[Dukat_Reloaded]

4 corners on peakoil

Campbell + others was on prime tv last night in Australia.

[PolestaR]

Way to check 10 threads down there.

[americandream]

Way to check 10 threads down there.

English please...this board goes out beyond the shores of the US.

[Jack]

Looks like an interesting video - I'll look forward to viewing it later.

[Shaved Monkey]

Herald Sun

Rising oil prices fuel other fears
Commsec economist Savanth Sebastian said that the average Australian household was now spending about $202 a month to fill up their car, a hefty gain of about $36 since September last year.

"Petrol prices have now risen by almost 26c a litre since mid-September," he said.

"The staggering gain in pump prices comes despite the strength of the Australian dollar, which has done its fair share in insulating motorists from higher global prices."

AMP Capital Markets chief economist Shane Oliver expects oil prices to ease about 5 per cent or more in the coming months. "Commodities have run very hard and technically they're over-bought, so it's quite possible - even probable - that it's time to take profits," he said.

"Oil and food have run so hard that if they keep going they threaten the global recovery, so my own view is that we're probably due for a pullback."

IN the long term, however, some pundits consider the prognosis to be far grimmer. Peak oil experts believe that the value of the fossil fuel will continue its relentless climb north as the booming world population drives up demand just as easily available supplies start to dwindle.

Curtin University sustainability professor Peter Newman, on the board of the Federal Government's Infrastructure Australia, said that the world had reached a peak in terms of conventional oil production. "Conventional oil is oil you can dig out of the ground fairly simply, not deep sea oil, not tar sands, not shale oil," he said.

"That is what has fuelled civilisation for the past 50 years and has been the world's economic driver.

"That peaked about five years ago -- there has been no increase in global oil production in that time. It has continued to either plateau or has gone down, at a time when demand has gone up," Prof Newman said.

If the theory is borne out, the decline in readily accessible oil will have far-reaching consequences.

Its out there for the herald Sun readers doubt they will get past the first few paragraphs or off the sport on the back page but some will.

Good to see the Curtin University sustainability professor Peter Newman, on the board of the Federal Government's Infrastructure Australia
is at least on the right page and advising Government on infrastructure.

[Shaved Monkey]

For Australians Tonight ABC 8 PM Quantum

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3198430.htm

[Shaved Monkey]

Peak oil: it's closer than you think
April 30, 2011

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/peak- ... z1L31Md1cq

In the lucky country, of course, we'll be fine. Rising income from coal and gas exports will help us pay higher oil prices, even as our oil trade deficit blows out and oil hits $US200 a barrel, as is forecast often enough. Can we go back to sleep now?

Not when the climate implications are taken into account, says Ian Dunlop, a former Shell executive and deputy convenor of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas

Last year the think tank Beyond Zero Emissions, with Melbourne University's Energy Research Institute, published its Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan, which shook things up by calling for investment of $37 billion a year to switch the whole country over to 100 per cent renewable energy within a decade. The plan included enough installed energy capacity to power all our transport needs.
Beyond Zero has assembled a team of scientists, engineers and planners working pro bono on a fully costed, national transport plan that will take in three streams: city passenger and public transport, freight, and intercity transport and high-speed rail.
Workshops are under way, drafts are circulating and the report is due out by the end of the year.

The executive director, Matthew Wright, says the opportunity for Australia is there to invest in new, climate-friendly transport infrastructure and avoid spending on high-priced oil imports, which Beyond Zero estimates could exceed $50 billion a year by 2015. ''That's what I call a great big tax,'' says Wright.

The thrust of the plan is to electrify the country's road and rail transport systems as much as possible with a renewable-powered grid, and the use a residual of liquid biofuels to replace oil for range-extending and some off-road and agricultural uses. Thousands of kilometres of new light and heavy rail would be laid across major cities. Car manufacturers would retool to make electric cars locally.

Very fast trains would link state and territory capitals, except Darwin, and major regional centres.

Makes you feel like its growing, to become a political issue
At the moment the conservatives are pushing a cost of living agenda, wich is being fed to the sheeple in the mass media.
There is no analysis, the assumption is Governments some how control cost of living pressures, not the price of fuels.
This should shift the balance of the argument, hopefully with a logical bent, towards the true costs of rising prices and maybe focus the sheeples, on a long term sustaineable solution.
Great to see its hitting the mainstream papers and there are serious people looking at serious solutions.
Rather than what the media likes to dismiss as the lunatic Green fringe.

[Crusty]

Mates here on holiday from the Goldie and Brisbane are even starting to talk about sustainable solutions (never happened before) and that a Carbon tax could be a good thing if it was spent on such things. Still not sure it will get up but positive signs, not just in the Media but also the Sheeple.

[Daniel_Plainview]

According to Fatih Birol: ''Existing fields are declining so sharply that in order to stay where we are in terms of production levels, in the next 25 years we have to find and develop four new Saudi Arabias.''

Ouch! It's already GAME OVER.

[Shaved Monkey]

http://theage.drive.com.au/motor-news/n ... 1ep41.html

German car maker Audi is planning wind-generated ‘E-Gas’ models – starting with the next A3.

Audi Australia will study the local sales potential of a compressed natural gas dual-fuel version of the next-generation A3 prestige small car.

Sounds like a good idea

Roberts said the prospect of the e-gas generation system being used in Australia was only a possibility in the “longer term”. Our plentiful supplies of natural gas and LPS obviously mitigates against this process, especially as it becomes price competitive compared to oil only when the crude price hits $200 per barrel.

Good to see the actual figures of why CNG wont save us by maintaining a cheap feul economy

[Shaved Monkey]

Prices are starting to bite the budget
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-n ... 6061427446

PETROL station owners are considering using tyre spikes to deter thieves who drive off without paying.

A steady petrol price of $1.45 or more a litre has seen a sharp increase in the number of drivers filling up and fleeing without paying.

Anti-theft measures were the main topic of discussion at a recent regional meeting of BP service station owners.

One petrol station owner in Melbourne's north, who did not want to be identified, said most owners would confirm there had been a 30 per cent increase in "runners".

"I used to have two or three a month; now, it's two or three a week," he said.

"It's very bad at the moment - petrol is so expensive. Many owners want to install spikes or only have pre-paid bowsers.

"But I don't want to. It worries customers. Instead, I tell my staff what to look out for and to turn a bowser off if someone looks dodgy."

He said that just last week, a western suburbs petrol station lost $1200 of fuel to a thieving truck driver.

Tyre spikes, used by some petrol stations in the US, could be installed at Victorian stations, subject to local planning permission.

But petrol companies and motoring authorities do not favour them.

"BP is not aware of them being used in Australia," BP spokesman Richard Wise said.

"Certainly BP has not considered them as appropriate for the Australian market."

David Purchase, executive director of the Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce, which represents service stations, said fuel theft was not a recent phenomenon, and other measures of dealing with it were favoured.

"The best way to prevent it is for the whole industry to introduce pre-pay at high-risk pumps at high-risk hours," Mr Purchase said.

"Spikes have been considered, but not adopted by VACC service station members.

"It was decided that they might be inconvenient. And the safety concerns outweighed any benefit to service station owners, because, in particular, they have the potential to cause unplanned incidents.

"All VACC member service stations now have CCTV cameras installed and operators are instructed to immediately call police to report any incidents."

Police say petrol stations should use prepaid bowsers, and spikes had proved unsuccessful.

Petrol prices are predicted to fall over the next fortnight, according to CommSec Research.

PETROL station owners have been encouraged to install a wall of shame system to identify petrol thieves after a police warning about drive-offs amid skyrocketing fuel prices.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victor ... 6016925420

A company operating five service stations around Melbourne and Geelong offers $100 to anyone who can identify petrol thieves pictured on a wall of shame.

Apco Service Stations director Peter Anderson said while initially it was costly to fork out thousands of dollars for information, the benefits were a 100 per cent strike rate in some stations.

In the company’s Cranbourne station, since the wall of shame was erected last year there hasn’t been a single drive-off, Mr Anderson said.

[SpockLives]

Prices are starting to bite the budget
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-n ... 6061427446

PETROL station owners are considering using tyre spikes to deter thieves who drive off without paying.

Fortunately, prices changed substantially in the right direction last week.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43128323/ns ... nd_energy/

Hopefully the Aussies and their neighbors will get a break soon as well?

[Outcast_Searcher]

Prices are starting to bite the budget
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-n ... 6061427446

PETROL station owners are considering using tyre spikes to deter thieves who drive off without paying.

I don't get it. I saw the comments about folks not liking pre-pay in Australia. Is this a cultural thing?

I assume due to necessity, every gas station I ever see in the U.S. now is prepay for cash, or a debit or credit card. Problem solved, no spikes, no drive-offs, etc.

I actually like using my credit card as I don't have to go in and wait in line.

In fact, I remember the first time I saw a credit-card enabled pump, I was SO conditioned to paying before leaving that I went in and made sure I could just use my CC, drive off into the sunset, and everybody was happy.

[Shaved Monkey]

There are pre pay options but petrol stations are mini 7/11 type stores and make more money selling you smokes, drinks,chocolates and hamburgers than they do selling petrol so they want you to come inside to pay.
My local sell fresh fruit and veg dirt cheap and gives you 4cents off a litre if you spend $5 .
I buy all my red salad onions,potatoes,pineapples, avaocados,peanuts, macadamias from him, as he is more than half the price of regular shop.(50cents for a pineapple or 40 cents for an Avo all local stuff)
$20 of fruit and veg and $50 of petrol is normal.

[papa moose]

Sorry i haven't gone to the effort of finding any links but...

I watched an episode of Horizon (on SBS?) the other week dealing with retrofitting of existing housing stock rather than building of new super designed building (German program).
Anyhoo, during an ad break there was a wonderfully filmed feel good advertisment from those great guys and girls down at Dupont.
Peak Oil was not mentioned by name but resource depletion was and the main subject was farmers switching to crops for biofuels and the need to utilise locals species to improve yields rather than just having a monoculture.

Was a fascinating ad that wasn't actually trying to sell anything just building good will for the companies brand.
Reminded me of ads run occassionally by Chevron, a firm that while very active in Oz does not actually market anything directly to the public.

[yeahbut]

Quite a reasonable interview with Fatih Birol entitled "Is the Age of Cheap Oil Over?" yesterday morning on Radio NZ National. That show has quite a large audience and it was a straight forward run thru the IEA's current position on PO. Not doom but sure as hell not cheery. link

[Shaved Monkey]

We hit peak driving in 2004
Public transport is cool freeway building is so yesterday

CITY driving in Australia and other developed countries peaked in 2004 and has been declining since.

A paper by Curtin University academics Peter Newman and Jeff Kenworthy, Peak Car Use: Understanding the Demise of Automobile Dependence, cites soaring oil prices, traffic congestion, a preference for inner-city living, public transport growth, an ageing population, and more crowded cities for pushing people away from cars. ''Peak car use is a major historical discontinuity that was largely unpredicted by most urban professionals and academics,'' write the authors.

''The peak car use phenomenon suggests we may now be witnessing the demise of automobile dependence in cities … the phenomenon of peak car use appears to have set in to the cities of the developed world.''
Advertisement: Story continues below

Peak car use - which is measured as vehicle kilometres travelled per capita - had occurred in all major Australian cities in 2004 in line with the world trend, the authors noted. In 2004, Melbourne's car use peaked at 12,410 passenger kilometres per capita. In 2009, that had dropped to 11,050.

Professor Newman told The Sunday Age that rising oil prices, traffic congestion and a growing taste for inner-city living were the main factors.

''$US80 a barrel [for oil] was very fundamental and we crossed that point in 2004 and it's been going up ever since,'' he said.

''The fuel price in the next 10 years is going to be a very strong driver. The International Energy Agency has just concluded that you need to find another four Saudi Arabias otherwise the price will continue to rise. They're not going to do that.''

He said that cars powered by electricity or hydrogen could reverse the trend of peak car use, but ''they've been very slow coming in''.

Building more freeways to reduce traffic congestion would not work, said Professor Newman.

''They don't make sense economically and they fill so quickly … you can't even build them in America any more. The last new freeway in Los Angeles was 25 years ago, the last big freeway to be built in any US city was the Katy in Houston and it cost a billion US dollars a mile.

''They're financially and politically exhausted. They're not possible to build any more.''

Funding freeways privately will not work either, according to the paper: ''Many recent toll roads in Australia have gone bankrupt because numbers of cars have just not materialised in the way the models predicted.''

The third biggest factor mitigating against car use, said Professor Newman, was the ''growing culture of urbanism among the young''.

''It's particularly evident among young Americans and young Australians. They actively prefer using public transport because you can wire up your devices - your iPod, computer, phone - in a way that you can't do when you're driving. You're free and flexible if you're using public transport but you're not free and flexible if you're in a car.''

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/belie ... z1Re9VJSEG

[Shaved Monkey]

Australia relies heavily on tourism(and mining) long haul flights are going to be a luxury item unless there is a solution.

An Australian conglomerate has a plan to introduce biofuels to our airways.

AUSTRALIAN airlines could be flying on biofuel derived from plants as early as 2015, with carbon taxes and soaring oil prices making the switch nearly inevitable.

Already, the US air force and navy are testing strike jets like the F-22 Raptor on fuels made from either beef tallow, camelina plants and waste oil and grease in a 50-50 blend with regular jet fuel. It intends to have all its more than 5000 planes able to use the blended biofuel by the end of 2013.

An Australian conglomerate including CSIRO, Virgin, Qantas, Boeing, Air New Zealand, and the Defence Department has committed to a plan that 5 per cent of the fuel used by Australasian commercial airlines should be biofuel by 2020, expanding to 40 per cent by 2050.

The group's ''road map'' to shift to biofuel would save Australia and New Zealand an estimated $2 billion a year on jet fuel imports and cut aviation greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent annually.

A report by CSIRO, ''Flight Path to Sustainable Aviation'', commissioned by the group and released in May, says jet fuel use in Australia creates 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. If the group's road map is implemented, that will rise to an estimated 22 million tonnes by 2030, 5 million less than it otherwise would be.

The road map envisages that by 2050 aviation greenhouse gas emissions would be back to 15 million tonnes (that is, at 2010 levels) rather than doubling to 30 million as projected without biofuel.

The group expects the first Australian commercial jet biofuel refining facility to be set up by 2015, with a second to follow in 2020.

However, several hurdles remain, including setting up farms to grow the fuel, building trial refining facilities, and setting government standards for fuel purity.

The group's project leader, Paul Graeme from CSIRO, said the US military was leading the world in the use of aviation biofuels, driven by a desire to reduce the dependence of the armed forces on foreign oil. It was also easier for the military to test new fuels because it faced fewer bureaucratic obstacles than did the commercial sector.

''It's a strategic imperative for them to have an alternative home-grown fuel source. Commercial aviation is more driven by the fact that different countries are now starting to introduce carbon pricing, especially in Europe. And everybody gets hit when the oil price rises.''

Some commercial airlines, including Air New Zealand and Continental, have tested biofuels in passenger-free trials but no regular service in the world yet uses it.

There's also a debate as to which plant makes for the best biofuel.

''A lot of the US military orders have been for a plant called camelina, which is a type of mustard. We're hoping to use a seed tree called pongamia, which is native to Australia,'' Mr Graeme said.

Jatropha, native to India, was another high-performing fuel but it is regarded in Australia as a weed. Other potential sources of the so-called biomass fuel include crop stubble, forestry residues, municipal waste and algae.

The fuel used by commercial aircraft in Australia would be a blend of regular jet fuel and biofuel from one of these sources, with camelina the front-runner at the moment.

The Defence Science Technology Organisation, the Defence Department arm that is part of the biofuel group, declined to comment on trials of biofuel in Australian military jets.

Mr Graeme said: ''They don't have the same spending power the US military has to fund these sorts of trials.'' However, ''they get their military outfits from similar suppliers so they'll be fast adaptors of the US technology. If we can adapt biodrive military jets then they'll be looking for a local supplier here.''

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/tec ... z1ReC0PZO4

[Shaved Monkey]

Planes flying on eucalyptus oil???

Branson ....."You could see oil going up to $200 a barrel and I think that will set us all into a recession again,"

The Virgin group of airlines is exploring the use of eucalyptus oil in Queensland as an alternative aviation fuel, founder Sir Richard Branson said this morning.

Sir Richard said their research was looking at refining the alternative aviation fuel so it did not freeze at high altitudes.

"We have announced today that the eucalyptus tree we think has the possibility of being a fuel for the future, to fuel Virgin Australia's planes and other people's planes," Sir Richard told delegates at the Asia Pacific Cities Summit in Brisbane.

"Obviously Australia has a lot of eucalyptus trees and, if we are correct, it would be a wonderful fuel for the future which won't eat into the food supply."

Sir Richard, who now heads 300 businesses worldwide, said all Virgin Australia profits were being directed to the research.

However, a Virgin Australia spokeswoman later clarified the local airline was not providing direct financial support, "but rather providing technical advice and expertise".

Sir Richard said he was reluctant to enter into Australia's domestic politics, but was aware of Prime Minister Julia Gillard's carbon tax announcement, due on Sunday.

"Ideally any tax should be done on a global basis really," Sir Richard said.

"Ideally, not on a country-by-country basis."

Sir Richard said there was an international meeting in Durban in December at which he believed such a decision could be reached.

"Hopefully something will be put through so that if it is done on a global basis it won't disadvantage individual countries, or individual companies," he said.

Earlier in the conference, where he used an elaborate question-and-answer session to deliver his keynote address, Sir Richard said clean energy investment should not be taxed for the "next 20 or 30 years" to allow it to consolidate against fossil fuels.

Sir Richard said Australia was well placed economically for the next decade, but said the rising price of fuel was the biggest threat to Australia in the Asia Pacific region."I think everything you can do to reduce your expenditure on energy in cities and everything you can do to encourage clean energy to be produced, the better," he said.

Sir Richard said the continued strong growth in China and India at 8 or 9 per cent GDP put pressure on global oil prices as oil reserves diminished.

"You could see oil going up to $200 a barrel and I think that will set us all into a recession again," he said.

"So everything that can be done to encourage new forms of clean energy the better."

Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk used the comments to announce Brisbane was about to sign a contract to provide a 20-year guarantee to a successful partner to provide clean energy to the city.

"If we can lock in a contract now, with the right renewable energy, that will set ourselves up for the future," he said.

Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/travel/ ... z1RkG8zLrE

[Shaved Monkey]

http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/st ... hit-lists/

11.40am: JERRY cans and fuel from machinery is mysteriously disappearing in Emu Park.

Emu Park police have received a number of reports of fuel being siphoned and are warning residents to be vigilant about jerry cans left in trailers.

They say machinery on job sites and work places have been targeted.

Anyone with information is to call Emu Park police on 4938 7044.

someone better ring them and tell them its Peak Oil