Petrol price populism MkXXIX
Blog Post | Blog of Christine Milne
Thursday 19th June 2008, 4:39pm
by TimHollo in
I think Liberal Backbencher Chris Pearce may have done us all a big favour by taking the petrol price populism just that little bit too far this morning.
He went out on a limb calling for his own party to double its ridiculous 5c fuel excise cut to 10c and promptly got smacked down by members of his own party as well as others.
Christine got a good run on ABC, with Sabra Lane putting a fair bit of her interview into the World Today. You can listen to the whole 7 minute interview here.
But the main reason for my post on this today is that I can't resist posting GetUp's latest. I hope they haven't cut off a certain demographic with this video, but I imagine that most people will forward it on for another massive e-campaign.
You can take a look at the campaign page here. Latest on Fuel Watch in the Senate is that the Greens joined with the Liberals in sending the legislation to Senate Committee yesterday, although we opposed all their other committee referrals delaying budget bills.
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Just which demographic do
Just which demographic do you think GetUp will offend Tim?
Christine sounds far to sensible to be a politician btw.
That must have been written
That must have been written by uni students HA
mcfarm, such cynicism! I
mcfarm, such cynicism!
I guess the demographic that Corey Bernardi is appealing to with his Senate Inquiry into Gordon Ramsay would not be amused by this vid, are they?
Demographics!?I thought the
Demographics!?I thought the Greens were about something else!? Been blowing your fingernails too often ,lately!? Seriously! Have the Greens visited KeeleyNet.com lately!? Heard of acetone,pure,being put into the fuel tank!? A Live Leak video suggests twice the fuel efficiency,anyone,willing to have a go in Aus!? Or you'll keep your usual digital superiority for Green Hairdressers and Computer smart arses!? Do smart arses rub themselves with acetone to improve efficiency!? Because they are everywhere,and, as yet,I haven't found the most resourceful! They will surely be entered into The Byron Bay Underpants Museum, if I do!?
Hi Christine How about if
Hi Christine
How about if you can see if you can get the Rudd government to stop giving corporate welfare and give some of the Green Car Initiative to truly green cars like:
http://www.aptera.com/
"With the All Electric Aptera, it is very easy to figure out the mileage range. The mileage is determined by the distance you can drive, under normal circumstances, until the batteries are effectively drained. In the case of the first Aptera typ-1e, we have calculated the range to be about 120miles.
With the Plug-in Electric Hybrid version of the Aptera(typ-1h) the mileage of the vehicle is difficult to describe with one number. For example, the Typ-1h can drive 40 to 60 miles on electric power alone. Perhaps for such a trip, the engine may only be duty-cycled for a few seconds or minutes. This would produce a fantastic number, an incredible number that, though factually true, would have no useful context, i.e. it's just a point on a graph."
And the Think!
http://www.think.no/
Neither of which are planned as yet to be sold in Australia however with 35 million dollars I think that they would change their minds. Aptera is looking for a second round of funding - this sort of funding would see the car released and in Australia.
If jobs where more secure
If jobs where more secure and housing more affordable, people might live closer to where they worked and walk or ride push bikes. This is the way it used to be. This is the way it still is in many un-Australian environments.
If we have to live in decentralised urban environments, where trains travel regularily to within 20km of; why dont we have battery buses just like the old ones circa 1900 to take us from our street to the train station, train station to work.
We could have many small ones, charging up on decentralised PV assisted powered hubs. (its a daylight industry). Drivers need not be full time, could work at the last point of call.
Big employers could be encouraged to put on all electric minibus employee collecters, powered by grid connect pv and or wind generaters at the point of disembarkment.
If you work at the same place all day and go home to the same place every day, its absolutely rediculous to comute in a car alone to get there.
I know, I have just started doing it, its silly and I am working on alternatives.
We could offer tax incentives or fuel discount regimes based on numbers in vehicles.
We could penalise city driving, especially in big 4 wheel drives.
Did you know that you can convert a small car to an all electric vehicle with a 50 - 150km range and 100km/h performance for around $10k, with engineer certs.?
Its true.
The latest 'stuck in traffic' commuter fantasy? I am working on a desighn for an electric drag car. Drag races have been steadily reduced nationally becouse of the noise and political 'incorrectness'.
An all electric drag event would showcase the awesome power available from the highly efficient DC motor, modern battery and capaciter storage systems. Max power available instantaniously! I could guarentee that a well desighned DC drag car would thrash a volotile fuel vehicle in a drag showdown.
The noise regulation problem is elliminated (electric vehicles are silent), we would bring a wall of sound rig to emulate internal combustion motor noises and turn it down when complaints are raised....
In my opinion, the all electric drag event is a definate inevitability and a definitive inspiration for a walled in industry, the Greens should be looking to find competitive sponsers for thier own entrant.
(probably cost $120k + for a joke entrance level performer, would toyota be game?)
The Th!nk and Aptera and
The Th!nk and Aptera and others will be here soon enough. The big consumer driver of this change is fuel prices. This could create a tremendous problem of grid overload. We need to anticipate this and build capacity fast.
The scary part is the big draw to charge the cars will be at night which is harder for renewables to supply. Perhaps this is the nuclear industry's ticket :(
Its up to we Green minded folk to head off this threat.
In WA they are suffering serious industry harming capacity problems due to the gas plant explosion. That is our future if we don't ensure capacity for electric cars.
It seems we get the explosion consequence often enough (Longford, Vic 1998). Surely that's just another argument for renewables, I don't foresee any solar plants blowing up quite the same way, with the same downtime.
Two points: firstly there
Two points: firstly there are various solar thermal technologies that enable 24 hour electricity generation that renders nukes unnecessary. Secondly, WA's energy problem is due to the centralization of it's power sources.
The type of power is irrelevant if you have all your eggs in one basket, but nukes due to their huge $ costs are centralized and more susceptible to outages that affect large sectors of the economy. Much easier to disrupt an economy if all you have to do is to co-ordinate the 'taking out' of a few large power generation facilities.
Any future power generation should take it's cues from the internet which is virtually impossible to shut down. We need an electranet of smaller, decentralized, and independent generators of renewable energy.
A decentralized power generation system is oft quoted as being inefficient due to the lack of economy of scale. Obviously WA losing a third of it's power generation potential for 6 months is much more efficient?!
And for the technically minded I suspect that CAT vehicles will be better equipped to handle the demands of Australian drivers and conditions. Lighter, more flexible and able to travel considerable distances on very little fuel or shorter distances on air. Apparently nearing production too http://www.greencars.za.net/tatamdi-air-car-info/
As usual the problem is that most of the electricity used to compress the air comes from coal.
mcfarm, two things: 1) The
mcfarm, two things:
1) The nuclear boys have a decentralised solution:
http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news-toshiba-micro-nucle...
2) CST can do heat storage, but even its most ardent advocates will concede that it remains at a disadvantage to supply a mostly night time load (as electric vehicles may turn out to be). A few cloudy days and the 24/7 heat store looks a little shaky. Also heat storage does not always come with CST plants, its a design consideration, not a mandatory element. Further even Ausra understands solar thermal can't do it all, we need other types without built in storage as well. We can't get around that renewables will be more challenged consistently supplying 24/7 load than nuclear or coal will be. Renewables reliability advantage probably only lies in being less likely to blow up. What we probably need to nail to night time period is huge numbers of something like EEStor's ultracapacitors spread everywhere.
30 years ago a high tech
30 years ago a high tech company I was involved with devised a system of releasing wind and solar energy when neither were being generated. It is very simple and involved using the excess energy generated to propel heavy railed cable cars up a slope. These were then lowered using the same cable motor config at night, or when the wind died, to even out generation.
Generation being a bit like energy generated during engine breaking in a hybrid and a pulley weighted grandfather clock. The system was easily regulated to absorb the excess generation of any system, and release it as required.
Energy loses and friction losses were minimal and it happened that with wind at least, most generation takes place on high ground facilitating the energy stores.
Some of the heat generation systems are dependent on UV light which is less affected by cloud, but still affected by day length. CST is obviously the big exception.
Me thinks NIMBY's wil prove problematic for the micro nukes.
And what this has to do with fuel watch and petrol price populism is starting to elude me.
mcfarm The rail car concept
mcfarm
The rail car concept hasn't the faintest hope of storing enough energy to deliver the charge needed to propel a million electric cars.
The relevance to fuelwatch seems clear. In the "advert" they discuss more efficient cars and alternative fuels (e.g. electric drive) and they finish asking for a renewable future. Electricity as a car fuel is an order of magnitude cheaper than petrol. This dramatically resolves the petrol price issue which is the central issue of the "advert".
I think where we disagree is I don't think the renewable nighttime energy delivery question (necessary for charging electric, or compressed air cars) has been solved convincingly enough yet to take nuclear out of the picture. I wish that it were and I remain hopeful it can be.
You provided an argument about decentralisation preventing nukes. Once that was taken away you flipped to NIMBY. The NIMBY argument didn't stop France putting in nukes. And I would imagine getting nukes into France would be much harder than in Australia due to its higher population density. There are enough lowly populated locations in Australia along major connectors to permit a decentralised nuke solution.
I think what we will see is a divide and conquer strategy to deal with NIMBY. The whole thing will be turned on its head and Councils will be invited to competitively tender for the right to put a reactor in their shire. The councils will offer up sites near enough to connectors. And their tender will include a list of demands that will dramatically enhance the lifestyles of the residents of the shire. The shire that puts the least expensive set of demands, coupled with the most efficient site will win the reactor.
All you need is a couple of cash strapped councils to see the opportunity that awaits them for taking on the responsibility of housing the reactor. They will extract enough cash to "bribe" their residents that this is a good thing. They have the ready example of beautiful France remaining a top world tourist destination to show that this is not the death of the shire.
Its a lowest common denominator thing. Of all the councils in Australia, one will be the more vulnerable than all the others to such a strategy.
We can do a little probability exercise. Lets say 60% of Australians are strongly anti-nuclear and the rest are comfortable enough to horse trade over it. Lets say councillors are representative of the population and that there are 12 councillors on each council. We should expect that 16% of councils will have 5 or fewer anti-nuclear councillors. Thats enough for the nuclear boys to drive a wedge.
So I think we need to more than simply assume NIMBY will save us from nuclear. I think instead we need to work hard to ensure enough renewables are implemented in order they can prove their worth and robustness in delivering power reliably enough to charge the fleet of electric cars coming our way.
John, something must have
John, something must have got lost in the translation, I didn't realize we were having a disagreement.
The difference between compressed air technology and electric is that the air can be compressed into tanks during the day, and a tank to tank transfer losses are small. That said the most likely scenario is that 'air servos' will compress during the day and air cars will refill on the way to or from work, much as they do now. Big difference is that the servo will not have to belong to a fuel franchise/chain/duopoly. Refuelling would be possible at home, but I'm nit sure why anyone would bother. It would take about 3 minutes at an independent recharge station and cost a few bucks.
France's acquiescence and then rush to nukes had more to do with the fact that the decision was made post WW2 as the Iron Curtain descended. There was little opposition to nuke weapons let alone nuke power in the 1950's 60's and when in the late 60's early 70's opposition was brewing nuke arms and power were well established. I remember the Red Berets (French SAS) and the Foreign Legion being called in to quell dissent when the riot police were spread too thin. NIMBY's? Mais Non! It was hard to protest at the point of a gun with fixed bayonet, and in a cloud of tear gas to boot. General De Gaul was president at the time, and I was there.
But do you really expect the NIMBY argument to fail in Australia? I would suggest the opposition to a certain pulp mill in Tasmania would pale in comparison to the protests agin local nuke reactors. But perhaps not?
I agree the wedge will be attempted, there is big money involved, whether it succeeds or not is another matter. Problem for local councils they are only really responsible for the three R's - roads, rates and rubbish. Nukes will be a federal issue, I don't think the states will even get a look in unless they actively want nukes in their backyard. We shall see soon enough.
We tested the cable cars on a small scale and the losses were a bit over 50% and by no means state of the art back in 1982. This meant a generation system needed to compensate for these losses as well as peak loads. All in all not impossible for small scale power generation. But powering a metropolis like Sydney or Melbourne is a different kettle of fish, and the rail concept would definitely not work on that scale.
Why couldn't electric cars
Why couldn't electric cars charge at the workplace during the day? Surely some workplaces have designated car spots. The price of the power can be deducted from a person's wage.
Yesterday, whilst waiting
Yesterday, whilst waiting for a bus on busy Liverpool Rd, Ashfield (Sydney) during the afternoon peak, I did a 20 minute head count of occupants of passing motor vehicles. I was astounded to find that approximately 80%, or four in five cars, were passenger-less and all heading in the same general direction.
With the price of fuel approaching the $2.00 per litre mark, and an electorate, stirred up by the media, putting increased pressure on the major parties to bring down the cost of petrol, it’s time that government at all levels started looking at one practical measure that could reduce fuel costs for motorists, reduce the number of cars on the road and reduce the greenhouse gas emitted: Car-pooling.
Car-pooling has become increasingly popular in Europe, the UK and the United States, but has never been seriously supported by state or federal governments in Australia.
Although car-pooling would not suit all commuters, if one in six private motor vehicles carried two passengers or one in three cars carried one passenger, the number of cars on the road would be reduced by a third as would fuel costs and consumption, which in turn would make an immediate impact on motor vehicle emission levels.
Ultimately we should be looking at replacing petrol and diesel powered motor vehicles with solar or hydrogen powered versions, but due to lack of research and development by governments and industry, this is still some way off. Likewise the outer suburbs of many of our major cities are generally lacking in appropriate public transport infrastructure and safe cycleways, so these alternative methods of travelling are not always possible.
To successfully implement an effective car-pools program to our cities requires three key prerequisites: Coordination, Public Education and Reward.
Coordination is one of the key factors in getting a successful car-pool program operational, as passengers and collection points need to be linked to drivers and destinations.
One method of coordinating such a program would be by recruiting a team of Regional Car-Pool Coordinators, who could be based with local councils or regional peak non-government agencies, and would work closely with federal, state and local government agencies, businesses and industries, initially targeting those organisations with larger workforces, who travel to and from single workplace destinations.
Their key roles would include:
• Promoting car-pooling within local workplaces and communities;
• Establishing workplace registers of willing and interested drivers and passengers;
• Lobbying local councils to provide parking incentives for car-pool participants;
• Lobbying local shopping malls and sporting venues to provide priority parking.
Public Education would be facilitated through local and regional media, e.g. ‘Feel good’ radio and TV commercials depicting happy, less-stressed motorists travelling to and from work in the company of their co-workers, of neighbours getting together and sharing vehicles during the day to go shopping, and parents taking turns dropping off and picking up children from school and sporting events.
A national web-site would need to be developed and properly promoted, to provide information on local car-pools and contacts, incorporating an ‘enquiries’ database where participating motorists/passengers could be registered and linked.
A Reward System would also need to be implemented to encourage motorists to participate in car-pooling schemes.
Not only would car-poolers be able to share fuel costs and use extended transit (car-pool) lanes, but e-tags could be re-programmed to entitle participating motorists to reduced charges on toll roads and bridges, and a suitable windscreen sticker would entitle them to reduced parking fees, and priority parking at sporting events, shopping malls and entertainment venues.
State governments could participate by reducing motor vehicle registration and green slip insurance costs to vehicle owners participating in car-pooling.
Initially, 2-3 pilot projects would need to be established in each capital city and some in selected large regional cities, targeting motorists/commuters in those suburbs that are poorly serviced by public transport. These projects would also need to be carefully evaluated so that any fine-tuning of the program could be conducted before a national roll-out.
Large-scale internet-booked car-pools have been operating successfully in Europe and North America for many years, and could easily be replicated in Australia. Today in the US, many cities have designated car-pool stops where motorists pick up their passengers daily, and many major roads in Britain and Europe have special car pool lanes.
For a third of the cost of the Rudd Government’s recent $35million gift to Toyota to import Camry hybrid vehicles, over 100 regional car-pool coordination projects could have been set up in various local government areas across Australia.
Although car-pooling is not on its own, a long-term solution for reducing greenhouse gases, it could assist in immediately facilitating low-cost greenhouse gas reductions, whilst at the same time reducing traffic volume and road maintenance costs. Also, when we start moving on from the present ‘infernal’ combustion engines to new less or non-polluting technology, car-pooling will help to reduce future traffic jams.
There are already a few smaller commercial and non-commercial schemes operating in Australia, mainly in inner city areas. With serious government support, car-pooling could be introduced to many outer urban areas and regional cities.
For more information, visit:
http://carpoolconnect.com/search (USA)
http://www.carpoolworld.com/trips_form.html (World-wide)
http://www.erideshare.com/carpool.php?country=UK (UK)
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/03/first_carshare.php (Car-pool traffic lanes – UK)
http://www.carpooltool.com/en/my/ (Canada)
http://www.ride4cents.org/ (Europe-wide)
I drive a Yaris hatch. I
I drive a Yaris hatch. I look at it and dream !
a solar panel moulded into the roof,go shopping park in the sun and come home where a small solar panel, sislar to the ones available for caravans,is waiting to be plugged in. Charging while travelling would mean petrol would only be needed if weather was bad or on long journeys.
Well I can but dream
Market driven failure? (pun intended)
This link http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/09/2359498.htm shows that the US government is about to pump $60 billion into private personal transportation device manufacturers aka Detroit.
This is the the heart of free market capitalism not responding to consumer demand as it should, but asking government to pick up the tab so that it can build more cars. Gotta love the 'free' market! The same 'free' market that has sold us a pup which is "a carbon trading system".
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