EnergyQuest will be at the annual conference of APPEA, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, in Perth 10-13 April. With 2700 registrations so far it looks like being a great event.

Last week I chaired a presentation by Professor Barry Brook on Carbon Pricing and the Future of Energy. Notwithstanding the problems in Japan, Professor Brook presented a very well-argued case for nuclear as necessary for cutting greenhouse emissions. His presentation is well worth viewing and is available at: http://www.adelaiderotary.com.au/images/pdfs/bwb_Compatibility%20Model_R.pdf

The Australian Conservation Foundation recently claimed (1 March 2011) that Australia spends $11 billion more encouraging pollution than cleaning it up. However many of the items claimed as subsidies are rebates from fuel taxes but fuel taxes themselves are omitted from the calculations. According to the Henry Tax Review, Australia collects around $14 billion per […]

In addition to the terrible human toll and physical destruction resulting from the Miyagiken-Oki earthquake in Japan, the country also has to cope with damage to energy infrastructure, such as distribution networks. One immediate impact is power shortages from the shut-down of the TEPCO Fukashima Daiichi nuclear power plant.This is a big plant, with 4696 […]

David Upton has written a great history of Olympic Dam, how Western Mining defied the odds to discover and develop the world’s biggest mineral deposit. Proof that great resource discoveries (oil, gas as well as minerals) are made in the minds of men and women.  http://www.theolympicdamstory.com/

I chaired an interesting presentation by Professor Paul Stevens of Chatham House yesterday on the outlook for shale gas in Europe. Professor Stevens is currently visiting UCL Adelaide. The presentation is available at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/australia/News/shale_gas

According to the Treasury, one of the drivers of the Resource Super Profits Tax is a need to increase the tax burden on “immobile” tax bases like resources and land and reduce it on mobile capital.  This fundamentally assumes that resources are immobile.  Existing resource projects are certainly immobile and increasing their tax burden has […]

In 2010 the journal, Foreign Policy, named Vaclav Smil, one of the top 100 global thinkers of 2010. Smil is a prolific and stimulating writer on energy issues. I read two of his books over the summer break, “Energy Myths and Realities” and “Prime Movers of Globalisation”. Smil is no propagandist and takes a hard-headed, fact-based […]

The oil majors are increasingly becoming the gas majors as they lose their dominance in world oil reserves and face challenges in refining and marketing. In an interview with Fortune late last year the President of Shell Oil Company, Marvin Odum, said that Shell will produce more gas than oil by 2012. This may be […]

The elegant young woman in the tailored grey suit slips on industrial gloves. She picks up a canister of freezing liquid. The digital display says -163°C. She slowly pours the liquid into a goldfish bowl. Will the goldfish live or die? And what is this? Some bizarre circus act? No, just another day at the Kogas […]