The Symposium marks the first high level technical conference to address the research needs related to conversion of gas to liquids, coal to liquids and biomass to liquids, altogether known as XTL. Producing synthetic fuels from gas, coal and biomass will be a key focus for CSIRO’s Energy Transformed Flagship, through the additional funding.

“Our reserves of liquid transport fuels are diminishing and the conversion of natural gas to diesel or gasoline is an obvious solution,” says David Lamb, Leader for the Flagship’s Low Emissions Transport research.

“Even a small improvement in Australia’s liquid fuel self sufficiency will deliver significant economic benefits to the nation as we will be less dependent on expensive imported oil. In addition, these synthetic fuels have environmental benefits with lower emissions.” 

CSIRO’s research in gas-to-liquids technology is a key focus of the new AusGas initiative according to CSIRO Petroleum’s Deputy Chief Dr David Whitford,

“AusGas is a national alliance of research centres in partnership with industry and Government to address the technology challenges of the local gas industry,” Dr Whitford says.

“AusGas recognises that the development of Australia’s natural gas resources offers the prospect of a secure and competitive supply of transport, domestic and industrial fuels, lower emissions and an opportunity for significant wealth generation, and gas-to-liquids is central to this.”

The Symposium keynote address will be delivered by Australia’s Chief Scientist, Dr Jim Peacock, and world renowned experts including Jens Rostrup-Nielsen and Enrique Iglesia will discuss recent technological advances. In addition, CSIRO specialists from the Energy Transformed Flagship and Petroleum Division will outline the latest research activities in Australia.

Media are welcome to attend the Symposium which starts at 9am, July 17, at The Australian Academy of Science’s Shine Dome, Gordon St, ANU, Canberra.

For more information about the Symposium and to download speaker’s bio’s and abstracts visit www.csiro.au/events/SynfuelAlternative.

"The water level on the crucial Wangjiaba Hydrological Station may soon surge above the danger line as more rains have been forecast in the next few days," the paper quoted Cheng Dianlong, the office’s deputy director, as saying.

Anhui’s Mengwa area, where crops and homes of 157,000 people have already been submerged, faces another bout of deliberate flooding to ease pressure at Wangjiaba, the paper said.

Authorities had already flooded nine buffer zones along the Huai to relieve more than 2 million flood-hit residents in Henan, and mobilized more than 30,000 troops to help rescue work, the paper said.

The Ministry of Agriculture warned of the threat of disease, especially bird flu and anthrax, in flood-hit areas, and said animals that have died should be neither sold nor eaten.

Any outbreaks must be immediately reported, it added.

"Pay special attention to preventing diseases which can be transmitted by humans and animals," the ministry said in a statement on its Web site (www.agri.gov.cn).

In a sign of the urgency involved, an Anhui government watchdog sacked the village party chief of Zhenxing, in Yingshang county, for "not directing work at the flood front".

"Failing your responsibility during floods is like touching a high-voltage electric wire," the China Daily quoted a county discipline official as saying.

Further south, officials in Hunan province were battling to contain a plague of more than 2 billion rats fleeing the rising waters of Dongting Lake.

Scientists blamed China’s massive Three Gorges Dam project and climate change for the rodents, whose flight to dry land has seen them ruin cropland in some 22 counties surrounding the lake.

The controversial dam’s "interception of the upper watershed had lowered water levels and created ideal conditions for a rodent outbreak", the paper quoted Wu Chenghe, chief of a plantation protection office at Datong Lake, which runs off Dongting Lake, as saying.

At the conference in December 1997, Australian representatives argued that we should be allowed a target of an 8% increase in our emissions because our economy is dependent on fossil fuels. Despite widespread condemnation from both advanced nations who were negotiating to curb their emissions considerably, and developing nations who felt their growth was being unreasonably capped, we stuck to this position and the rest of the world agreed rather than lose consensus. Then, to the horror of every civilised person on the planet, the Prime Minister announced that we would renege on our agreement on the basis that our economic growth was more important than the future of the planet.

Only the US government, which had been opposing the Kyoto Protocol since the Berlin conference of 1995 applauded. Australia’s refusal doubled the number of nations refusing to ratify the treaty and gave the US some credibility as one of two countries that refused to cooperate in a global effort to save the world.

Over the intervening decade we have heard a range of justifications for this anti-social position. The problem is not real, the science is not convincing, the problem might be real but we are not sure of the causes, it does not matter how much greenhouse gas we emit because other nations emit much more, the litany of weak excuses goes on and on.

Living in this country it is almost impossible to imagine the disdain the rest of the world feels for us. We are in a similar position to the children of drunks. We think that getting thrown out of parties is normal and we believe that all hosts are equally unreasonable self centred pigs, because that’s what we hear on the way home.

Leave the safety of our shores and spend any time in Europe, Japan or South America and you realise that the rest of the world is increasingly angry. European car companies, for example, have reduced emission targets by one third, and face further legislated reductions in the coming year. They are spending huge sums of money to comply with this negotiated regime and now demand that their governments place sanctions on products coming from the United States and Australia.

As we approach the next round of negotiations for a global protocol, Australia and the US have decided to use the Australia Pacific Economic Cooperation group to form an alternative strategy on addressing global warming and undermine the Kyoto Protocol. Posing as the architects of a solution that can bring the United States, Canada, Australia, China and India into a binding agreement, it is a thinly disguised attempt to derail attempts to shift the world’s energy production away from fossil fuels.

The screening this week of The Climate Change Swindle on Australia’s public broadcaster, after 47 of the scientists quoted in the film have publicly distanced themselves from it and claimed that the filmmaker has edited their quotes out of context and misused footage is simply another piece of ‘noise’ designed to distract the debate.

It is disgusting that a decade after Kyoto was negotiated that we are still arguing about whether global warming is real. This government has a clear agenda and that is to sell as much coal as possible before the world community forces us to stop. All the political bluster is just a distraction while the real action takes place at the port of Newcastle which ships one tenth of the coal used on the planet.

There is only one solution, evict this government at the next election and give The Greens control of the parliament. The Greens have consistently spelled out the imminent disaster facing the planet for two decades and have been the only party brave enough to grapple with the need to restructure our economy. The party’s position has not changed in all that time but the mainstream view has.

Vote for the party that is building the future. Vote one The Greens.

Competition benefits: The government also was confident that full competition in the retail electricity sector, which began 1 July, would keep prices down. Homeowners and small businesses can now choose from who they buy their power. Most retailers, Wilson said, were offering discounts of up to 10 per cent on the official price. Several of the 20 companies licensed by the government to sell retail electricity in Queensland have said they won’t enter the market straight away.

First retailer fails :Energy One, has also just been suspended by the National Electricity Market Management Company. In a statement on June 22 the company said it was being quoted $101.89 per MW for a one-year base load contract. These prices compared with those prevailing earlier this year of approximately $40 to $45 per MW for base load electricity.

Marketing gimmicks: This won’t stop the big industry retailers from bombarding existing and potential customers with marketing material and offers in the days and weeks ahead. It has already been reported gimmicks such as football tickets will be on offer and some retailers were planning on doorknocking every household in the southeast up to five times in a bid to get their business.

The Courier Mail, 2/7/2007, p. 24