Free petrol vouchers ? Where did that idea come from ??? Petrol has been falling in price !

A few more snippets from the world of coal seam gas :

Reuters - Australia's Origin says tougher market to sell LNG

The developers of a proposed $24.5 billion gas-export project in Australia are finding it tougher to market the fuel as global recession hits demand, one of the backers, Origin Energy (ORG.AX), said on Wednesday. Origin and U.S.-based ConocoPhillips (COP.N) plan to build one of the country's largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants in the northeastern state of Queensland using coal-seam gas. It aims to produce 3.5 million tonnes of LNG in 2014, with the potential to expand four-fold.

Origin Chief Executive Grant King said the venture was in early talks with buyers but they were more cautious than a year ago. "While it has become more challenging to find markets for LNG, demand still exists for quality ventures with strong reserves," he added. "In our view, there's no question there's room for further LNG to be contracted long term, particularly into the Asia Pacific market," King told reporters in a teleconference. "The underlying demand is still there but the pressure for buyers to contract sooner rather than later is less."

ABC - Origin expands coal seam gas holdings

Origin Energy has bought more coal seam gas reserves in Queensland. The company has paid the Pangea Group $660 million to secure reserves in the Surat Basin, near the NSW border.

The Australian - Arrow Energy looks to expand in Europe this year

The coal seam gas producer said it would produce its first gas from these reserves by 2011. Arrow, which owns offshore tenements in China, Vietnam and Indonesia, also said in a slide presentation that it wanted to double the number of offshore tenements in which it had firm title to 12 this year.

Well, the kiwis elected a conservative party, so... everything's gone loopy there.

Olympic Dam environment impact presented

[...] it did not disclose the cost of an expansion which would take up to a decade.

[...] the expanded uranium and copper mine would employ 8,000 permanent workers with 13,000 more flow-on jobs.

The study revealed at least 1.6 million tonnes of copper concentrate would be exported annually to China. [...]

The study stated an expanded mine would consume five times as much power as the current Olympic Dam mine, and consume 250 megalitres of water a day - an increase on the current daily level of 37 megalitres.

A desalination plant will be built near Whyalla to provide most of the water required. The company says discharge from the plant will not impact on the cuttlefish industry in SA's Spencer Gulf.

The expansion also required either a gas pipeline from Moomba to power an electricity station at Olympic Dam, or a 270km electricity transmission line from Port Augusta to the mine, the EIS stated.

A new 105km rail connection was also needed to connect the mine to the Adelaide-Darwin railway, and Olympic Dam would also require a new airport, 10,000 person village and expansion of the Roxby Downs township near the site.

Interesting. If we want to buy a few new train carriages or just get the current ones to run on time, we're dead broke and can't afford it. But when it comes to expanding our capacity to dig it up and sell it overseas, well then we can build new power plants, desalination plants, railways, airports, employ thousands, no worries.

Oh well. At least uranium means less fossil fuels burned, yeah?

Turtles to share WA island with $50 billion gas project

THE orange-bellied parrot may be enough to derail wind farm proposals, but it appears the endangered flatback turtles in Western Australia are no barrier to Gorgon's $50 billion liquefied natural gas project proceeding. [...]

The Chevron Australia, Shell and ExxonMobil joint venture had to seek EPA approval after the proposal was expanded from the original two-train project to include a 35 million tonnes a year LNG train.

Oh well. Not that I really care much about the flatback turtle. Not any more than I care about the orange-bellied parrot, or the speckle-arsed wombat for that matter. But it'd be nice to have some consistency to these things.

Either we have the money for big projects, or we don't. Either we care about endangered species, or we don't. We can't be flush with cash and not worried about endangered species when it comes to fossil fuels and mining, but then suddenly broke and all tree-huggy when it comes to renewable energy.

Read and regurgitate.

"It was challenging to bring it in, and we will be under enormous scrutiny going forward, but it is very important to us because in many ways it quantifies what the Nationals have been able to achieve from the power sharing arrangement in Government."

Orwell commented on this kinda thing over 50 years ago.

Individual phrases that appear to contain a quanta of meaning, strung together... it has the sheen of cogent thought... without any real content.

Or maybe its worse than that!

Obviously someone has come to the conclusion that this is a cheap way to provide some kinda social service while buying a large slab of votes. It's not just the "35,000 aged country pensioners" 'loyalty' but their families as well.

"The petrol cards could also be used in cars owned by family, friends or carers who ferried pensioners to appointments."

After all they are obviously deserving: they are old, they 'built this country', they have the votes in the right country marginal seats...

If they were 18 we might use a different word.

On the topic of "Duckspeak", the Ministry of Love has just released the Defence White Paper (1.8Mb PDF), and despite the fervent hopes of everyone looking for some Government appreciation of Peak Oil as a serious global issue, the phrase doesn't even get a mention in the 138 pages.

- Nothing on how all these fossil-fuelled military techno-marvels will be kept running.

- Nothing about how large increases in fuel costs (from 2012!) may threaten the viability of our seaborne trade, let alone the funding of Defence.

- There is some discussion of "competition" for energy resources, but always this is rather bizarrely presented as some sort of fellow-traveller of "climate change", so no alarm bells will be going off until at least 2030, apparently...

4.60 The Government also considered new security risks that might arise from the potential impact of climate change and resource security issues, involving future tensions over the supply of energy, food and water. These issues are likely to exacerbate already significant population, infrastructure and governance problems in developing countries, straining their capacity to adapt.

4.61 Uncertainty about the effects of climate change and the period of time over which potential impacts may develop makes it difficult to assess its strategic consequences. Large-scale strategic consequences of climate change are not likely to be felt before 2030. The security effects of climate change are likely to be most pronounced where states have limited capacity to respond to environmental strains. The greater frequency of such events, together with the systemic impacts of sea-level rise, changed rainfall patterns and drought, will place greater pressure on water and food security, including on local fisheries.

4.62 Many countries in our immediate neighbourhood will be especially vulnerable to these effects. Countries in the Pacific may find themselves threatened by severe climatic events such as more intense cyclonic and extreme weather events. Some South Pacific nations will be placed under significant stress as a consequence of the impacts of climate change. They may require external assistance to manage the consequences of climate change, and to respond to natural or man-made humanitarian crises or disasters.

4.63 The main effort against such developments will of course need to be undertaken through coordinated international climate change mitigation and economic assistance strategies, and concerted international action to assure energy supply and distribution, which will need to be at the forefront of Australia's policy responses.

4.64 Should these and other strategies fail to mitigate the strains resulting from climate change, or resource security issues, and they exacerbate existing precursors for conflict, the Government would possibly have to use the ADF as an instrument to deal with any threats inimical to our interests.

4.65 It may be that the new potential sources of conflict related to our planet's changing climate, or resource scarcity, give rise to very old forms of confrontation and war, such as clashes between states over resources. From a defence planning point of view, the key issue concerns the nature of such conflicts and the implications for defence capabilities, rather than their cause. More frequent and severe natural disasters and extreme weather events will also increase demands on the ADF and other government agencies to provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief assistance in the future.

Rudd Delays ETS

YOU SON OF A BITCH! >:(