A Country That Has Stopped Thinking  

The SMH has an article on why John Howard's Australia is going backward on many fronts.

The world economy has rarely been kinder to Australia than in the past five years. Where once we rode the sheep's back, we now ride the coal truck, masking underlying problems. This economic luck - and, to be fair, some good management - means we still have one of the highest standards of living in the world. But with this security has come a lack of vision, an absence of courage and a poverty of ambition. We are happy in the prosperous present, but not doing enough to build for the future in a world where other countries are pedalling a lot harder.

To some, this is epitomised by our Prime Minister, John Howard, who was elected on a promise to make the nation relaxed and comfortable after we had become distinctly uncomfortable with the grand visions of his predecessor. Described in a recent essay by the journalist David Marr as the "exalter of the average", Howard is a sharp contrast to Paul Keating, who was voted out not so much because he had run out of ideas, but because he had too many that were too big and remote from an electorate that yearned for a return to a quiet life.

But Howard is not the problem, and replacing him won't necessarily solve the underlying malaise. If Howard and other political leaders are triumphs of the ordinary, lacking policy vision and imagination, it's because we have wanted them to be so. To Marr, Australia is a nation that has always been "uncomfortable with high principle", preferring the pragmatic and the mundane. That we should happily elect and re-elect a man who offers the political equivalent of a pipe and slippers should, in this light, come as no surprise. But in a changing world, being relaxed and comfortable can be a dangerous thing, particularly when the minerals bonanza runs out and the future kicks in.

As a nation we need to lift our horizons and regain our lost spirit of adventure. ...

Australia's focus on cost, rather than benefit, in areas such as broadband is also symptomatic of a broader problem which until recently has resulted in chronic underinvestment by government in key infrastructure. For more than a decade, public debt was seen as public enemy No. 1 and reducing it a central aim of governments, state and federal.

Debt was bad - even though, when it comes to capital spending on socially productive capital such as infrastructure, eschewing debt means today's taxpayers pay for assets which will benefit taxpayers of the future.

It is only in the past couple of years that state governments, faced with crumbling and inadequate infrastructure and huge demands created by the minerals boom and population growth, have rediscovered that when you renovate you sometimes have to borrow. The infrastructure inadequacies flowing from this can be seen in transport, another area where Australia has fallen behind the world. Road and rail links are a country's economic arteries, but if the nation was a patient it would be at risk of a serious heart attack.

Trains should be the best way to carry goods over Australia's long distances. But only about 10 per cent of Australia's freight travels by rail, putting us below other OECD countries. Passenger services are no better. A recent RailCorp study put CityRail behind every other city on every key indicator. Sydney does not even have an integrated ticketing system - like Hong Kong's Octopus card or London's Oyster card. "We stopped investing in rail in 1960 in Australia," said Bryan Nye, the chief of the Australasian Railway Association. "We have quite a deficit to pick up. We are almost a Third World country."

Our roads are already choked with cars and trucks, but the number of commercial vehicle trips on Sydney roads is expected to double to 2.4 million by 2026. Internationally, governments are thinking laterally when it comes to road congestion. In Europe and North America, they are starting to use toll roads to control traffic - a move that requires political courage, but works. In London, the inner-city congestion charge has been a success and New York is looking at one, too. In Sweden, motorists pay varying amounts to use roads depending on where and when they drive.

Some countries encourage trucks to use motorways at night by giving them a discount. Some spread the commuter rush by giving motorists discounts if they drive outside the peak. Others encourage rail freight by charging trucks a levy to use city roads.

Australia is also lagging when it comes to the business opportunities created by the response to climate change and the shift to "carbon trading", especially in alternative low-emission technologies that will become commercially viable as we adjust to demands to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Under pressure from vested interests in the mining and energy sector, the Government stalled on a move to carbon trading for a decade and has only moved in recent months after a huge shift in public opinion and acceptance of the inevitable by business.

Even now, the debate is still largely about the pain, the cost to the economy, business and consumers, rather than the opportunities it opens. Meanwhile, other countries have had almost a decade's head start.

Nations which have taken deliberate and politically risky steps to promote alternative energy - using financial carrots and sticks and introducing binding targets - are the global leaders in environmental technology. While there have been new costs, successful governments have been able to persuade voters with the message that you have to spend money to make money, jobs and opportunities.

Germany, the unlikely world leader in solar power, kick-started its renewable energy sector in 2004. New legislation required power companies to buy solar- and wind-generated power for US54-57 cents a kilowatt hour and US8.9 cents a kilowatt hour, respectively. Electricity from coal-fired power stations can be generated for US2-4 cents a kilowatt hour. The high "buy-in" prices suddenly made investing in renewables very attractive, especially with low-interest loans available to householders, farmers and businesses willing to put solar cells on their roofs or wind turbines in their paddocks.

Globally, solar power has grown by 41 per cent year over the past three years and wind power by 18 per cent a year.

China is also emerging as a solar player. About 80 per cent of the solar collectors manufactured in China use University of NSW technology, world-class science pushed offshore by lack of interest at home.

The failure of government to stimulate the development of a solar energy industry, when Australia has consistently led the world in solar science, is the most glaring example.

But we could also have seized opportunities to develop clean coal technology earlier, in collaboration with India and China, explored hot rocks technology, and got in on the ground in a long-term international effort to develop nuclear fusion, a process discovered by an Australian, Mark Oliphant, in the 1930s.

Sweden introduced the world's first carbon tax in 1991. The $US100-a-tonne tax on carbon dioxide led to a dramatic restructuring of the heating and electricity sector, a sharp reduction in emissions and the development of a global clean technology industry. Sweden now leads the world in biofuels - mainly used for heating and electricity production - and is close to phasing out the use of imported heating oil.

Long-term vision has been lacking in other areas, including biodiversity, genomics and commercialisation of medical discoveries. The revolutionary technology of genomics provides a way to produce a stocktake of our unique flora and fauna, so we can protect them as well as profit from their unusual characteristics. Yet we have left it to other countries to work out the genetic codes of Australian species including the platypus and gum trees. ...

The Canadian Farmers Union has issued a press release claiming a global food crisis is emerging.

Today, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its first projections of world grain supply and demand for the coming crop year: 2007/08. USDA predicts supplies will plunge to a 53-day equivalent- their lowest level in the 47-year period for which data exists. “The USDA projects global grain supplies will drop to their lowest levels on record. Further, it is likely that, outside of wartime, global grain supplies have not been this low in a century, perhaps longer,” said NFU Director of Research Darrin Qualman.

Most important, 2007/08 will mark the seventh year out of the past eight in which global grain production has fallen short of demand. This consistent shortfall has cut supplies in half-down from a 115-day supply in 1999/00 to the current level of 53 days. “The world is consistently failing to produce as much grain as it uses,” said Qualman. He continued: “The current low supply levels are not the result of a transient weather event or an isolated production problem: low supplies are the result of a persistent drawdown trend.”

…

Qualman said that the converging problems of natural gas and fertilizer constraints, intensifying water shortages, climate change, farmland loss and degradation, population increases, the proliferation of livestock feeding, and an increasing push to divert food supplies into biofuels means that we are in the opening phase of an intensifying food shortage.

Business Week has a look at peak oil and global warming in "From Peak Oil To Dark Age ?".

With global oil production virtually stalled in recent years, controversial predictions that the world is fast approaching maximum petroleum output are looking a bit less controversial. At first blush, those concerned about global warming should be delighted. After all, what better way to prod the move toward carbon-free, climate-friendly alternative energy?

But climate change activists have nothing to cheer about. The U.S. is completely unprepared for peak oil, as it's called, and the wrenching adjustments it would entail could easily accelerate global warming as nations turn to coal (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/19/07, "Rx for Earth: Sooner Not Later"). Moreover, regardless of the implications for climate change, peak oil represents a mortal threat to the U.S. economy.

Peak oil refers to the point at which world oil production plateaus before beginning to decline as depletion of the world's remaining reserves offsets ever-increased drilling. Some experts argue that we're already there, and that we won't exceed by much the daily production high of 84.5 million barrels first reached in 2005. If so, global production will bump along near these levels for years before beginning an inexorable decline.

What would that mean? Alternatives are still a decade away from meeting incremental demand for oil. With nothing to fill the gap, global economic growth would slow, stop, and then reverse; international tensions would soar as nations seek access to diminishing supplies, enriching autocratic rulers in unstable oil states; and, unless other sources of energy could be ramped up with extreme haste, the world could plunge into a new Dark Age. Even as faltering economies burned less oil, carbon loading of the atmosphere might accelerate as countries turn to vastly dirtier coal.

GIVEN SUCH UNPLEASANT possibilities, you'd think peak oil would be a national obsession. But policymakers can hide behind the possibility that vast troves will be available from unconventional sources, or that secretive oil-exporting nations really have the huge reserves they claim. Yet even if those who say that the peak has arrived are wrong, enough disturbing omens—for example, declining production in most of the world's great oil fields and no new superfields to take up the slack—exist for the issue to merit an intense international focus. ...

There are many things we in the U.S. can do (and should have been doing) other than the present policy of crossing our fingers. If an oil tax makes sense from a climate change perspective, it seems doubly worthy if it extends supplies. Boosting efficiency and scaling up alternatives must also be a priority. And, recognizing that nations will turn to cheap coal (recently, 80% of growth in coal use has come from China), more work is needed to defang this fuel, which produces more carbon dioxide per ton than any other energy source.

Even if the peakists are wrong, we would still be better off taking these actions. And if they're right, major efforts right now may be the only way to avert a new Dark Age in an overheated world.

After Gutenberg and MetaEfficient have posts about the commencement of sales of Honda Soltec's Thin Film Solar Cells.

As previously noted Honda began construction of a ¥7-billion (US$61 million) plant to mass produce solar cells at the end of September 2006. Now Green Car Congress1 has provided a follow-up report that Honda has begun sales of thin film solar cells.

In noting that Honda now has joined a growing field of manufactures of CIGS solar cells Jim Fraser states the belief that CIGS have a chance to become the low cost PV cell of the future. He is particularly encouraged by the addition2 of Honda and the recent addition3 of Q-Cells because of their “global reach and marketing prowess” He now includes those two companies on his list of manufacturers of low cost fairly efficient* solar panels that also includes Daystar, Global Solar, HelioVolt, Konarka, Miasole, and Nanosolar.

At present, the solar cell made by Honda Engineering Co. are available only in Japan, primarily in the Kanto area, through distributors that provide the installation service. And, at a very good says GCC commentator Henrik. From his sample, the average price of a 125W PV module is about $610 while the Honda go for $495.

For how long that we shall continue to see increased installation of thin film PVL (Photo Voltaic Laminates) is at question. Production is ramping up because of the current scarcity of pure silicon; solar modules that use less or no silicon can be made for less. Another reason is that developers have improved production methods. A third reason is that photo electronic engineers have improved PVL efficiency, bringing the level of efficiency closer to what standard silicon cells previously could offer.

Wired has an article on the "radical designs and quirky engines" refueling the quest for the car of the future.

Where will the car of the future come from? Detroit, which fumbled the electric automobile and let Japan grab the lead in hybrids?

Not likely. Instead, try NASA, MIT's Media Lab or Silicon Valley, where the sizzling, battery-powered Tesla Roadster debuted last summer. New technology that promises to revolutionize the automobile as we know it is emerging from research institutions and startups -- and these innovations won't set you back $100,000 like a Tesla will.

U.K.-based PML Flightlink put four of its 160-horsepower electric motors in the wheels of a BMW Mini to produce a concept car that shoots from zero to 60 in about four seconds and hits a top speed of 150 miles an hour. The engines also act as brakes, recovering energy that charges a battery and giving the car a range of more than 200 miles. A tiny gasoline motor can be used to recharge the battery for longer trips, on which the car gets 80 miles per gallon.

Another British firm, the Lightning Car Company, has already begun taking orders for its Lightning GT, a sleek, 700-horsepower sports car powered by PML's wheel motors.

A team of researchers at MIT's Media Lab, meanwhile, hopes to use the same approach to reduce congestion in today's crowded cities. They're experimenting with small electric motors located in the wheels of the CityCar, a tiny, nimble and practically silent vehicle with wheels that turn 360 degrees, enabling it to slip neatly into tight urban parking spaces. Designed to stack like supermarket carts when not in use, the cars could be parked strategically in front of subway stations and office buildings, where people could grab one as needed for short-term, one-way rentals, says Ryan Chin, one of the MIT researchers. ...

TreeHugger has a post on creating biofuel and bioplastic from sugar - "A Sweet Deal: Kicking the Oil Habit with Sugar" (more at Physorg - Plastic that grows on trees). As usual, the drawback is the impact of consuming food to produce industrial inputs - there are going to be limits on how far this scales.

While this breakthrough discovery may not immediately resonate with a majority of the population (not 70% of it anyway), it has already sent the scientific world into a tizzy over its potential implications for biorefinery and our dependence on oil. As reported in this week's issue of Science (subscription needed), a group of scientists have discovered a way to convert glucose into HFM (hydroxymethylfurfural), a chemical that is broken down into components used to manufacture products now made from oil.

Since crude oil is the base component for fuels, plastic and several industrial and household chemicals, finding a method of replacing it with an environmentally friendly, cheap renewable plant matter has long been one of the Holy Grails in science. Z. Conrad Zhang, the lead author and a scientist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)-based Institute for Interfacial Catalysis, described the team's accomplishment thusly: "What we have done that no one else has been able to do is convert glucose directly in high yields to a primary building block for fuel and polyesters."

HMF, the putative building block, is a chemical derived from sugars like glucose and fructose that has shown promise as a replacement for oil-based chemicals typically used to make several consumer goods and industrial chemicals. Although glucose, a sugar commonly found in plants, is the planet's most abundant carbohydrate, developing a method of extracting a measurable amount of HMF from it had proven difficult until now, not least because of the production of several impurities.

Using an innovative non-acidic catalytic system containing metal chloride catalysts (a class of metal halides) in a solvent, or liquid, capable of dissolving cellulose, Zhang and his colleagues were able to obtain HMF yields of 70% or higher from glucose and nearly 90% from fructose with few impurities. Solvents such as the one used here are beneficial in one important respect: they are reusable and therefore do not produce the wastewater typically found in other fructose to HMF conversion processes.

"This, in my view, is breakthrough science in the renewable energy arena," said J.M. White, the director of the Institute for Interfacial Catalysis and Robert A. Welch chair in materials chemistry at the University of Texas. "This work opens the way for fundamental catalysis science in a novel solvent."

Zhang and his team are now hoping to increase HMF yield from glucose while minimizing the formation of impurities by tweaking the combinations of metal halides and ionic solvents used in the process. "The opportunities are endless and the chemistry is starting to get interesting," Zhang said.

WorldChanging has a post on how life is becoming Greener In Texas.

There’s a saying: “everything’s bigger in Texas.” Usually applied to SUVs, exurb-dwelling women’s hair, and tex-mex dishes, it’s starting to look like a lot of the biggest initiatives to green a metropolis are being born in Austin, Texas.

Will Wynn is not just Austin’s mayor with a politically auspicious name: he’s also Al Gore with a Texas twang. A Worldchanger much more literate than I has already provided an excellent summary of Wynn’s speaking points , to which I have nothing substantive to add. The truly curious can also read the full current version of the Austin Climate Protection Plan . A short list of not-so-little ways in which Austin, the capital of the most polluting state in the most polluting country in the world, is giving most other locales a run for their money at the slowly starting race to think big about being green:

1. Transportation Is Becoming Less Insane

Yes, our highways are still as clogged as last time you visited. However, the vehicle in front of you seems increasingly likely to be practical in size, maybe even a scooter, perhaps even an electric one . If you’re really lucky, you’ll catch a glimpse of one of the increasing number of electric vehicles . With a small new subsidy on electric vehicle purchases or conversions and a campaign to encourage automakers to create plug-in hybrids , Austin’s air will begin to smell more like barbecue and less like smog. Add in plans for an expansive light rail system and Austinites just might stop thinking Hummers are cool rides.

2. Local Conservation Alive and Well

What good a little salamander can do! The endangered Barton Springs Salamander serves as a mascot for Austin’s efforts to protect our natural resources, with groups like Save Our Springs Alliance serving as watchdogs on even the largest companies that want to build in our backyards . From Whole Foods to Alamo DraftHouse , Keeping Austin Weird entails buying local for both better experiences and less carbon.

3. Energy Policy Approaching Sensibility


Austin currently gets about 35% of our electricity from coal, 30% from natural gas, 29% nuclear, and 6% wind. Wynn showed intellectual honesty during his presentation by mentioning the need to think about more nuclear capacity for long-term energy needs.
The city’s wholly-owned utility, Austin Energy, is putting its money where the (other) green is: Austin Energy customers can get free fancy thermostats that help prevent brownouts , rebates on energy efficient appliances and solar cells , and sell back any excess energy generated to Austin Energy .

Lastly and probably most importantly:

4. Embracing Clean Tech Capitalism


To quote Austinite and Worldchanger Bruce Sterling: “It’s about a bunch of start-up companies asking rich people for money” . Love it or hate it, capitalism is getting the innovation job done slowly but surely in Austin. We’ve got an established innovator or two around town, and the city is trying to attract as many fresh innovations as possible . Wynn’s roadmap plan to allow local spend and purchase of carbon credits just might let Joe Sixpack join in on the fun.

Links:
SUnday Business Post - Oil dependence spells economic disaster for Ireland, Lee warns
American Enterprise Institute - The Soviet Collapse: Grain And Oil
Clean Break - A plea to change the rules of the energy game
WorldChanging - Summer Reading, Worldchanging-Style
The Energy Blog - Cellulosic Ethanol from Bagasse for $1.00 per Gallon
Past Peak - Biodiversity And Mental Health
Gizmag - WINDREAM ONE project testing underway
Columbia Tribune - Paul’s profile on the rise
The Times - The London chef who was forsaken for five years in Guantanamo