causes of greenhouse gas emissions

Any figures about greenhouse gas emissions are extremely rubber but there does seem to be consensus that most of it is fossil fuel emissions and most of the balance by deforestation. So some 80% or so from fossil fuel and some 20% from deforestation.

tradeabale property rights - a personal epiphany

Saving the environment - or not - is becoming about property. Anything that can be traded or incurs a profit or a loss becomes a property. A right is a property. So by creating tradeable water rights or carbon rights, the government is creating new classes of property that will hamstring any efforts to save the environment.

oil spill in the Kimberley

If the spill is so much bigger than originally thought, the responsible bureaucrats just haven't been looking - they didn't want to find out bad news that might damage the rush for development in the North-West, which is reminiscent of Exxon's strategy with Exxon Valdez. The "let's put our heads in the sand it will go away and it will all calm down in a little while" strategy The oil industry needs to treat this as an industry-wide problem - a public relations disaster for any planned developments in the Kimberley.

And who are PTTEP Australasia? They purchased the well in February 2009 so the leak may not be their responsibility, but they lack the resources to plug it quickly.

Is gorgon inflated?

$70 bilion or actually $32 billion. Is the $70 billion based on an inflated estimate by the government of LNG prices as Goldman Sachs JB Were suggests? In terms of its significance to the Australian economy, does it matter?

the sins of coal

Australia is the world's worst emitter of carbon dioxide - per capita. It's because of our dependence on coal to generate our electricity. With just under 20 tonnes a head we've overtaken the US. The average person in India emits 1.2 tonnes a year.

source: a risk assessment by Maplecroft

is Gorgon inflated?

$70 bilion or actually $32 billion. Is the $70 billion based on an inflated estimate by the government of LNG prices as Goldman Sachs JB Were suggests? In terms of its significance to the Australian economy, does it matter?

Using electricity means using water

Using coal to generate electricity consumes huge amounts of water. The five coal-fired power stations in the La Trobe valley use the equivalent to more than a quarter of Melbourne's annual water consumption. And clean-coal technologies (carbon capture and storage) consume even more water.

Coal is the elephant in the room for Australia's greenhouse reduction/consumption. Most of our coal is exported (some 75%) and the rest is burnt to make electricity or in the making of steel. That burning produces a little over 42% of our greenhouse gas emissions.

Coal is our largest commodity export and is worth $24 billion, and Australia is the world's largest exporter of coal.

It's a big elephant.