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VK2AAB > FUEL 03.08.08 08:57l 130 Lines 7228 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 59525_VK2AAB
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Subj: Qld Gov Oil Depletion Study for VK4
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Sent: 080803/0502Z @:VK2AAB.#SYD.NSW.AUS.OC #:59525 [SYDNEY] FBB7.00i
From: VK2AAB@VK2AAB.#SYD.NSW.AUS.OC
To : FUEL@WW
The recent CSIRO report on fuel depletion included submisions by the
Queenslad Government. The only govenment in Australia to do anything about
mitigating the effects of post peak oil.
73 Barry VK2AAB
=====================
1075. News from ASPO Australia
Bruce Robinson has submitted the following report on ASPO-AUSTRALIA, which is
certainly one of the more active and successful members of the ASPO fraternity.
(see www.ASPO-Australia.org.au)
$8/litre, CSIRO's five-fold petrol price increase scenario.
The release of CSIRO's Future Fuels Forum report on 11th July captured
headlines round Australia,
with one of its scenarios, the Peak Oil scenario with steep post-peak decline
and slow arrival of alternative fuels and technologies, seeing fuel prices rise
five-fold by 2018. CSIRO is Australia's highly respected government research
organisation.
The release of the economic modelling study finalised many months of work
headed by Paul Graham, of CSIRO's Energy Transformed Flagship, involving
collaboration with many organisations, including a
major oil refiner and fuel distributer, the car manufacturer, General Motors
Holden, a national supermarket chain, automobile clubs, biofuel producers,
State governments, the Australian Engineers
professional body, conservation organisations, and ASPO-Australia. Several
ASPO-Australia members attended the forum meetings. Phil Hart of ASPO-Melbourne
was the prime contributor, and faced the
media at the launch at the GM car factory in Melbourne, having a lot of
coverage on TV, press and radio.
British French US National
Iraq (IPC) BP CFP Exxon, Mobil Gulbenkian
Kuwait (KOC) BP Gulf
Saudi Arabia
(ARAMCO)
Chevron Texaco
Exxon Mobil
Neutral Zone Getty, Aminoil
Phil welcomed the constructive dialogue that led to this report. "We have all
learnt new things along the
way. I have been personally encouraged to hear of the many changes businesses
have been making
there are more pro-active changes under way than even I realised. Many forum
participants would have
choked on a prediction of $8/litre early last year, but tight supply and the
rapid increase in prices since
then have given them courage to accept these dramatic model outcomes now. No
one can know the
precise future of oil prices, but such high figures reflect how hard it is to
transform our cities and economies built on cheap oil when we are faced with
declining oil production"
Queensland Oil Vulnerability Task Force Report by ASPO-Australia patron, The
Hon.Andrew McNamara, now Queenslands Minister for Sustainability, Climate
Change and Innovation, released his report nearly a year ago. One of its
recommendations was for a Queensland Oil Vulnerability Mitigation Strategy,
which is now being prepared.
(http://www.cabinet.qld.gov.au/MMS/StatementDisplaySingle.aspx?id=56439)
It will have three broad elements: reducing the consumption of liquid fossil
fuels; encouraging the development and use of alternative fuels; and preparing
for demographic and regional changes as
Queenslanders alter travel, work and living habits in response to rising fuel
prices.
Mr McNamara said that the strategy could also canvass what options might need
to be considered in a worst case scenario of severe international oil
shortages.
At the Federal level, the Australian Council of Transport Ministers is
preparing a National Transport Strategy, which includes consideration of
Climate Change and Energy. Although the State Minister responsible for this
section (Western Australias Alannah MacTiernan) has heard a number of Peak Oil
speakers over the last 7 years (including Magoon, Bakhtiari, Skrebowski and
Heinberg, as well as local author Brian Fleay), there is sadly no sign at all
of urgency in dealing with our oil vulnerability.
The Climate Change discussion about the new Federal Government's emission
trading scheme is dominated by calls to reduce tax on petrol and to exempt fuel
from carbon trading. ASPO-Australia has been
advocating that we follow Margaret Thatcher and put Australia on a fuel tax
escalator (petrol in Australia is cheap, circa US$1.50 or 0.95 Euro per litre,
due to lower tax levels than most of the developed world).
Oil Depletion messages feature significantly in Australia's Customs Department
forward planning.
Main Trends to 2015: Availability of oil and oil-based fuels will become a
critical issue
http://www.customs.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/strategic_outlook.pdf and are
discussed openly in our Defence Department. ASPO members inside the systems are
contributing effectively but quietly
Preparation for further sudden oil crises (for instance arising from an attack
on Iran) and also determining how to handle transport fuel shortages when Peak
Oil hits us. Noting that Australia, like the UK, had wartime petrol rationing
until 1950, we suggest a modern electronic card-based equitable tradable petrol
allocation scheme rather than leaving the country to the mercy of market forces
and
"demand destruction". Personal allocations of a base amount at a moderate
price, and extra amounts on an increasing taxation scale would be tradable
following the Tradable Gasoline Rights strategy proposed by Martin Feldstein of
Harvard, previously President Reagan's chief economist. The allocation ideally
would
be (a) location dependent whereby people who live close to a train line or good
public transport, would not get as much as people who live in outer suburbs
with long distances and poor public transport; (b)health status dependent
whereby those unable to walk to the bus or train, or ride bicycles would get
more than those fit enough to use other transport modes; and (c) job dependent
whereby those working
in vital but perhaps low-paid night-shift jobs in hospitals for instance get
more fuel to get to work than those in inessential and environmentally damaging
jobs such as delivering bottled water when good drinking water is available
from taps.
Oil Vulnerability Research Network: We are promoting a national network of
researchers in Universities and elsewhere, to link the many different
approaches to the recognition and mitigation of
our oil vulnerability and adaptation to future oil shortages. These range from
spatial mapping of oil vulnerability in different suburbs of our major cities,
to transport and urban planning, and to linking
Australia's good record on the frugal use and good management of water in
drought times to an analogous approach to petrol and diesel as increasingly
scarce and valuable comparable commodities. The "Children and Peak Oil"
research being done in Canberra is an example of relevant but unexpected
research which could be linked in a network. Ideally, we hope that the oil
vulnerability network might extend internationally and cover the many disparate
aspects of oil vulnerability assessment, mitigation and adaptation and allow
the interchange of information and strategies between opposite numbers in
different countries. There is a lot we can all learn from other countries Links
to the above issues are on www.ASPO-Australia.org.au (mostly) or contact Bruce
Robinson
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