The Oil Drum

The Rudd Government's first budget contained a number of green initiatives - subsidies for solar hot water and PV, incentives for landlords to insulate homes and more encouragement for rainwater tanks.

They also kept Howard's $500 million handout to our largest and most profitable industry, the coal industry, which might explain why Bob Brown said the "budget had nothing for renewable energy but was a boon for the coal industry". The Clean Energy Council was more enthusiastic, saying "Australia heads towards a clean energy future one budget at a time".

The budget also expects a surge in farm production and continuing growth in mineral exports.

A great article in The Age in Melbourne today, about a climate change rally at Federation Square tomorrow, including two great quotes from the organisers (including my friends in the Bayside Climate Change Action Group).

Just an update: http://bartlett.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=90703

Congressman Roscoe G. Bartlett, joined by 34 House colleagues, today introduced a bipartisan companion to S. 2821, the bipartisan Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act of 2008. S. 2821 was introduced by Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and John Ensign (R-NV) and has 43 cosponsors. S. 2821 was included as an amendment to The Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008 which was approved by a vote of 88-8. House leaders stripped that provision from the bill when it was considered in the House.

We discussed S. 2821 and Bartlett's Peak Oil Special Order in detail earlier in the week here. Make sure to call your senators and representatives if you are in support of this legislation. Look up your representatives' contact info at http://www.house.gov and http://senate.gov .

I urge my colleagues to join me to support four better solutions:

1. A SMART GREEN SHOWCASE hosted by the SMART Organization in conjunction with me on July 18, 2008 in Frederick, Maryland will offer SMART ENERGY SOLUTIONS for homeowners and small business owners: practical ways you can use less energy, save money, and help our country transition to domestic, cleaner and renewable energy sources. The conference will provide educational and networking opportunities for home owners and representatives of large and small businesses, academic and non-profit organizations. For more information, go to: http://www.smartgreenconference.com

2. Next week, I will be introducing the companion House legislation to S. 2821, the Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act of 2008. It is sponsored by Sen Cantwell, Maria [D-WA] and was introduced on April 3, 2008 with lead Republican cosponsor, Sen. Ensign, John [NV]. It currently has 43 Cosponsors. [ED Note: If you wish to see more of the legislation, co-sponsors, etc., go to THOMAS (Library of Congress), type in S. 2821 or any of the bill numbers below.]

Two other pending bills that I recommend looking at are:

3. My Self-powered Farm Bill: H.R. 80 and
4. the DRIVE Act, H.R. 670

To help solve America’s energy problems, we need to reduce our country’s dependence upon oil to grow our food and for transportation. These two bills would provide incentives to reduce the dependence of our farmers and our businesses and commuters on oil.

We need your help in calling your congresspersons and helping us get this legislation moving. More detail under the fold.

Michael Lardelli proposed that the following text from South Australia's Hansard be posted here for posterity. It's a long winded parliamentary exchange, but provides some interesting insights into the functioning of Government.

Comment from Michael Lardelli:

Kanck's Select Committee on Impact of Peak Oil in South Australia established!

Congratulations to Democrat Sandra Kanck on establishing this committee which will have great significance for the debate on peak oil in South Australia in the future. Very well done!

Interesting debate around the motion by Parnell (Greens) and Ridgway (Liberals). It is very encouraging that Sandra's initiative has led to the wider discussion of this topic in parliament and will continue to do so.

See comments by Ridgway on population and on the impending report by the Port Stanvac committee on fuel supply, distribution, storage.

Mr. or Madam President,

Vice President Dick Cheney once famously quipped "The American way of life is non-negotiable." I submit that while our next president might not be so brash in stating this, the root of our energy problems can be traced to this attitude. But, nature doesn't negotiate. It doesn't appear that any of the remaining presidential candidates understand the basis of the problems we face: Oil is a depleting, finite resource - albeit one crucial for the "American way of life."

Because this resource is so crucial - and obviously not just for Americans - depletion is going to drive prices up as consumers bid for dwindling supplies. Threatening to sue OPEC isn't going to change that. Threatening to tax Big Oil into submission isn't going to change that. Mandating that we will invent new technologies to meet a greatly increased Renewable Fuel Standard isn't going to change that. These are the sorts of proposals that merely demonstrate that your grasp of the problem is superficial. And you have to understand the problem in order to begin addressing it.

The Liberal Party has markedly changed its tune on solar power since it got kicked out of office, with shadow environment minister Greg Hunt calling for a national feed in tariff for solar power and declaring he "has a vision of Australia becoming a solar continent" at the Climate Action Network Australia Conference in Sydney.

Hunt went on to say ""giant dishes, large fields of mirrors, these are one of the forms of power stations of the future" and "an important part of Australia's future energy" - all of which indicates he is on board with the vision of large scale solar thermal power.

Politicians are feeling the consumer pain at the pump, so they have to be seen to be doing something, anything..

The Age: Brumby to spend $112m to fight traffic

Keeping Melbourne Moving
A new strategy of stricter policing of clearways, more bus priority lanes and new cycle paths will begin on July 1 in an effort to cut road congestion in Melbourne. The $112 million Keeping Melbourne Moving strategy is aimed at shifting up to 12,000 people onto bicycles and walking tracks, and improving the flow of traffic by keeping clearways free.

The first stages of the plan starts in July. But the state government has again ruled out a London-style congestion tax, which charges all drivers who enter the city. Victorian Premier John Brumby said the strategy announced on Tuesday represented a balanced solution.

Maribyrnong City Council, covering the inner suburban area west of the centre of Melbourne, is rapidly proving itself to be Australia's (if not the world's) most peak oil aware council. On Tuesday 15th April, the council unanimously endorsed a Peak Oil Policy and Action Plan.

This post summarises the Peak Oil Policy document, while a subsequent post will look in more detail at the Action Plan.

Maribyrnong Council provides 80 different services to over 63,000 residents and 3,000 businesses. The Council employs 500 staff and is responsible for maintaining over $380 million of infrastructure, including facilities, roads and footpaths.

The sequence of events (covered here on The Oil Drum previously) that led to the Forties Pipeline closure on 27 April 2008 began in 2005 when BP, currently the UK's largest company, sold Innovene, their Grangemouth refinery subsidiary to Ineos. Ineos is privately owned petrochemicals company that has grown from nothing since its formation in 1998, fueled by debt reported to be €9 billion.

BP, once 50% owned by the UK government, used to own and operate the Forties Field, the Forties Pipeline system and the Grangemouth oil refinery. This is a tightly coupled complex system where oil from the North Sea flows by pipeline to Kinneil terminal where it is either diverted to Grangemouth to be refined and then combusted by energy hungry consumers or it is diverted to Hound Point for export by tanker (see map below the fold). The failure of any vital part of this complex system may close the whole system down. This system is now fragmented and its failure has just happened.

Failure by BP to recognise the dependency of the Forties Pipeline upon vital services provided by Grangemouth, and to provide contingency back up for their loss, is the principal cause for over 40% of UK North Sea oil and gas production now being shutdown.

Incident prone BP are of course not the only stake holder to shoulder responsibility and below the fold I explore the responsibilities of the Grangemouth Workers, Ineos, The Banks, Government and The Media in contributing to this debacle.