The new plan involves an intricate operation to cut the top off the damaged riser that brought oil to the surface of the destroyed rig. The intention is to create a flat surface to which to attach a valve that would divert the oil into a pipe and on to a ship.

    But slicing the top off the damaged pipe may result in oil flowing into the sea at a faster rate until the new valve is fitted. Even if successful, the operation would only limit, not entirely stop, oil from flowing into the sea. If this measure failed, BP’s best hope of halting the oil would remain the drilling of a relief well that would ease the pressure on the damaged one. But the US government has warned that the spill could continue into August.

    The attempts to stop the oil flow have been given added urgency by the start of the hurricane season tomorrow.

    Forecasters are predicting an unusually high number of storms over the next six months. If the oil is still spread across the sea, a hurricane is likely to disperse it over a much wider area and push it deeper into marshlands and other inland areas, making the environmental disaster even worse.

    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is predicting between eight and 14 hurricanes this season, with perhaps a similar number of smaller storms.

    The US military has ruled out taking charge of the operation to stem the flow of oil from the blown-out BP rig. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, today said that military chiefs had looked at the available equipment and concluded that “the best technology in the world, with respect to that, exists in the oil industry”.

    A day earlier, the former US secretary of state, Colin Powell, said the military should step in because the crisis was now “beyond the capacity” of BP to stop.

  • Oil slick spotted off Florida coast

    Oil slick spotted off Florida coast

    • From correspondents in Pensacola Beach, Florida
    • From: AP
    • June 02, 2010 10:09AM

     

    AN oil sheen was confirmed about 15km off the Florida coast, and officials are saying it could hit the white sands of Pensacola Beach as soon as today (local time).

    Escambia County officials started putting out boom yesterday and making other plans for the arrival of the oil.

    Crude has already been reported along barrier islands in Alabama and Mississippi, and it has impacted some 200km of Louisiana coastline.

    Florida officials say their request for about $US150,000 ($180,636) from BP to buy sifting machines and a tractor to help remove oil from the beach’s famous white sands has lingered unanswered.