Author: Neville

‘True Grit’ Erodes Assumptions About Evolution

Mar. 4, 2013 — Dining on field grasses would be ruinous to human teeth, but mammals such as horses, rhinos and gazelles evolved long, strong teeth that are up to the task.

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New research led by the University of Washington challenges the 140-year-old assumption that finding fossilized remains of prehistoric animals with such teeth meant the animals were living in grasslands and savannas. Instead it appears certain South American mammals evolved the teeth in response to the gritty dust and volcanic ash they encountered while feeding in an ancient tropical forest.

The new work was conducted in Argentina where scientists had thought Earth’s first grasslands emerged 38 million years ago, an assumption based on fossils of these specialized teeth. But the grasslands didn’t exist. Instead there were tropical forests rich with palms, bamboos and gingers, according to Caroline Strömberg, UW assistant professor of biology and lead author of an article in Nature Communications.

“The assumption about grasslands and the evolution of these teeth was based on animal fossils,” Strömberg said. “No one had looked in detail at evidence from the plant record before. Our findings show that you shouldn’t assume adaptations always came about in the same way, that the trigger is the same environment every time.”

To handle a lifetime of rough abrasion, the specialized teeth — called high-crowned cheek teeth — are especially long and mostly up in the animals’ gums when they are young. As chewing surfaces of the teeth wear away, more of the tooth emerges from the gums until the crowns are used up. In each tooth, bone-like dentin and tough enamel are complexly folded and layered to create strong ridged surfaces for chewing. Human teeth have short crowns and enamel only on the outside of each tooth.

In Argentina, mammals apparently developed specialized teeth 20 million years or more before grasslands appeared, Strömberg said. This was different from her previous work in North America and western Eurasia where she found the emergence of grasslands coincided with the early ancestors of horses and other animals evolving specialized teeth. The cause and effect, however, took 4 million years, considerably more lag time than previously thought.

The idea that specialized teeth could have evolved in response to eating dust and grit on plants and the ground is not new. In the case of Argentine mammals, Strömberg and her co-authors hypothesize that the teeth adapted to handle volcanic ash because so much is present at the study site. For example, some layers of volcanic ash are as thick as 20 feet (six meters). In other layers, soils and roots were just starting to develop when they were smothered with more ash.

Chewing grasses is abrasive because grasses take up more silica from soils than most other plants. Silica forms minute particles inside many plants called phytoliths that, among other things, help some plants stand upright and form part of the protective coating on seeds.

Phytoliths vary in appearance under a microscope depending on the kind of plant. When plants die and decay, the phytoliths remain as part of the soil layer. In work funded by the National Science Foundation, Strömberg and her colleagues collected samples from Argentina’s Gran Barranca, literally “Great Cliff,” that offers access to layers of soil, ash and sand going back millions of years.

The phytoliths they found in 38-million-year-old layers — when ancient mammals in that part of the world developed specialized teeth — were overwhelmingly from tropical forests, Strömberg said.

“In modern grasslands and savannas you’d expect at least 35 to 40 percent — more likely well over 50 percent — of grass phytoliths. The fact we have so little evidence of grasses is very diagnostic of a forested habitat,” she said.

The emergence of grasslands and the evolution of specialized teeth in mammals are regarded as a classic example of co-evolution, one that has occurred in various places around the world. However, as the new work shows, “caution is required when using this functional trait for habitat reconstruction,” the co-authors write.

Other co-authors are Regan Dunn, a UW doctoral candidate; Richard Madden, University of Chicago; Matthew Kohn, Boise State University; and Alfredo Carlini, National University of La Plata, Argentina.

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Global Warming Will Open Unexpected New Shipping Routes in Arctic, Researchers Find

Mar. 4, 2013 — Shipping lanes through the Arctic Ocean won’t put the Suez and Panama canals out of business anytime soon, but global warming will make these frigid routes much more accessible than ever imagined by melting an unprecedented amount of sea ice during the late summer, new UCLA research shows.

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“The development is both exciting from an economic development point of view and worrisome in terms of safety, both for the Arctic environment and for the ships themselves,” said lead researcher Laurence C. Smith, a professor of geography at UCLA.

The findings, which explore accessibility during the Arctic’s most navigable month of the year, September, appear in the latest issue of the scholarly journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Plus. The first thorough assessment of trans-Arctic shipping potential as global temperatures continue to rise, the study is based on independent climate forecasts for the years 2040 to 2059.

By mid-century, even ordinary shipping vessels will be able to navigate previously inaccessible parts of the Arctic Ocean, and they will not need icebreakers to blaze their path as they do today, the researchers found.

“We’re talking about a future in which open-water vessels will, at least during some years, be able to navigate unescorted through the Arctic, which at the moment is inconceivable,” said co-author Scott R. Stephenson, a Ph.D. candidate in the UCLA Department of Geography.

Just as surprisingly, the Arctic ice sheet is expected to thin to the point that polar icebreakers will be able to navigate between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans by making a straight shot over the North Pole, Smith and Stephenson predict.

“Nobody’s ever talked about shipping over the top of the North Pole,” Smith said. “This is an entirely unexpected possibility.”

The route directly over the North Pole is 20 percent shorter than today’s most-trafficked Arctic shipping lane, the Northern Sea Route, which hugs the coast of Russia. For vessels traveling between Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Yokohama, Japan, the Northern Sea Route is already approximately 40 percent shorter than the traditional route through the Suez Canal.

Even the fabled and notoriously treacherous Northwest Passage, which traces Canada’s coastline and offers the most direct route from Asia to eastern Canada and the northeasternmost part of the U.S., is expected to become more viable for Polar Class 6 vessels — a common type of ship that has been strengthened against ice — and possibly even ships with unreinforced hulls, which make up the lion’s share of the world’s commercial fleet.

Today, the Northwest Passage is theoretically navigable only one out of seven years, on average, making it too unreliable to be a viable option for commercial shippers, the researchers said. But by mid-century, sea ice will melt in September to the point that it is accessible every other year, on average. Choosing whether to ship through the passage “will become a coin toss,” Smith said.

The predictions, however, do not foresee access beyond late summer. “This will never be a year-round operation,” Smith stressed.

Smith is an authority on the ways in which climate change is affecting the Arctic, where average temperatures have risen faster than the global average since the mid-1980s. He has quantified the disappearance of more than 1,000 Arctic lakes. He also is the author of “The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization’s Northern Future,” a 2010 book that looks at new economic opportunities, as well as environmental degradation, taking shape in the northern quarter of the globe. With Stephenson, Smith has calculated the toll global warming will take on Arctic ice roads and the communities and businesses that depend on them.

For centuries, the Arctic Ocean has captured the imagination of explorers because of the possibility it offers for traveling between the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans through the Bering Strait. Until recently, however, sea ice has blocked access to the potential shortcut between Asia and North America or Europe. But in the past two years, the ice has begun to melt in late summer to such an extent that even ordinary seagoing vessels, albeit with escorts, have been able to enter its frigid waters. In summer 2012, a total of 46 voyages successfully crossed the Northern Sea Route.

To arrive at their predictions, Smith and Stephenson studied these emerging shipping routes and the degree of ice melt that has made them possible. They then took the results from seven respected forecasts for the sea ice cover in the Arctic and averaged predictions for the extent of the Arctic ice sheet in September, historically the month when the ocean has the least amount of ice coverage, for every year between 2040 and 2059.

The researchers factored in two scenarios for climate change: one that assumed a 25 percent increase in global carbon emissions, which is generally expected to produce a medium-low increase in temperatures, and one that assumed an additional 10 percent increase in emissions, which is expected to produce a higher increase in temperatures. To their surprise, changes in accessibility were similarly dramatic under both scenarios.

“No matter which carbon emission scenario is considered, by mid-century we will have passed a crucial tipping point — sufficiently thin sea ice — enabling moderately capable icebreakers to go where they please,” Smith said.

The mid-century projections may seem distant when measured against the lifespan of adults living today, the researchers concede. But the period falls well within the long lead times of commercial and governmental planning efforts. As such, the projections have implications for port construction, acquisition of natural resources and the establishment of jurisdiction of shipping lanes, Smith and Stephenson stress.

Canada, for instance, has long maintained that the Northwest Passage falls under Canadian sovereignty, while the U.S. maintains it is an international strait. As long as the passage was essentially unnavigable, the issue was moot, but increasing accessibility could bring the U.S. into dispute with its northern neighbor, the researchers warn.

The increasing viability of shipping routes through the Arctic is also likely to increase pressure on the U.S. to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Some newly accessible shipping lanes would pass through waters over which the U.S. could make internationally accepted sovereignty claims if it ratified the treaty, the researchers said. Countries that claim sovereignty are able to lay down rules for the vessels that pass through their waters. Russia, which controls the Northern Sea Route, currently requires shipping companies to pay steep fees for escort vessels to accompany their fleets.

The unprecedented new navigation routes that are expected to open up could allow shipping companies to sidestep these escort fees and other Russian regulations, but these new lanes could take Polar Class 6 vessels and even common ships into less-regulated international waters.

While attractive to business, the lack of regulations poses safety, environmental and legal issues that have yet to be resolved, the researchers stress. The prospect of open-water ships entering the Arctic Ocean in late summer heightens the urgency for comprehensive international regulations that provide adequate environmental protections, vessel safety standards and search-and-rescue capability, they said.

“The Arctic is a fragile and dangerous place,” Smith said.

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Volcanoes keeping a lid on global warming’

Washington, Mar 4, 2013, PTI :

Sulphur dioxide emissions from moderate volcanoes around the world can mask some of the effects of global warming by 25 per cent, a new study has found.

A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder looking for clues about why earth did not warm as much as scientists expected between 2000 and 2010 now thinks the culprits are hiding in plain sight.

The study results essentially exonerate India and China, two countries that are estimated to have increased their industrial sulphur dioxide emissions by about 60 per cent from 2000 to 2010 through coal burning, said lead study author Ryan Neely.

Small amounts of sulphur dioxide emissions from earth’s surface eventually rise 12 to 20 miles into the stratospheric aerosol layer of the atmosphere, where chemical reactions create sulfuric acid and water particles that reflect sunlight back to space, cooling the planet, researchers said.

Neely said previous observations suggest that increases in stratospheric aerosols since 2000 have counter balanced as much as 25 per cent of the warming scientists blame on human greenhouse gas emissions. “This new study indicates it is emissions from small to moderate volcanoes that have been slowing the warming of the planet,” said Neely in the study published in journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The new project was undertaken in part to resolve conflicting results of two recent studies on the origins of the sulphur dioxide in the stratosphere, including a 2009 study led by the late David Hoffman of NOAA indicating aerosol increases in the stratosphere may have come from rising emissions of sulphur dioxide from India and China.

In contrast, a 2011 study led by Vernier – who also provided essential observation data for the new GRL study – showed moderate volcanic eruptions play a role in increasing particulates in the stratosphere, Neely said in a statement.

“The biggest implication here is that scientists need to pay more attention to small and moderate volcanic eruptions when trying to understand changes in Earth’s climate,” said Professors Brian Toon from CU-Boulder’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.

“But overall these eruptions are not going to counter the greenhouse effect. Emissions of volcanic gases go up and down, helping to cool or heat the planet, while greenhouse gas emissions from human activity just continue to go up,” Toon said.

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Washington, Mar 4, 2013, PTI :

Sulphur dioxide emissions from moderate volcanoes around the world can mask some of the effects of global warming by 25 per cent, a new study has found.

A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder looking for clues about why earth did not warm as much as scientists expected between 2000 and 2010 now thinks the culprits are hiding in plain sight.

The study results essentially exonerate India and China, two countries that are estimated to have increased their industrial sulphur dioxide emissions by about 60 per cent from 2000 to 2010 through coal burning, said lead study author Ryan Neely.

Small amounts of sulphur dioxide emissions from earth’s surface eventually rise 12 to 20 miles into the stratospheric aerosol layer of the atmosphere, where chemical reactions create sulfuric acid and water particles that reflect sunlight back to space, cooling the planet, researchers said.

Neely said previous observations suggest that increases in stratospheric aerosols since 2000 have counter balanced as much as 25 per cent of the warming scientists blame on human greenhouse gas emissions. “This new study indicates it is emissions from small to moderate volcanoes that have been slowing the warming of the planet,” said Neely in the study published in journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The new project was undertaken in part to resolve conflicting results of two recent studies on the origins of the sulphur dioxide in the stratosphere, including a 2009 study led by the late David Hoffman of NOAA indicating aerosol increases in the stratosphere may have come from rising emissions of sulphur dioxide from India and China.

In contrast, a 2011 study led by Vernier – who also provided essential observation data for the new GRL study – showed moderate volcanic eruptions play a role in increasing particulates in the stratosphere, Neely said in a statement.

“The biggest implication here is that scientists need to pay more attention to small and moderate volcanic eruptions when trying to understand changes in Earth’s climate,” said Professors Brian Toon from CU-Boulder’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.

“But overall these eruptions are not going to counter the greenhouse effect. Emissions of volcanic gases go up and down, helping to cool or heat the planet, while greenhouse gas emissions from human activity just continue to go up,” Toon said.

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A Capitalist Command Economy

Posted: 04 Mar 2013 12:31 PM PST

Forcing schools into the hands of unelected oligarchs is the latest contradiction of everything the market fetishists claim to stand for.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 5th March 2013

So much for all those treasured Tory principles. Choice, freedom, competition, austerity: as soon as they conflict with the demands of the corporate elite, they drift into the blue yonder like thistledown.

This is a story about England’s schools, but it could just as well describe the razing of state provision throughout the world. In the name of freedom, public assets are being forcibly removed from popular control and handed to unelected oligarchs.

All over England, schools are being obliged to become academies: supposedly autonomous bodies which are often “sponsored” (the government’s euphemism for controlled) by foundations established by exceedingly rich men. The break-up of the education system in this country, like the dismantling of the National Health Service, reflects no widespread public demand. It is imposed, through threats, bribes and fake consultations, from on high.

The published rules looked straightforward: schools will be forced to become academies only when they are “below the floor standard … seriously failing, or unable to improve their results”(1). All others would be given a choice. But in many parts of the country, schools which suffer from none of these problems are being prised out of the control of elected councils, and into the hands of central government and private sponsors.

For five years, until 2012, Roke primary school in Croydon, south London, was rated as “outstanding” by the government’s inspection service, Ofsted. Then two temporary problems arose. Several of the senior staff retired, leading to a short period of disruption, and a computer failure caused a delay in giving the inspectors the data they wanted(2). The school was handed the black spot: a Notice to Improve. It worked furiously to meet the necessary standards – and it has now succeeded. But before the inspection service returned to see whether progress had been made, the governors were instructed by the Department for Education to turn it into an academy.

In September last year the Department for Education held a closed meeting with the school’s governors, in which they were told (according to the chair of the governors) that if they did not immediately accept its demand “we will get the local authority to fire you, all of you … if the local authority don’t do it, we will. And we will put in our own interim board of governors, who will do what we say.”(3,4) The governors were instructed not to tell the parents about the meeting and their decision(5).

They did as they were told, partly because they had a sponsor in mind: the local secondary school, which had been helping Roke to raise its standards. They informed the department that this was their choice. It waited until the last day of term – December 12th – then let them know that it had rejected their proposal. The sponsor would be the Harris Federation. It was founded by Lord Harris, the chairman of the retail chain Carpetright. He is a friend of David Cameron’s and one of the Conservative party’s biggest donors. Roke will be the Harris Federation’s 21st acquisition(6).

The parents knew nothing of this until January 7th, when 200 of them were informed at a meeting with the governors. They rejected the Harris Federation’s sponsorship almost unanimously, in favour of a partnership with the local secondary school(7).

The local MP appealed to the schools minister Lord Nash, who happens to be another very rich businessman, major Tory donor and sponsor of academies. He replied last month: the decision is irreversible – Harris will run the school(8). But there will now be a “formal consultation” about it. He did not explain what the parents would be consulted about: the colour of the lampshades? Oh, and the body which will conduct the “consultation” is … the Harris Federation(9). There is no mechanism for appeal. The parents feel they have been carpet-bombed.

Similar stories are being told up and down the country. Academy brokers hired by the department roam the land like mediaeval tax collectors, threatening and cajoling governors and head teachers, trying to force them into liaisons with corporate sponsors(10). Far from targeting failing schools, they often seem to pick on good schools that run into temporary difficulties. When standards rise again, the sponsors can take credit for it, and the “turnaround” can be claimed as another success. Ofsted is widely suspected of colluding in this process(11).

Where threats don’t work, the department resorts to bribery. Schools are being offered sweeteners of up to £65,000 of state money to convert(12). Vast resources are being poured by the education secretary, Michael Gove, into the academies programme, which has exceeded its budget by £1bn over the past two years(13). We are being pushed towards the policy buried on page 52 of the department’s white paper: “it is our ambition that academy status should be the norm for all state schools”(14).

Is this a prelude to privatisation? A leaked memo from the department recommends “reclassifying academies to the private sector”(15). Just as Conservative health secretaries have done to the NHS, Michael Gove has published misleading statistics about our schools, to create the impression that they are failing by international standards(16). They are not(17).

Neither truth nor principle stands in the way of this demolition programme. All the promises of the market fundamentalists – choice, competitive tendering, decentralisation and savings – are abandoned in favour of brutal and extravagant dictat. Thus the government creates a novelty: a capitalist command economy.

References:

1. Department for Education, November 2010. Schools White Paper: the Importance
of Teaching, page 74. https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/CM%207980

2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/jan/14/parents-fury-academy-takeover

3. Malcolm Farquharson, chair of governors, 7th January 2013. Transcript of meeting between governors and parents of Roke School. See also:

4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/jan/28/dfe-dictate-academy-status-primary

5. Malcolm Farquharson, as above.

6. http://www.harrisfederation.org.uk/110/our-vision

7. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/jan/14/parents-fury-academy-takeover

8. http://www.saveroke.co.uk/index.php/letters/155-20-2-12-letter-from-richard-ottaway-and-lord-john-nash-parliamentary-under-secretary-of-state-for-schools-on-behalf-of-michael-gove-secretary-of-state

9. http://www.saveroke.co.uk/index.php/letters/155-20-2-12-letter-from-richard-ottaway-and-lord-john-nash-parliamentary-under-secretary-of-state-for-schools-on-behalf-of-michael-gove-secretary-of-state

10. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/feb/11/academies-schools-education-policy

11. eg http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/feb/11/academies-schools-education-policy

12. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/exclusive-cash-for-academies-michael-gove-bribes-schools-to-change-their-status-8492386.html

13. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/nov/26/academies-baccalaureate-ofsted-schools

14. Department for Education, November 2010. Schools White Paper: the Importance
of Teaching, page 52. https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/CM%207980

15. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/secret-memo-shows-michael-goves-plan-for-privatisation-of-academies-8488552.html

16. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/07/gove-myth-educational-standards-private-providers

17. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/07/gove-myth-educational-standards-private-providers

Study Intends To Determine Methane Leakage Associated With A Growing Natural Gas Transportation Sector

By EDF Blogs | Published: March 4, 2013

This blog post was written by Jason Mathers, Senior Manager of EDF’s Corporate Partnerships Program.

Source: Waste Management

The use of natural gas to power our nation’s freight fleet vehicles is a hot topic in these days of rising diesel and falling natural gas prices. There are several reasons to be excited about this opportunity, including operating cost savings, use of a domestic fuel source, and the potential for a reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to diesel heavy-duty trucks. However, significant concerns remain with the development of new gas supplies, including the threat of fugitive methane emissions from natural gas vehicles and the fuel supply chain.

Methane is the main ingredient in natural gas and a GHG pollutant many times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal contributor to man-made climate change. Even small amounts of methane leakage across the natural gas supply chain can undermine the climate benefit of switching to natural gas from other fossil fuels for some period of time.

In a paper published last year, EDF scientists and other leading researchers examined the impact of potential fugitive emissions on the climate benefits of a switch from diesel to natural gas heavy-duty trucks. The study found that, according to the best available data, methane leak rates would need to be below 1% of gas produced in order to ensure that switching from diesel to natural gas produces climate benefits at all points in time. They also found that – using the EPA leakage rate estimates at that time – converting a fleet of heavy duty diesel vehicles to natural gas would result in increased climate warming for more than 250 years before any climate benefits were achieved.

EDF is working with leading researchers and companies in a series of studies designed to better understand and characterize the methane leak rate across the natural gas supply chain. The studies will take direct measurements at various points across the production, gathering and processing, long distance transmission and storage, local distribution, and transportation. The first study, led by researchers at the University of Texas, is measuring emissions from natural gas production. Results will be released in the coming months.

Today, EDF is announcing its second major study as part of this overall project. This study aims to determine fugitive emissions of methane associated with routine operation of natural gas fleet vehicles fueled by compressed or liquefied natural gas. Joining EDF as study sponsors are the American Gas Association, International Council on Clean Transportation, PepsiCo, Shell, Volvo Group, Waste Management, Cummins Westport and Westport Innovations. Researchers with the University of West Virginia are conducting the assessment. The final results of this study will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, for publication hopefully in late 2013 or early 2014.

EDF Chief Scientist, Steve Hamburg said this about the study:

“Currently, there is no empirical data on methane leaks associated with natural gas vehicles, only estimates. In order to fully understand the scope of the matter, and what the opportunity is to minimize methane emissions during the operation and refueling of natural gas vehicles, hard data is needed. This study brings together multiple, key stakeholders to advance methane science with measurements taken under real-world conditions. This information will help shape the public debate of the role that the increased usage of natural gas vehicles can have on our transportation sector.”

This study on natural gas vehicles is timely. The U.S. trucking industry could be on the verge of a significant migration to natural gas vehicles. By 2020, 40 percent of new class 7 and 8 trucks sold could run on natural gas. This would be a marked increase from today’s market, which is dominated by diesel vehicles.

If fugitive methane emissions across the supply chain are below the critical threshold of 1%, a movement of this magnitude towards commercial natural gas fleet vehicles could be a solid win for the environment. Estimates based on fuel cycle models created by Argonne National Laboratory indicate the production and use of natural gas in transportation can reduce GHG emissions by 13 percent when compared with burning diesel fuel – if no fugitive methane emissions leak out from the system during the production, transport or use of natural gas. Given that freight trucks are on pace to increase their GHG emissions 44% by 2040 we need all the help we can get to bring these emissions down to the lowest level possible.

It is heartening to see the broad industry support in sponsoring this study. We appreciate the leadership shown by all of our industry partners. Their participation gives us a strong sense that we will be able to find solutions working with station owners, potential fleet operators of natural gas fleet vehicles and associated equipment manufacturers to craft a path forward that will enable heavy-duty natural gas trucks to live up to their potential.

High-speed rail line noisy: Albanese

Updated: 07:45, Tuesday March 5, 2013

Trains running on a high-speed rail network would be louder than a jackhammer, federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese says.

The second stage of a government report into the feasibility of a network along Australia’s east coast is due to be released before the May 14 budget.

Mr Albanese says high-speed rail required a wide corridor, major tunnelling and would have significant noise impacts.

As a high-speed rail train passes, the noise level will reach 100 decibels, Mr Albanese told the Sydney Institute on Monday night.

That is the equivalent of a hand drill or slightly louder than a jackhammer.

Mr Albanese said trains would travel at 350 km/h on a proposed 1750km network from Melbourne to Brisbane.

The network would require 144km of tunnels, with most in Sydney.

‘(It) is the only way a high-speed rail network can be built through a city such as Sydney,’ he said.

‘And that’s before we consider the significant economic costs.

‘I predict that when I release the high-speed rail study in coming months, some of the strongest opposition to the reality that such an ambitious proposal represents, will be from those who embrace the abstract idea of high-speed rail.’

Some estimates for a high-speed rail link between Melbourne and Brisbane run as high as $20 billion.

But Australian Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt is not optimistic about high-speed rail being built by a Labor government, noting Australia and Antarctica were the two continents without such a facility.

‘I worry if it is up to Labor, the penguins are going to beat us to it,’ he told ABC Radio on Tuesday.

The first study, released in July 2011, found a high-speed rail line would cost between $61 billion and $108 billion.