EcoRadio

Author: admin

  • Temporary Gassifier

    Gentlemen,
              please review and re-distribute as widely as you think is
    appropriate : this is a simplified downdraft gassifier that was designed
    and tested back in the late 80’s for use in an emergency if petroleum based
    fuel was unavailable for essential activities such as agricultural food
    production and emergency transport.

    It should be noted : devices of this type will almost completely degrade
    the nitrate content of the biomass that is used to fuel them. Anyone who
    therefore proposes that these are a long term “solution” to peak oil should
    stop and think carefully before they take this position. They are merely
    an emergency stop gap. Nothing more.

    http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CB4QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.soilandhealth.org%2F03sov%2F0302hsted%2Ffema.woodgas.pdf&ei=kKJLTLrkNIOyvgPtq8W7Cg&usg=AFQjCNHPW6wCaN2mGjfPqkd6i_I5ZAi19g&sig2=u4NDpbvDy6C0U62PsEPdfA

    Regards,
            Stuart Braid

  • Coalition plans to slash migration levels

     

    Population Minister Tony Burke has accused the Opposition of using a sneaky political trick.

    He says migration levels are already forecast to fall even further than the Coalition’s target.

    “By 2011/2012, it’s forecast that we’ll be at 145,000,” he said.

    “All he’s done is take existing projections over the next 12 months or so and call them his policy.”

    The Coalition will detail more of its policy later today, including which visa categories will be affected.

    In April it announced it would set targets to stop the country reaching a projected population of 36 million by 2050.

    Treasury figures showed Australia’s population was set to reach 36 million by 2050 but the Opposition said that was too high.

    Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said then that a Coalition government would expand the Productivity Commission and have it review population sustainability on a yearly basis.

    It would use the commission’s advice to establish what it calls a population growth band target.

    Tags: community-and-society, immigration, population-and-demographics, government-and-politics, elections, federal-government, federal-elections, australia

    First posted 1 hour 54 minutes ago

  • Iran plans to build nuclear fusion reactor

     

    The United States and its European allies suspect Iran is trying to build an atomic bomb, and have imposed sanctions on it in a drive to convince it to drop sensitive nuclear work. Tehran says its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only.

    Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi said Iran was ready to cooperate with the international community over the country’s National Fusion Energy Project, the Students News Agency ISNA reported, without mentioning the plan to build the reactor.

    “The scientific phase of the fusion energy research project is being launched with no budgetary limitation,” Mr Salehi said.

    Commercial nuclear reactors rely on nuclear fission, a process that generates energy from splitting atoms.

    – Reuters

    Tags: environment, nuclear-issues, world-politics, iran

  • Greens’ plan for 100% renewable energy

    Greens’ plan for 100% renewable energy

    The Australian Greens today launched a policy to plan Australia’s transformation into a 100% renewable energy powerhouse over the coming decades.

    “Australia can harness our tremendous resources of the sun, wind, ocean, earth and human ingenuity to replace our reliance on coal with 100% renewable energy within decades,” Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Senator Christine Milne, said.

    “But, to make that transformation rapidly and efficiently, we need a plan: we need to know where our biggest and best renewable energy resources are; we need streamlined consultation and approvals processes that bring communities together instead of dividing them; and we need jobs and infrastructure in the right place at the right time.

    “The Greens are proposing that we start working on that plan immediately so we can have a 100% renewable Australia as soon as possible.”

    The Planning for 100% Renewable Energy policy would task Infrastructure Australia with:
    · mapping Australia’s renewable energy resource;
    · bringing together governments, communities and developers in streamlined consultation and approvals processes;
    · creating renewable energy development zones, funding necessary grid infrastructure; and
    · preparing a scoping study for achieving 100% renewable energy powering Australia by 2030, 2040 and 2050.

    This policy would work in conjunction with a gross national feed-in tariff, giving certainty to investors in all forms of renewable energy, and an increased renewable energy target.

    “We need policies to drive renewable energy and an infrastructure plan to enable the expansion to 100%. We need a plan, not ad hoc grants cobbled together for an election.

    “Right now, Australia’s renewable energy policies are uncoordinated and directionless as well as unambitious. Unless this changes, renewable energy will always stay on the sidelines even though global experience shows it is already technically capable of replacing coal and gas.

    “If new power lines are built to a new wind farm before we work out if other developments will happen in the area, either the power lines will have to be duplicated at great expense or the later developments won’t happen.

    “If we have the 100% renewables goal in mind as we go, and we have done the grunt work of mapping and consultation in advance, we can avoid these expensive mistakes and instead find the synergies that will make the transformation easier, cheaper and faster.

    “Renewable energy development zones have been tremendously popular and effective in parts of the USA and Europe, cutting red tape and bringing communities, governments and developers together instead of setting them at loggerheads.

    “We know already that some of our best resources for baseload solar power match up with both huge geothermal energy reserves and wind. As well, some of our best wind resources are in the same place as great potential ocean power resources. We need a proper mapping exercise to overlay this with the existing grid and reasonable access to population centres.

    For more information phone Tim Hollo 0437 587 562

    _______________________________________________
    GreensMPs Media mailing list
    Media@greensmps.org.au

  • Investors call for clear policy on carbon

     

    The Investor Group on Climate Change, representing fund managers holding more than $600 billion, said yesterday’s changes would only ”marginally” affect future investment decisions until there was a clearer policy on carbon.

    “In terms of driving significant investment into low-carbon technologies, or allowing investors to price emissions risks into their portfolios, clearly we are still in a period of waiting,” the group’s chief executive, Nathan Fabian, said. The big listed utilities, Origin and AGL, echoed their previous calls for greater clarity through an emissions trading scheme.

    Broader-based business groups welcomed the chance for further discussion, but stressed the need for greater certainty in carbon policy. Katie Lahey, chief executive of the Business Council of Australia, said while elements of Labor’s policy were ”useful”, the party needed show leadership and provide lasting solutions.

    “The ALP’s commitment to building community consensus is constructive,” she said. “However, in this complex policy area, long-term solutions that balance Australia’s economic and environment considerations will only come through strong political leadership.”

    Brad Page, the chief executive of the Energy Supply Association, said the measures, including $1 billion over 10 years to connect remote renewable energy projects, was ”sensible policy”.

    But Mr Page said without both of the major parties aligned on climate business would continue to flounder in uncertainty.

    ”That is really why we welcome the new consultation measures,” he said. ”They must lead to bipartisan policies and measures because if you don’t get those you still can’t make those large capital, intensive, long-life investment decisions,” he said.

    However, the ANU climate change economist Professor Warwick McKibbin, said the Gillard government had adopted an ”asylum-seeker approach to climate policy”. Climate uncertainty would be felt ”right across the economy”.

    ”Business wants to know what the framework is and they want to know if there is a way that they can hedge the very large risks that they need to make on very large capital investments over the next decade or two and this doesn’t provide any of it. This creates more uncertainty. It puts everything under the carpet for another year,” he said.

     

  • Obama blocked on climate

     

    Related Coverage

    Some in the administration still hope to revive the legislation this year, although the preoccupation of congress members has already shifted to election campaigning.

    Forced to accept political reality, Democrat Senate majority leader Harry Reid yesterday said that his party would instead pursue a more limited energy bill this year that concentrated on combating the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and improving efficiency standards.

    Expressing his disappointment at dropping the broader bill, Senator Reid said: “We don’t have a single Republican to work with us. We don’t have the votes.”

    Mr Obama’s White House director of energy and climate change policy, Carol Browner, said: “Everyone is disappointed.”

    Democrats needed a “super-majority” of 60 votes out of 100 in the Senate to pass a proposed climate change bill with an emissions scheme — but fell at least two short and possibly more if their party fragmented.

    Many Democrats have been under pressure from voters working in high carbon emission industries to reject greenhouse gas limits.

    The House of Representatives, where the Democrats have a resounding majority, passed its own version of a climate change bill last year that was still to be merged with Senate legislation.

    Mr Obama has staked much political capital on winning Senate support for legislation backing a 17 per cent reduction on 2005 carbon emissions by 2020.

    Just as Kevin Rudd did, Mr Obama took his position to the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen in December, only to see no common agreement.

    Mr Rudd wanted a 5 per cent emissions cut on 2000 levels by 2020 and also pushed to introduce a cap-and-trade scheme, but he dropped his government’s legislation this year when it was blocked in the Senate by the Coalition.

    The push for US climate change legislation had been in doubt for months. The main prospect of success rested on a senior Republican, Lindsey Graham, joining a coalition with Democrat John Kerry and independent Joe Lieberman, and possibly luring some Republicans to go with them.

    Senator Graham bowed out last month, saying he could no longer back a joint plan.

    Without legislation, Mr Obama’s opportunity to curb emissions relies on the US Environmental Protection Agency using its powers to control dangerous pollutants.

    The blow to Mr Obama’s climate change agenda yesterday came as the US Senate agreed, after resistance, to pass an extension of emergency unemployment benefits.

    Mr Obama also signed into law new financial regulations to limit the behaviour of banks, following the passage of legislation by the Senate.