9 August 2005

STR - optimistic or delusional?

| Ralph
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Today’s Canberra Times is reporting that contracts for the construction of the Gungahlin Drive Extension (GDE) have been awarded to a local consortium.

Urban Services Minister John Hargreaves appears confident that work on the GDE will be commencing shortly – expecting that a Federal Court appeal by Save the Ridge will be dismissed. Always wanting to be wet blankets, STR are screeching that the Federal Court will uphold their appeal, and that Hargreaves is counting his chickens too early.

When STR’s Federal Court appeal is dismissed, their only recourse will be with the High Court. Some legally minded readers may wish to inform us as to what section of the Constitution they could argue their case against (the environment is not quoted in the Constitution). If anything, it will simply be another delaying tactic for those concerned about their property values.

STR currently has $70 000 lodged with the Federal Court. Should STR lose their appeal, they will be required to pay this amount to the ACT and Federal Governments. The ACT Government can also seek further compensation from STR for additional legal and administrative costs.

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I like the cars that run on coconut oil petrol, good for the environment, leaves a smell of coconut, has multinational oil companies issuing warnings like paper is an expendable thing.

Now anything that smells of coconut has to be good for you.

I am not concerned about oil one bit. I trust the power of the market.

Amen

What about refractive beam solar ?

In essence, put a big mirror in space, refract that solar energy onto a single point on earth where handily there are receptors waiting for all that goodness.

Obviously terrorists might get control of it every now and again and go laserbeam mexico, but on the whole it would be a convenient process.

Then again we could possibly farm it on the moon if we’re not that keen on refracting back to earth, the only problem is getting space ships not to crash all the time.

OpenYourMind10:49 am 11 Aug 05

A key criteria is energy return on investment EROI. Check out this site http://www.eroei.com/eval/net_energy_list.html

Solar is really lousy. The biggest solar farm in the world is in Germany and from memory only puts out 4MW. I’m not putting solar down, it’s great, it just doesn’t pack the punch that fossil fuels do. In effect almost all energy we use has come from the sun (directly or indirectly).

Thumper suggests nuclear. I won’t enter into discussions on merits vs downsides of nuclear as it’s all been said before. Something to consider though is if you think about NIMBYs getting upset about a windmill, what hope is there of putting a nuke plant anywhere in Oz. Even if you went full throttle into building a plant, the lead in time is enormous. The oil problem is likely to rear its head much sooner – oil jumped another $2 and hit a high of $65.05 last night.

All right, I’ll stop now – I promise!!

Oh come on guys, we’re all forgetting the power of slave labour. The America’s were forged on it!

I haven’t seen any research based upon wave power, however I have heard a suggestion that one solar panel placed upon each house in sydney would generate enough power to power sydney as well as drive a pump which would move water uphill during the day, when the sun goes down gravity is allowed to take over and we get electricity all night.

What we are faced with as a society is that ‘somebody’ must pay for this kind of thing, so instead of working for the greater good, we’re all getting involved with ‘what do I get out of it’.

Personally I’d love electricity to be listed as a human right and free for all and sundry.

But then again I think a utopia would work where many don’t.

Its ok, I got the message of hate quite clearly. I’m touched that you care that much.

Damn, that last bit was meant to be in a pale grey font, subliminal-like. I guess WordPress isn’t much for delivering death threats properly either. Oh well.

Hahahaha!! I will kill you soon

To late, you son of a bitch.

Looking forward to it (I can’t check that email address from work, and I’m having networking problems at home, so don’t be offended if I don’t reply quickly).

Beat ya to it Mae.

IP lookups are fun as well.

I’ll send you an email directly to show you how it’s done.

Please, please, *please* don’t get OpenYourMind started on oil. We have to work with him, and we are a captive audience!

Mael, really? Shit. I was hoping that address would be safe from spam for a long long time.

Nice, expand it with more info for the less informed and post it as it’s own story about Car use in the ACT.

OpenYourMind12:10 pm 10 Aug 05

RandomGit, I will happily accept your challenge.

As a general comment I have only ever mentioned ‘peak oil’ as it relates to discussions on cycling infrastructure within Canberra.

A more general comment would be that oil at a sustained $63 (current price) equates to roughly $1.33 a litre. Given Canberran’s high percentage of car use, this is current and topical to Canberrans I would have said – particularly given this original discussion thread is about building a new road.

The scary thing is I read that and had your email in 5 seconds. (the computer is running slow)

Here’s to unwanted emails ref oil ;P

*yay*

OYM, come up with a peice on Oil related directly to Canberra and post it up. Show your guts.

OYM, I would love for you to email me your full manifesto on the subject …but I seem to have lost my email address 😉

OpenYourMind9:49 am 10 Aug 05

Ahhh, you all love it!

I can talk some more about the process of oil exploration and extraction if you really want me to 🙂

You’re making a good point, Maelinar – it’s just the mere mention of oil in any post generally sets OYM off onto a tangent about the evils of world energy policy.

No worries 🙂

I say use it till it’s gone. I’m all right, and that’s all that matters.

Once it’s gone we can finally get into some productivity instead of the social rut we are currently in.

If you take oil out of the equation however, you will note that the government are actually PAYING the populace out of revenue that they are gathering.

that’s what I was on about.

Thanks a lot, Maelinar.

You’ve given OpenYourMind an excuse to start banging on about oil for the umpteenth time.

OpenYourMind8:01 am 10 Aug 05

This is getting very off the STR topic, but Alaskan oil is an interesting and current topic. There is an area of the ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) which is estimated to contain 10billion barrels of oil. American oil interests would dearly love to explore and drill this area, but they face an uphill battle against environmentalists protecting a very delicate area.

Yesterday oil touch $64 a barrel and Bush released an energy bill which contained no immediate hurt for Americans. One of the items glaringly omitted in the bill was a decision on ANWR.

That would link in extremely effectively with something that I have been researching recently based loosely upon some great chap who while in a position of power organised MONEY FOR THE INDIANS !!!

A brief description follows:

All sectors of Alaska’s economy are natural resource-based. Oil transported by the Alaskan Pipeline, from Prudhoe Bay to the port of Valdez, is of greatest importance to the state’s economy but indications are that the supply might be drying up. Currently, oil revenues supply 85% of the state budget. Every Alaskan resident receives a yearly payment of about $1,000 from an oil-funded “permanent fund dividend.”

Now I wouldn’t mind paying exorbitant parking fines et al if I could reasonably expect to take it from money the government gave me.

Obviously the worse I parked, the less I would get to keep.

Instead of higher and higher corporate salaries, perhaps the local government could be looking at reallocating some of their rent revenue from the people paying market rent in Yarralumla towards a similar scheme.

To be fair, Hargreaves probably shouldn’t be counting his chickens before they’ve hatched. Pre-empting the court’s decision does smack somewhat of the arrogance for which the current government is fast becoming famous.

That said, I’ve got my fingers and toes crossed that the Federal Court bounces STR, and the government subsequently sues them for every penny that bunch of nitwits own.

I find it amusing in the same territory that big business abounds to the tune of local government or national capital authority at their whim, with both sides bending over backwards to get them on their side, that a bunch of poncy wankers in what isn’t even a posh suburb can hold up crucial development.

That’s witholding the obvious information that proper planning would have had the infrastructure constructed prior to development, but us humans are a bit used to knee-jerk retrospective decision making.

God, please, let this selfish luddite madness end once and for all.

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