At last! There is movement at the station....

....and a little good news on the renewables front.
A media release by the Australian Prime Minister, and Federal Minister for Resources was sent out on 18th June 2011 telling us that:
"The Federal Government will provide more than three quarters of a billion dollars to help build two of the largest solar power stations in the world.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson today announced the record funding to support construction of the solar projects at Chinchilla in Queensland and Moree in New South Wales.
Solar Dawn and Moree Solar Farm have been selected as the two successful consortiums to build the power plants under Round 1 of the Australian Government’s $1.5 billion Solar Flagships program..........
Together, the projects are expected to generate enough power to support the electricity needs of more than 115,000 Australian homes per year.
The Solar Dawn consortium, led by Areva Solar, will build a 250 megawatt (MW) solar thermal gas hybrid power plant near Chinchilla.
Solar Dawn will be one of the largest power plants of its kind in the world as well as one of the most environmentally responsible.
At least 85 per cent of Solar Dawn’s power generation will be entirely emissions free......
The Moree Solar Farm consortium, led by BP Solar will build a 150 MW photovoltaic power plant near Moree.
This is nearly twice the size of any photovoltaic power plant operating in the world today......
Work will commence next year and the plants are expected to be completed and commissioned by the end of 2015.
Together, Solar Dawn and the Moree Solar Farm will bring Australia closer to a cleaner energy future."
Moree Solar Farm is a consortium of BP Solar, FRV and Pacific Hydro and Solar Dawn was created by a consortium compsed of Areva Solar and CS Energy.

Fairfax's move to dumb down its reporting is working

Fairfax, publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review, has been dismantling its senior (experienced) staff and opting for fewer, newer, fresh faced staff (who are obviously cheaper) in its bid to cut costs but as can be seen below cutting costs results in cutting corners. Gilard!

Image displayed 7.00am Sunday 19 June 2011.

And, like the Murdoch publications, Fairfax plans to put some of its online content behind a paywall. Heaven help its readers!

What does it take to ensure a company that controls South Grafton’s abattoir complies with court orders imposed on it?

A company that gave Grafton workers the boot just before Christmas in 2008 and has repeatedly polluted local waters has to front the Land and Environment Court on charges of contempt of court.
The Daily Examiner reports the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water confirmed that contempt charge against the licensee of Ramsey Food Processing (RFP) are set down for August 11.The Ramsey associated with RFP is the same Stuart Ramsey who has very extensive interests in the racing game. It seems Ramsey can find enough cash to put heaps of money into his nags but cannot find enough money to ensure he's a responsible employer and business owner. Shame! Shame! Shame!

Ramsey is somewhat elusive. It seems he's able to avoid being captured on camera at race tracks despite getting heaps of free publicity. His name and racing interests get lots of mentions on the SKY Racing channels ... hmmm.

Here's a pic of young Ramsey when he was a school boy.
Although he's holding a winner's pennant, who did the hard yards?


Credits: The Daily Examiner and The Daily Telegraph

NSW Natural Disaster Declarations after June 2011 storms and flooding

Photograph of Red Rock storm damage from The Daily Examiner 18 June 2011

Storm and floods - June 2011

Bellingen
Cessnock
Clarence Valley
Coffs Harbour
Dungog
Glen Innes Severn
Gloucester Shire
Greater Taree
Kempsey
Muswellbrook
Nambucca
Port Macquarie-Hastings
Port Stephens
Upper Hunter

This is the second time natural disaster declarations have been issued this year for Belligen and the Clarence Valley on the NSW North Coast.

A full chronological list of NSW Natural Disaster Declarations 2009-2011 can be found here.

Malcolm Bligh Turnbull gets caught out by The Register

Here’s Richard Chirgwin (and that’s a sound Cornish-Australian name if I’m not mistaken) on the 16^th June 2011 in The Register:
“The opposition spokesperson for communications in Australia, Malcolm Turnbull, has delivered a damning blow to the government’s plans for a National Broadband Network (NBN), citing international data to show declining demand for services at 100 Mbps.Since the NBN’s business plan assumes a fairly strong takeup of 100 Mbps services, a lack of demand at that speed pots the network’s underlying assumptions into the corner pocket……Yep, data like that is a real problem.
Because it’s incomplete – and its incompleteness is its downfall. Because I’m a data geek – in another orbit, I’m an analyst specializing in telecoms – something didn’t ring true, so I decided to go looking.
South Korea doesn’t just have one fixed broadband carrier; it has three. KT, whose data Turnbull cites, along with LG U+ and SK Broadband. LG U+ offers 100 Mbps both on its hybrid fibre-coax (HFC) network and under the “optical LAN” brand, while SK Broadband identifies its services as “Fibre LAN” in its financial reports.
You can tell what’s coming, can’t you? The 100 Mbps market in South Korea isn’t declining: it’s booming. A country that also offers a fair number of wireless broadband services is still adding new fast fixed broadband users at an impressive rate.”
Now Chiggers attributes Turnbull’s error to an honest mistake. I think he’s being overgenerous.

Rest of the article at Well, that about wraps it up for the NBN: Stop looking at South Korea, says Turnbull

"Yamba": the mouth of the Clarence

This week The Sydney Morning Herald's Column8 has been running items about nicknames. Today's item has a local flavour (see below).