You know the message is starting to get through when Kerry O’Brien on ABC’s 7.30 Report opens an interview with the Prime Minister by saying “isn’t it time to look Australians in the eye and tell them the news is only going to get worse on oil?”
What a pity that the PM continued to ignore peak oil and blithely claimed that no-one can know what will happen to oil prices. Just because ABARE is so bad at it doesn’t mean everyone is!
One of the things we’ve been grappling with is how to provide immediate relief to commuters who don’t have access to decent public transport at the moment - and there is no doubt that they desperately need relief - without perversely and artificially reducing petrol prices. We believe we’ve come up with the start of a solution.
Many people don’t realise that there is a very large fleet of community buses, owned by the Commonwealth Department of Health, that are used only a small proportion of the time. Generally about 20% of their capacity is used for ferrying older people, for instance, to aquarobics and similar health and community activities. Now these are extremely important services, and we don’t want to do anything to undermine them, but what about the remaining 80% of the time, when they are sitting idle?
Surely it makes sense for us to use that extra capacity. We could use those small buses (16-20 seaters, mostly) to ferry people around the suburbs and in to nodes on larger arterial bus, tram and train routes that already exist (or can easily by re-prioritised when it comes to buses). These buses could even be used to free up some larger buses from services which tend to run mostly empty, and move those buses onto the arterial routes.
The first step, which we are starting with some questions on notice to the Department of Health, is to audit the community bus network and find out exactly how many there are and how much of the time they are idle. We understand, as a starting point, that there are some 150 of them in Parramatta alone! Once we have those figures, it’s a few easy steps to train and recruit drivers and get the show on the road.
If the Commonwealth and State governments work positively together on this, within a few weeks we could have a temporary solution in place that will relieve the tremendous and growing pressure on household budgets, reduce emissions fast, and buy us a bit of time to build the new infrastructure that we will need in the zero emissions cities of the next decade - light and heavy rail, cycleways, pedestrian paths and bridges, new community hubs, etc.
This is just the beginnings of an idea, which we’re putting out as a bit of a mind-bomb to stimulate dicussion. Would value feedback and suggestions.
I think it’s an excellent idea. I don’t know about other states, but it’ll run into trouble in Melbourne because of our machine ticketing system. If tickets are just printed books like raffle tickets, then all the driver/conductor needs is some of them and a coin box and they’re away. But if you have a machine to print and validate each ticket, it becomes more difficult.
Of course it’d be trivial to say “$2 per trip for adults, $1 for children and pensioners”, but then you’d run into problems with people complaining that their ticket they bought for the train doesn’t work on this bus, and so on.
Now I would argue that we should get rid of the machines entirely and replace them with conductors with books of tickets, as conductors are cheaper than machines and make the journey more pleasant and would thus increase custom, but it’s not fashionable to give jobs to people and improve services.
Thanks, Kiashu. We were thinking something like a flat $1 ticket on entry, but obviously this is one of the issues that needs most thought.
There is a huge fleet of small buses that service the schools for children not on public transport routes, rural and city. These are normally smallish buses and sit idle for most of the day and all weekends. They are usually run by private contractors (paid or subsidised by govts though). Perhaps not as good as health services buses for peak hour, but there must more use for these too. The various schools authorities/ Dept. of Eds. will have a list of them.
Using the smaller buses in non peak-hour time (when passenger density is low), and say, as a relief in heavily congested routes (around universities, CBDs and large shopping complexes) is a very good idea.
One would assume that the gorvernment would be leasing the buses for their public services and providing the drivers.
A thought has come to me but it’s difficult to express :-/
Never mind, I’m not going to pretend that I know how things work in government to convey my thought in an intelligent-sounding manner.
“Never mind, I’m not going to pretend that I know how things work in government to convey my thought in an intelligent-sounding manner.”
If you’re ever embarassed at your ability to express yourself, just turn on the ABC and watch Parliament Question Time. You’ll soon realise that you’re a Shakespeare compared to some of the people there. So just go ahead and say what you have to say as best you can ;)
I like it. In the spirit of non-critical unstructured brainstorming then:
Consider making those buses free. The efficiency of revenue collection will be poor anyway. And if free it eliminate a risk factor for drivers. The cost of setup of the revenue collection may be quite high. If free the government would subsidise the fuel and maintenance cost.
Use the internet to make bookings. This helps with route planning, allocate the available buses to where they will be most full. People print off a net ticket and hand it to the driver as they get on. The ticket is only printable if the booking can be matched to an available seat on a planned service. If you can’t make the bus free, then make payments only internet based.
A person could say make the booking at night and check their email in the morning to see if they got a scheduled service. Might even be feasible for buses to collect from your own street corner. The scheduling should include the daily return journey.
Use the buses only connect unserved suburbs to major routes served by the existing public transport systems.
Anyone with their own troop carrier (enhancing community) could feasibly jump on board the system and ferry people to public transport nodes and have their fuel to do this paid for by govt. The internet scheduling system would confirm their requirement and ensure accountability that the actual services were performed. This would be far more effective than subsidising fuel for cars driven by a single person.
All great ideas, concerned. Thanks!
Vicki, please go ahead and express yourself!
Price of petrol is not all that is involved. Most buses run on diesel which is now more scarse and costly than petrol. Diesel buses can however be converted to gas, and not just liquid petroleum gas (LPG).
Natura gas is presently being liquified into liquid natural gas (LNG), for export at something like 4 cents per litre. But LNG can also be used in petrol and diesel engines in Australia.
Low cost public transport for city people is not all that is needed. Farmers and fishermen need low cost fuel to produce and transport essential food to markets. Rural people also need a social life that is presently being destroyed by cost of reaching town, or even to visit a neighbour.
Step one is use existing or new rule of law to get Australian government and oil business out of the un-democratic OPEC cartel. Visy boss Pratt was recently fined some $35 million for involvement in a cartel.
Step two is harness Australian government and business and existing technology easily and quickly build a natural gas liquification and supply system in Australia, for Australians.
Create competition for oil companies through a “use it or lose it” push like Martin Ferguson is advocating. Do it now! Government once developed communication for the nation. Government can now develop fuel for our transportation and food production. The gas is there, enough for 150 years and more. Why just sell it for a pittance overseas while we in the huige country all lose out?
Economically present high fuel prices are draining our money, not just out of our pockets and purses but also out of our communities and national economy.
There is evidence the present increasing cost of fuel is causing world food supply economy collapse and placing the world population on the brink of famine. Sure, people with cash might be ok if not assaulted and robbed, but what about everyone else?
PM Rudd & Co, turn on the gas.
There used to be a service like that described by Concerned, run by Brisbane Transport for people with transport difficulties. Perhaps they would be in a position to reimplenet it, or provide a template for other places. A problem here is getting enough bus drivers, though.
The time is obviously right for changes in behaviour
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/18/2279048.htm
In essence, petroleum imports are down and consumer behaviour modification due to high fuel prices are the cause.
Better use of existing capital, providing sorely needed less-costly/damaging transport - great idea. One conceivable impediment not mentioned is public liability insurance, presumably the operator would be some level of govt so could be worked out.
Web ticketing is a fine idea, so long as not that alone as inequitable.
I think the tickets could be sold separate from privatised PT tickets, if happy with benefit being largely for those needing only short trips. Free - maybe, but i think ppl abuse freebies, some nominal cost or application effort may be prudent. They might need to be given away initially, distributed by centrelink, comm.health and social workers, refuges, charities, and even straight in the letter box.
Ditch dysfunctionally complex ticket machines for conductors? Yes!
Nationalise our dwindling fossil fuel reserves instead of flogging off at c(h)owardly low prices?
Yes!
Holy cooooooooooow, I really should make it a habit of checking the internet more than twice a week. I thought that my solar panel satelites gave enough of an impression to have people not take me seriously :-P
My idea is interesting, but it may be a bit too tedious for most large businesses to bother with.
My idea is to promote carpooling of employees, but the business does the organising (routes, employee “tickets” or IDs and mini-bus hire). The commuters pay out of their own wage (make it comparable to a city weekly ticket, for example) and it could conceiveably be subsidised by the government to compete with public transport services? My struggle is how this sort of “initiative thing” can be promoted by the government to businesses.
For employees, it is brilliant because it cuts down on waiting in line for tickets, and crouds. And I would also suspect that it boosts their morale - having bus buddies and what not. If the routes are designed well, more people would take the buses to work and leave the car at home, except on weekends and when they go out etc.
For employers, I would suspect that the benifit is that the employees come to work on time, but apart from that - what would motivate them to want to do this?
Oh and here I go thinking of a good idea and then get stumped as to how the employees will be getting home, Duh!!
I need a glass of red… that was a silly mistake, I need to get over this, honestly I am brighter than that………..
Below is a potential major solution to reducing Australia’s Greenhouse Gases by at least 300 million tonnes/a (> 60% of Australia’s Annual Total CO2 emissions) and producing 50 billion litres of Bio-Diesel pa (> 30% of Australia’s Oil Fuel needs). This is a very profitable and sustainable Greenhouse Gases Solution and will keep Australia’s coal, gas and power industries strong whilst also addressing the peak oil problem.
Retrofitting emissions capture to existing power station and piping emissions to sealed shallow algae ponds could be completed within 10 years especially if the Federal Govt used its clean coal funds towards achieving this goal.
The technology of producing oils from Algae has been well researched and established, however using carbon emissions to grow oil algaes is a smart and profitable means of reducing CO2 emissions.
I note that the $2billion carbon sequestration project with BHP & ALCOA was shelved recently because underground storage cavities are nowhere near big enough to store the necessary amounts of CO2 emissions. This was always going to be the case and the idea was never sustainable.
However a very sustainable and profitable solution is to be trialed commercially in Kalgoorlie WA in the next year whereby capturing and diverting 1500 tonnes/day of Carbon Emissions from the 100MW Gas Power Station to feed and grow 250HA of Oil Algae grown in large shallow sealed ponds using saline groundwater to produce 90 million litres of bio-diesel pa and photosynthesize 2.7 tonne of oxygen for every 3.7 tonnes of Greenhouse Gases used, looks very promising technology for dealing with Greenhouse Gas emissions and relieving the current peak oil problems.
Extrapolating from this trial, I estimate that 1,500 sq km (150,000 Ha) of oil algae farms fed from carbon emissions capture from Australia’s existing Coal and Gas fired Power Stations of 300,000 tonnes pa of emissions would produce approx 50 billion litres of bio-diesel being greater than 30% of Australia’s oil needs (currently 180 billion litres pa) whilst at the same time taking out 300 million tones of Australia Greenhouse Gases emission (over 50%) and producing 200 million tonnes of offsetting oxygen from photosynthesis from oil algae growth every year. This additional oxygen production will help to remediate carbon dioxide-oxygen balance in the atmosphere.
In addition after extracting the oil, and other by- products, the residual dried bio-mass can be burned as fuel stock in coal powered stations to co-generate more electricity and reducing the input demands for coal and gas burning for power production and extending the lives of our coal and gas reserves.
This would be a self sustaining zero carbon emissions system whereby carbon emissions capture retrofitted to existing coal and gas power stations plus minerals processiong and general industry emissions is used to grow oils algae and relieve peak oil presures.
The saline waters can be sourced from deep drains used in the wheatbelt areas to drain away salty waters for the remediation of salt affected farmlands or drawn from the sea.
The technology can use carbon capture from existing power stations and Australia Greenhouse Gases could be halved within a decade whilst producing 50 billion litres of bio-diesel and 200 million tonnes of oxygen for industrial and environmental uses plus other products such as glycerine.
The additional 50 billion litres of oil pa will relieve pressures on peak oil and stabilize fuel prices.
I sincerely hope the Clean Coal Industry Research and Technology funds are used to prove this technology on a large scale commercial basis and used to retrofit carbon capture of Australia Power Stations which will allow emissions free power generation from coal and gas and prolong these industries on a sustainable basis and then export this technology to the WORLD.
We have the saline groundwaters and lakes, flat land suitable for ponds, lots of sunshine, the capital and know-how using current technologies.Lets make it happen, especailly when over 90% of Australia’s Exisisting Power Generation comes from coal and gas burning.
I trust that you keep an eye on this space and become convinced regarding the possibilities of dealing with CO2 emissions in a realistic, sustainable and profitable manner and support its commercial introduction Australia wide.
When this technology is introduced in a large scale in the manner suggested in my extrapolation you will see the carbon market price fall away rapidly as coal and gas power stations will be producing low or no emissions and will no longer need emission permits to stay in business.
Regards,
Rod Botica
26 Hare St,
Kalgoorlie WA 6430
Mob.0418923966
Hi Rod, that is interesting but please, can you reference the research? What algeal strains are used, where/what are the natural examples being monitored/experimented, what kind of carbon chemicals can be produced from this (almost) fermentation-type process? - For example octane is the main compound used to fuel cars, whereas other oils are processed to make different forms of plastic. It would not be zero emision, in a real-world situation. For that to happen, every individual unit that converts carbon-fuels to carbon-dioxide needs to have some form of carbon capture process - this includes all modes of transport! Carbon capture will definitely reduce carbon emmission, I’ll give you that. Also, if we are to pull more carbon into recalcitrant palstic materials, we need to produce more carbon fuels than what is supplied to the algae from carbon capture. The basic priniples of chemistry are applied here (you only liberate the amount of chemical you put into the reaction). Organic fermentations are no less true, in fact, the organisms use some of the “feedstock” to “grow” in the chemical conversion process.
I hope I am making sense :-/
Anyway - please send links, I am sure a lot of people are interested in alternative technologies.
Good point re public liability, Liam. Will look into that issue.
JCF, you’re right about rural and regional people, of course, and the solutions there are bound to be more complex and difficult. Needs an alternative, and alternative fuels are the most likely.
Vicki Sif, hey, that’s concept which has been floating around for a while, and operational in parts of Europe, so nothing at all to be embarrassed about. I reckon the best way to make it work is in fact to get together entire city blocks, for instance, or at least large office buildings, to maximise the likelihood of finding decent numbers of people living in the same region who can travel at reasonably the same time. It’s certainly like setting up a privatised secondary mass transit system, but in some ways it’s comparable with web-based car-pooling and car-sharing systems which we strongly support. If you have time to think it through a bit further, keep us up to date.
Rob Botica, thanks for the info. Have you also looked into solar biofuels. That’s a Uni of QLD process, but there’s also work going on through ANU.
Tim, the ANU link works, but the solar biofuels link = 404
Sorry Tim, but the bus idea would be less than “a drop in the bucket”. The Governments attempting to use additional Government busses would run into major problems with everything from running costs (remember the RBA has told the Governments to cut spending or they may “up” interest rates), through to organising insurance for the passengers, and driver availability.
Unfortunately Australia has developed entirely around fossil fuel burning energy, and it will take 10- 20 years to partially remove dependence from this energy. Some major areas that will cause major problems are:-
1. Large volume public transport cannot be expanded in many areas of many cities due to unavailability of large enough corridors to enable line duplication, and bottlenecks that restrict number of services.
2. Delivery of all goods needs to be done by trucks (mostly diesel), as no capacity exists on rail networks without seriously impacting passenger services. There is also no room for distribution points at suburban rail stations.
3. Shopping centres are centralised, so people are generally unable to just walk down the road to do the grocery shopping, they need to either drive, or do multiple trips on public transport, then carry their shopping home again ( or arrange for the supermarkets to “home deliver” in their on fleet of trucks).
4. Governments have centralised many employments opportunities in city CBDs which then necessitates large numbers of people to commute to these areas daily. To overcome this problem a number of solutions have ben attempted, and from experience, have failed at a corporate level.
a. Car pooling, is attempted but comes to grief with the push of “family friendly” and “flexible” work hours.
b. Telecommuting has a major problem where the law states that an employer must provide a safe working environment. If staff are working from home, their employer, by law must inspect their home on a regular basis. The company I worked for shelved telecommuting for this reason. All staff can be changed to contractors which partially bypasses this issue.
c. Flexible working hours to avoid transport rushes does not generally work in areas / companies that have direct customer contacts, as boundaries need to be around these hours.
5. Suburban spread. Governments have allowed the population in each city to spread outwards by allowing new suburbs to be built further and further from employment centres. At the same time, Governments in many cities did not ensure volume transport corridors were left to enable transport to reach to the new suburbs.
As well as the above there are probably hundreds of other issues that could be documented. Unfortunately there are no quick fixes, only fixes that will take many years to implement, remembering that politicians are public servants, who are likely to be unemployed if they rattle too many cages too quickly (then reforms would not be made).
My solution ?
As far as I can see, the only real solution is to dramatically reduce the need to fossil fuel energy by reducing the need for as many types of transport as possible. This can be done by
a. Progressively decentralising to suburban satellite centres over the next 20 years. In other words, move as much business as is possible from each CBD to a point where the CBD is just another satellite centre like dozens out in the suburbs.
b. Providing shopping complexes in each satellite centre, placed to ensure the minimal travel requirements, which incorporate “strip shopping centres”
c. Providing community support complexes in each satellite centre
In summary, I remember back to the 1950’s when I was a kid, and although there was a great less population, there was even then, the requirement for most suburban families to have a car to do their weekly shopping or any activity that the whole family was involved. Even with today’s oil problems we will not see the demise of the family car, but we will see the change of its role, and reduced usage. Recent surveys I have seen in Melbourne have indicated that 70+% of respondents will not use public transport to get to and from work, but will reduce all other non essential spending (eg, going out to dinner, buying non essential goods) to enable them to keep their cars on the road. Hybrid cars have recently been shown not to be environmentally friendly in their manufacture, and to be economically unviable for the average family, but I believe that families will move to smaller more economically viable diesel, and petrol cars.
Having said the above, we still will need to move to a satellite type society over the next 20 years, or reduce our energy consumption.
mcfarm @ 16, ta for that. Fixed the link.
Grant, we’re absolutely on the same wavelength here. Completely agree that we need to redesign our cities in order to actually solve the problem, and Christine and the other Greens have been loudly advocating this for quite some time.
However, the purpose of this exercise is to explore the options for policies that can actually ease the pain in the short term while taking us forward progressively.
As we know, the populist and regressive position would lower excise, easing the pain marginally now while actually increasing it in the longer term by further entrenching private car use and reducing government funds to pay for the transition. Is there a progressive alternative that can make a small but recognisable difference now while actually heading us in the direction of a solution - giving people a real mass transit alternative and having a relatively minimal impact on the budget, educating government about reprioritising transport funding?
Is it possible to have government institutions like public hospitals commence with the work-organised bus-hire scheme thingy I suggested? I mean, for example, it gives the government time to trial and iron out the strategy, before bringing it to the city CBD businesses etc. And at the same time, people outside of work would want to visit the institutions and they have that opportunity to be transported outside of the current PT system. For hosiptals etc, people do work in shifts outside of the ususal 9-5, so it can be trialed outside of peak-hour first.
Penny for your thoughts?
re Tim Hollo @ 18
I think reducing cost of fuel in the short term could be achieved by:
1. Use existing anti cartel law that convicted Mr Pratt, and force Australian oil company and government out of OPEC cartel business in Australia.
2. Halt essential oil and gas price manipulation/extortion business in Australia. Stop it. Don’t just watch it.
3. Use government resources to quickly commission TAFE facilities to train automotive gas fitters, component engineers and Australian manufacturers.
Get the gas industry happening is this vast distance country, otherwise local tourist and country towns and Pacific nations will suffer greatly (already no doubt but worse is to come without urgent solutions).
N.B. It is more approprite to secure Australian gas energy for existing vehicles than to import new hybrid transport with high cost batteries that have a who know what pollution residue.
4. There are reported plans underway for a LNG plant at Gladstone, Qld. Australia has a vast supply of natural gas.
Fed Govt resources should be harnessed to immediately develop numerous LNG plants and filling depots, the latter if existing oil companies will not or can not participate.
5. Develop plans immediately like in a matter of weeks and let world oil supplies know of these alternatives if present cost of oil is not reduced to a sensible price immediately.
6. Understand that a claimed shortage of oil does not mean a shortage of liquid gas.
7. Sell Australian consumers gas for the same 3-5 cents export price, plus reasonable excise and retail value, say at $20 cents per litre.
Can anyone point to any relevant impossibilities? If not, make it happen!