Photo Damian Kelly
ACTION OF THE DAY
A MAJOR national bank has been forced to remove more than 100 misleading out of order signs from its ATMs after being targeted by anti-coal activists.
A MAJOR national bank has been forced to remove more than 100 misleading out of order signs from its ATMs after being targeted by anti-coal activists.
A score of ANZ Banking Group machines sprawled across six capital cities were plastered with "out of order" signs on Sunday after campaigners launched their latest bid to draw attention to the bank's funding of the coal industry.
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Three things are essential to life, wrote English social reformer John Ruskin (1819-1900). These are pure air, water and earth.
ReplyDeleteThomas Friedman writing in the New York Times on gas again.He has trumpeted the benefits of the US gas boom for some time now,however lately his pieces are becoming more cautious as he has come to realise the true effects of this fossil fuel.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/opinion/sunday/friedman-get-it-right-on-gas.html?_r=1&hp
fracturing, or “fracking,” are enabling us to replace much dirtier coal with cleaner gas as the largest source of electricity generation in America. And natural gas may soon be powering cars, trucks and ships as well. This is helping to lower our carbon emissions faster than expected and make us more energy secure. And, if prices stay low, it may enable America to bring back manufacturing that migrated overseas. But, as the energy and climate expert Hal Harvey puts it, there is just one big, hugely important question to be asked about this natural gas bounty: “Will it be a transition to a clean energy future, or does it defer a clean energy future?”
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But there is a hidden, long-term, cost: A sustained gas glut could undermine new investments in wind, solar, nuclear and energy efficiency systems — which have zero emissions — and thus keep us addicted to fossil fuels for decades.
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Moreover, while natural gas is cleaner than coal, extracting it can be very dirty. We have to do this right. For instance, the carbon advantage can be undermined by leakage of uncombusted natural gas from wellheads and pipelines because methane — the primary component of natural gas — is an extremely powerful greenhouse gas, more powerful than carbon dioxide.
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Adds Fred Krupp, the president of the Environmental Defense Fund who has been working with the government and companies on drilling standards: “The economic and national security advantages of natural gas are obvious, but if you tour some of these areas of intensive development the environmental impacts are equally obvious.” We need nationally accepted standards for controlling methane leakage, for controlling water used in fracking — where you get it, how you treat the polluted water that comes out from the fracking process and how you protect aquifers — and for ensuring that communities have the right to say no to drilling. “The key message,” said Krupp, “is you gotta get the rules right. States need real inspector capacity and compliance schemes where companies certify they have done it right and there are severe penalties if they perjure.”
The Conservation council in WA may not oppose fraccing,but as in the US,are praying the authorities can somehow control an industry that is in a fossil fuel frenzy,and the polititions are in their pocket.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-04/shale-gas/4177026
Conservationists say they believe shale gas can be extracted safely in Western Australia, but only if tougher regulations are placed on the industry.
Shell may not want to expand in Australia but is very keen to get going elsewhere.
http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/120473047.shtml
Royal Dutch Shell and its three Asian partners have applied to Canada’s National Energy Board to export 24 million metric tons a year of liquefied natural gas over 25 years from British Columbia to Asia. The license is equivalent to 3.4 billion cubic feet per day of gas production, about one-quarter....
And all the time this frenzy is trashing more and more untouched places on this planet,it must surely be becoming clear to even the most stupid fossil fool that we will all be dead long before even current reserves have been burnt,let alone the masses of stuff laying undiscovered somewhere.
Should make the GFC sub prime crisis look like a walk in the park,the stockmarket crash coming when these huge companies admit,it's all a lie,yes we know it's there,but we can never use it.
Short sellers will be billionaires on that one.
Im concerned about whats happening too.
ReplyDeleteBut seems a little hypocritical to say that woodside people are filming you in a video you made by filming them?
Could have something to do with Woodside filming ,without permission,mums,dads and kids who are out for the day just camping and fishing and going about their own business.
ReplyDeleteHere's some good advice for all the Woodside "scientists."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/above-all-be-open/story-e6frgcjx-1226441704601
THE journal Nature has reminded scientists to be open about industry links, even if they think them irrelevant.
"Only full disclosure will avert the taint of scandal,'' the journal says in an editorial.
It discusses the failure of the lead author of an avowedly independent analysis of natural gas "fracking'' to disclose ties to an energy company.
The University of Texas scientist Charles Groat protested that his position on the board of a company involved in fracking had had no effect on the study, which had broadly exonerated the technique as an environmental villian.
Nature says Groat's account of his role sounds plausible -- "but that is all the more reason for him to have openly disclosed his ties to the industry''.
Last year, questions were raised about external funding and the perceived independence of research by centres at the University of Queensland and the University of Technology, Sydney.
Chaney in China to beg for cash as the Chinese look elsewhere for investment opportunities.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/foreign-affairs/business-building-bridges-to-china-to-repair-ties/story-fn59nm2j-1226443474575
Senior business leaders including Business Council of Australia president Tony Shepherd, Fortescue Metals Group chairman Andrew Forrest, National Australia Bank chairman Michael Chaney and ANZ chief executive Mike Smith were granted a rare one-hour audience in Beijing last week with Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Qishan, a rapidly rising political player.
The two wreckers,Chaney and Forrest.
And here's why.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/economics/chinese-diverting-mining-cash-to-canada-africa/story-e6frg926-1226443426642
THE flow and size of Chinese investments in the Australian resources sector are tapering off as Canada and Africa prove more attractive cash destinations.
There have been only eight deals involving Chinese companies this year, half the level of two years ago, according to analysis by legal firm King Wood Mallesons.
One of these deals was the $41 million purchase by PetroChina of the coal-seam gas assets of Molopo Energy in Queensland, announced last Wednesday.
This was dwarfed by two major new Canadian deals, with China's third-biggest company, CNOOC, bidding $US15 billion for oil company Nexen and Sinopec bidding $1.5bn for the North Sea oil assets of Talisman Energy.
"We have a lot of competition for Chinese investment dollars from jurisdictions that the Chinese think are more friendly towards them in Canada and Africa," King Wood Mallesons' Nicola Wakefield Evans said.
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The downturn in world commodity markets is likely to choke the flow of new projects, although there may still be interest from foreign investors in takeovers of existing operations or in adding to investments they have made.