Groovy Green  

Kerry O'Brien gave the Rodent quite a good grilling on TV tonight about his crusade to make Australia glow in the dark and his lack of support for cleaner, cheaper alternatives. Johnny is still trying to avoid picking reactor sites, though apparently the Mad Monk wouldn't mind one in Warringah - I'm not so sure his constituents would like the sight of a cooling tower on North Head though.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Not at all, Mr Howard. But the point is that you know, it is long said, it is an established principle of Government and of the judiciary and in our system of public governance, you don't just conduct an inquiry like this to be independent. It has to be seen to be independent. You've indicated that you might consider another inquiry into other energy sources like solar and wind, but what does it say about where your head's at that you've already got a nuclear power inquiry up and running at short notice before you even consider a similar inquiry for these other energy sources that have been in the front-line of the debate for the whole 10 years of your Government?

JOHN HOWARD: Kerry, we've already done an enormous amount in relation to coal and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from coal. We brought down an energy paper, white paper, two years ago and we established a joint Government industry fund to invest in technologies that would lead to cleaner coal. We're already doing an enormous amount there.

KERRY O'BRIEN: We're talking about renewables, we're talking about all these other forms of renewables.

JOHN HOWARD: If you're really serious about our energy future - and I think this is an area where the Australian community has some anxiety - you look at that. You look at coal, and you look at nuclear.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But you've looked at coal, you're looking at nuclear and you're saying you might also look at these other things.

JOHN HOWARD: I indicated today that there would be other facets of our examination of our energy security that the Government would be saying things about in the near future.

KERRY O'BRIEN: You watch China very closely so I'm sure you're familiar with their program to build nuclear power stations, but isn't China also planning to get twice as much energy from wind and solar as it is from nuclear?

JOHN HOWARD: Well, China is trying to get energy from all sources, and that's sensible and what I would say to the Australian public is that we should be open-minded enough to try and get energy from all sources. We shouldn't say, "Well it's either got to be nuclear, or coal, nuclear or fossil fuels or renewables", and there is more renewable energy now than there were 20 years ago. There was virtually none 20 years ago. Why shouldn't we be open-minded enough to look at all of the alternative sources? That's all I'm asking that this inquiry will do.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But why haven't you been open-minded enough over the past 10 years to make a much more vigorous effort to actually establish a much more viable renewable energy industry in Australia in these areas of solar and wind where we also have an enormous natural resource bank?

JOHN HOWARD: Because, Kerry, the judgment has been made by the Government over that period of time based on the information that we have, that the economics of renewables are so heavily negative that there hasn't been a case absent, huge Government subsidies to further boost the renewables industry.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Isn't that also going to be true of the nuclear power industry?

JOHN HOWARD: I don't know about that.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Well you know about it for the renewables without having an inquiry.

JOHN HOWARD: But it is possible for the economics of the two energy sources to be different, and I think what has happened with the nuclear energy source is that it could well be that the economics or the perceived economics of that have shifted far more than in relation to renewables and when you get - I know you'll criticise it because it's ANSTO - but when you get a report prepared by ANSTO that suggests that the economics of nuclear power have altered dramatically over the last few years you have to take some notice of that. And it's one of these areas -

KERRY O'BRIEN: There's also been criticism of the person who conducted the inquiry.

JOHN HOWARD: But, of course, there will be criticism of anybody who advocates nuclear power by the people who are opposed to nuclear power.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Isn't it true both ways? You seem to be -

JOHN HOWARD: There is an element of that, I accept that.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But you seem to be making an argument for saying it's OK and in fact we have no choice but to have people who are pro-nuclear power running this inquiry. But somehow or other it's not credible or it's not possible to have people who might start from a philosophical position opposed to nuclear power or a practical scientific position opposed to nuclear power. Somehow or other they're discredited before the process even starts?

All this talk about nuclear power and superior renewable alternatives has the coal industry lobby in something of a tizzy, trotting out some tame state premiers to pooh pooh nuclear - who needs it when you have good, old, dirty, planet cooking coal ?

A spokesman for state Energy Minister Theo Theophanous said Victoria was putting money into clean coal technology because nuclear power "doesn't stack up on environmental grounds, it doesn't stack up on economic grounds and doesn't have the acceptance of the community".

He said a Victorian study more than a year ago found it cost twice as much money to produce electricity through nuclear power.

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie warned yesterday that a nuclear industry would undermine Australia's coal industry, particularly in NSW and his home state, where there is a 300-year supply of coal and 16,000 workers in the industry.

Mr Beattie said buyers in some world markets were already making a choice between nuclear energy and coal, and the growth of a nuclear industry would inhibit the coal industry.

"I don't understand why people undermine the coal industry," said Mr Beattie. "We're going down the road of clean coal technology and we've got 300 years supply of coal."

Mr Beattie said the federal Government had seriously misread the electoral mood and there was little public support for nuclear reactors or a nuclear waste dump. "Coal royalties fund a large part of our police, nurses, doctors, paramedics, school teachers. And why would you give that up," Mr Beattie said.

Why would you give it up ? Global warming Pete - global warming...

Triple Pundit has a post on the hidden costs of shipping and an energy efficiency device - the skysail - which would help make what is already the most efficient way to move goods around even more so.

Joel Makower's latest post on Grist brings up some great things to be aware of regarding the environmental costs of shipping.

As with most fossil fuel dependant businesses I don't think we're going to see a great deal of change until the price of oil instigates it, but that's not stopping a lot of interesting companies from starting to think about new innovation. My personal favorite is skysails, a concept to attach giant sails to stadard vessels, thus increasing fuel economy by significant amounts. Other, simpler efforts are under way to streamline tractor-trailers on the interstates (a friend of mine is working on this problem) and some people are even trying to re-introduce hydrogen airships.

The best part of all these things is that they reduce costs for existing businesses while at the same time creating a myriad of new business opportunities for entrpreneurs of all sizes. My advice is to start thinking about fuel cost reduction technology and you'll have a winner of an idea.

Steve at Deconsumption has a look at how his predictions are panning out in Revisiting the Crisis Timeline.

...keeping in mind that 2006 is not even half through yet, I'm surprised to note that the Timeline has proven amazingly accurate so far--which at least means I haven't been viewing things from completely out in left field. Here are the thoughts that come to mind as I read it over again:

The US is moving ever closer toward economic collapse.

If I'd written this any time before a few weeks ago I might have questioned how the US Dollar could be holding up so well, but then it took a header with a vengeance...and it's now widely accepted that we've probably seen the end of the "dead-cat bounce of 2005" for the greenback (2-year chart, 10-year chart)--BTW, that phrase comes from the colorful market-addage "When you drop it off the top of a roof, even a dead cat will bounce a little bit...".

Now however the Dollar is coming under attack from seemingly every direction. Central Banks the world over are distancing themselves from it as carefully and quickly as they're able, but more significant is that Dollar-bashing has recently become a high-profile sport with the Russians. Not only have they launched verbal attacks against it, but just about a week ago Russia revealed her surprise special-attack-move when they announced they're (miraculously) completely ready to begin trading oil, oil products, and even gold in rubles next week--and presumably in Euros as well, since 2/3'rds of their oil and gas goes to Europe:

"For historic reasons, the dollar remains the world's "petrocurrency" - the only currency for the settlement of oil contracts on world markets. That makes the EU and Russia dependent on it. But with central banks switching to euros, the logical next step would be for fuel-exporting countries to start quoting oil prices in euros too."

And of course Iran’s new oil exchange plans are widely known, and Norway has even officially put the idea on the table as well. Venezuela has all but announced they're ready to take Euros as payment, so all in all it's clear the train has left the station, and there is little the White House will be able to do to stem the currency flight.

I'm strongly convinced that this mounting pressure on the Dollar is setting things up for a "triggering event" to happen over the next year or so which will precipitate a crash. This would likely then set-off a whole series of economic dominos to fall, from petroleum shortages in the US to a tumble in general housing prices (keep in mind that the well-publicized housing decline has so far really only affected second-home and speculator markets). So as Rich Dad, Poor Dad financial pop-star Robert Kiyosaki said recently, which expert do you choose to listen to? The one who tells you how to rearrange your deck-chairs, or the one who advises you to get your lifeboat off the ship altogether...?

The SMH has some news for goldbugs which looks at trends in portfolio allocation in commodities by some of the larger investors.

The world's big-money brigade is snapping up gold bullion at eight times the rate originally thought, according to UBS, the world's biggest gold trader.

The huge sums entering precious metals below the radar are likely to help to put a floor under the gold price after the dramatic fall of $US112 an ounce in late May, the sharpest correction since the bull market began five years ago.

The Swiss bank said information from its trading floor suggested that funds and investors were allocating 20 per cent of their commodity portfolios to precious metals.

This is far more than the index-tracking funds run by Goldman Sachs, Dow Jones-AIG and others that are usually taken to be a guide to overall investment flows.

UBS said these indices gave a deeply misleading impression, obscuring a silent shift of funds from oil into gold. The Goldman Sachs GSCI index, for example, has a gold and silver weighting of just 2.27 per cent, compared to 73 per cent for energy.

"If our traders' experience is representative of trends in the wider market, this has very important implications for metals investment," said the bank's gold expert, John Reade.

The UBS gold reports are watched closely by the markets. The Zurich bank manages the biggest known stash of private client wealth, surpassing $US1000 billion ($1330 billion).

The extra volume in gold buying has been channelled through the London Bullion Market Association, eclipsing the Comex futures market in New York which is usually monitored by speculators for clues.

...

The output in South Africa, the world's biggest supplier, fell to 10.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2006, despite high prices. The country's production has reached its lowest level since 1923. "It's becoming very hard to get gold out of the ground," Mr Norman said.

Oil states armed with a current account surplus of $US480 billion in 2006 are thought to be feeding the "stealth demand" for bullion, led by Russia.

President Vladimir Putin, a frequent critic of US dollar hegemony, has ordered the Russian central bank to raise the gold share of foreign reserves from 5 per cent to 10 per cent.

Russia's reserves have surged to $US237 billion, the world's fourth biggest, after rising 61 per cent in 2004 and 40 per cent in 2005. With a current account surplus of 10 per cent of GDP, it must buy a big chunk of the world's gold output just to stop its bullion share of reserves from falling.

Steve Balogh and friends' Groovy Green website is metamorphosing into something larger in scope than the original blog, with a magazine style format being the latest addition.

Welcome to Groovy Green - We've evolved into a green magazine, bringing you in-depth articles, interviews, and video posts on sustainable living, new products, community leaders, and people like you - trying to reduce your impact and increase your self sufficiency. Our blog will continue to bring you the latest in green news, links, and commentary.

Past Peak notes that support for Al Gore continues to steadily increase (thereby generating a flurry of "conservative" attacks) as "An Inconvenient Truth" continues to do very well at the box office. The book is also getting good reviews. Past Peak also notes the woeful state of journalism regarding global warming (a criticism which could be repeated in plenty of other areas).

In her recent interview of Al Gore, NPR's Terry Gross pointed out the following jaw-dropping facts:

Let me mention a study that you cite in your documentary and your book, An Inconvenient Truth. This is a study from the University of California at San Diego. A scientist there named Dr. Naomi Oreskes published in Science magazine a study of every peer-reviewed journal article on global warming from the previous 10 years, and then in her random sample of 928 articles, she found that no articles disagreed with the scientific consensus on global warming. Then another study on articles on global warming that were published in the previous 14 years in the press, specifically published in The New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times and Wall Street Journal found that more than half of those stories gave equal weight to the scientific consensus and to the view that human beings played no role in global warming.

So just to sum up: the scientific journals, the scientists agreed about global warming, but in these four, you know, major American newspapers, equal weight was given in half the articles to the opposing view that human beings are not causing global warming.

Staggering — yet, in a sad way, unsurprising. This is what it has come to. Scientists publishing in peer-reviewed journals are 100% unanimous, have been for years, but readers of the newspapers of record would have no way of knowing that. No wonder people are confused. Journalists who insist on reporting the world-is-flat "side" of the "argument" have a lot to answer for.

The Register's review also notes this media "anomaly".

As An Inconvenient Truth started, our worst nightmare seemed all too near.

The movie opens with Al Gore's nasal drone serving as the voice over. Images of a river and forest dominate the screen as Gore becomes consumed with cheesy hokum and talk about his long lost days sitting on the riverbank, chewing cud and communing with the mystic.

Our movie companion started gyrating, as she tried to hold in the laughter. Our concerns were more desperate. We'd actually waited in line for an hour to see this thing, and were now doubting that we could take more than 10 minutes of the film. Surely, it could not continue like this. Someone would make Gore stop.

Well, Gore doesn't stop, but the movie does get much, much better.

Broadly, An Inconvenient Truth is the most polished PowerPoint (Keynote, actually) presentation you're going to find. During the majority of the movie, Gore rolls out a dressed up version of the global warming spiel he has been giving across the globe for years.

The basic science of global warming is delivered via a decently funny animation. Countless images of melting ice caps and glaciers pepper the screen. Charts galore show the dramatic rise in carbon dioxide over the past forty years and the accompanying dramatic rise in temperature. More charts show how no real scientist disputes the global warming trend, while more than 50 per cent of journalists do raise objections to the "theory."

The photos prove the greatest selling point for Gore's agenda, while the statistics and projections will likely scare the hell out of you.

It's rare to see dry information presented in such an entertaining way.

Crikey today has a piece on News Ltd's recycling record - as I quoted Stephen Mayne's original trashing of Rupert on this topic I figure I should include this one too. The snippet about Norske Skog's paper mill is quite interesting - they did a large power deal with one of the NSW generators last year, so obviously their power demands haven't dropped all that much (though at the time I got the impression that they were building a new mill, so maybe increased recycling has been compensated for by increased demand - the usual problem with Jevon's paradox I guess).

Rupert's excellent Australian recycling record

By David Vincent, editor of Workplace Express

As one who's not always a fan of News Ltd's editorial standards, I'm loathe to defend Rupert Murdoch, but there's one front on which he's been unfairly criticised by Crikey's Stephen Mayne over the years. You've said repeatedly that Murdoch is one of the biggest corporate treekillers, but I can tell you that in Australia he is absolutely at the other end of the spectrum from the Gunns of the world.

In fact, News and the other publishers have been a good corporate citizens by turning around a very poor performance on recovering old newspapers in the late 1980s to a world-leading performance now. Part of that was a result of News setting up an internal Environmental Secretariat sometime around 1989-1990 that pushed along efforts to increase newspaper recycling.

But don't rely on my word on Australia's old newspaper recycling improvement – have a look at the Productivity Commission's draft report on waste management (pages 406-410), released last month. While the report contains a lot of the loopy orthodox economists' take on waste minimisation and resource recovery, it says Australia is a world leader in its recovery of old newspapers.

Because of a decision taken by the newspaper publishers around 1990, Australian Newsprint Mills (controlled by the publishers at the time) started using old newspapers in a new facility at the Albury newsprint mill (now owned by Norske Skog). This transformed the volatile market for old newspapers, which had relied on being used to make cardboard boxes, while some had been exported.

As the PC says, "the rate of newspaper recycling increased from 28% to 75% in 2004", according to the Newsprint and Publisher Group 2005, while the Publishers National Environment Bureau claimed Australia recycled more newsprint than any other country. While it would be best that the PC cited an independent source, there's no doubt Australia has made enormous strides on newspaper recycling since the early 1990s.

When I visited the Albury mill in the late 1980s, I was told by the mill's managers that it used 1% of the power in the NSW electricity grid. Most of this was due to the massive, crude grinders turning logs into fibre that is then used to make the unsophisticated "mechanical" pulp used to make newsprint. If you use old newspapers for your feedstock in the newsprint mill, you massively reduce your energy inputs for every section-laden SMH or 100-page-plus Herald Sun that punters buy, even taking into account the relatively small amounts of energy used to transport the recycled material back for its next life as a newspaper.

So it seems even Rupert and his fellow publishers recognise the environmental, economic and PR benefits of good environmental stewardship, which is consistent with his reputation as a hard-nosed business operator.

Grist has a report on the problems global warming (amongst other things) is posing for winemakers (and they have enough trouble here already thanks to a tax minimisation based wine glut).

Bad news for oenophiles: Global warming is messing with wine country. Wine grapes are highly temperature-sensitive, and if the globe gets much hotter (which smart folks say it will), famed wine-producing regions like France's Burgundy and California's Napa Valley may lose optimum climate for their grape varieties. Already, warmer temperatures in southern Spain are driving grape growers to shade vineyards, develop heat-resistant grapes, and in some cases, move to the mountains. Climate change could reduce the world's viable grape-growing regions by nearly 80 percent by the end of the century. Of course, other regions may then warm up enough to become prime wine country -- in the U.S., those could include upstate New York, coastal Michigan, the Puget Sound area in Washington state, and Virginia. Meanwhile, dozens of vineyards in California are doing their bit to address the problem by running irrigation systems on solar power.

On the other hand, Crikey reports that this year's vintage in France is expected to be a classic thanks to the warm, dry weather there. Maybe all it takes to see a positive side to global warming is to drink a lot...

The American critic Robert Parker says the 2005's show “compelling greatness” and describes his jubilation about the vintage with many Chateaux making their greatest wine ever: “I know I sound like a broken record,” he admits, “but here is another estate that may have produced its finest wine…ever.”

And the reason for all these superlatives? Well the experts put it down to two things; grapes that were picked small and ripe. The 2005 Bordeaux vintage was marked by above average temperatures and below average rainfall.

The growing season was the driest since 1949 with rainfall about half the 30 year average. The drought kept the grapes free of the fungal diseases they often suffer in humid weather and made them smaller and unusually low in juice. “It was the thickness of the skins, in which all flavour-, colour- and tannin-producing compounds reside, that were responsible for the 2005s' quite exceptional charge of these vital elements.” Ms Robinson explained to her readers.

Now you can make of that what you will. Some researchers at the Davis Campus of the University of California have conducted experiments that suggest that when drunk blind, people prefer wine made from high yielding grapes more than from low yielding ones. But there is little doubt that ripeness helps quality.

Winemakers throughout Australia, where a good vintage virtually every year produces the fruit concentration and alcohol levels of the fabled French years, have long known that. So too do the growing number of customers worldwide who have made Australian wines bigger sellers than their French competitors in many markets.

It is something of a paradox that the same wine experts praising the 2005 Bordeaux are the ones who regularly write about cool climate winemaking and how this is essential to make fine wine. Yet it is wines from the uncommonly hot European summers like 1945, 1947 and now 2005 that they really rave about.

The evidence pointing to rising world temperatures suggests that soon there will be more opportunities for Bordeaux “vintages of the century”. Conditions in the nine months of the 2005 growing season saw 70 hours more sun than the thirty-year average and temperatures above the thirty-year average from 0.6 to 2.3 degrees C depending on the month, with the one exception being February when temperatures were 1.3 degrees below average.