May 31
Western Advocate, 27 May 2017
Hollywood star John Travolta announced on Saturday he will donate his prized Boeing 707 aircraft to the Historical Aircraft Restoration society. The actor, a qualified pilot and Qantas ambassador, hopes to be part of the crew to fly the vintage passenger jet from his Florida home to Albion Park.
Read more
Bloomberg, 23 May 2017
Two words underpin Boeing’s (BA.N) decision to launch a U.S. trade complaint against Bombardier (BBDb.TO), which plunged it into a row with Canada last week: “Never again”. Allegations that the Canadian firm dumped newly designed CSeries passenger jets in the United States at a steep loss have threatened a sale of F/A-18 warplanes to Ottawa, sending Boeing scrambling to save the deal.
Read more
The Guardian, 31 May 2017
Imagine designing one of our great cities from scratch. You would quickly discover that there is enough physical space for magnificent parks, playing fields, public swimming pools, urban nature reserves and allotments sufficient to meet the needs of everyone. Alternatively, you could designate the same space to a small proportion of its people – the richest citizens – who can afford large gardens, perhaps with their own swimming pools. The only way of securing space for both is to allow the suburbs to sprawl until the city becomes dysfunctional: impossible to supply with efficient services, lacking a sense of civic cohesion, and permanently snarled in traffic: Los Angeles for all.
Read more
Bloomberg, 31 May 2017
From giant companies like Exxon Mobil Corp. to OPEC members such as Saudi Arabia, oil producers say their industry will enjoy decades of growth as they feed the energy needs of the world’s expanding middle classes. But what if they’re wrong? There’s a host of reasons to think they might be. Here’s what happens when you test their central assumptions. The International Energy Agency sees oil demand rising more than 10 percent, to 103.5 million barrels a day by 2040, while companies predict even faster growth.
Read more
The Conversation, 30 May 2017
Gold Coast’s light rail scheme has attracted great interest since the streets of Surfers Paradise were torn up and stations and track were built. Was it worth spending A$1.5 billion on 13km of light rail and more than $40 million a year in subsidies? Are we right to be spending another $420 million on an extension to Helensvale in time for the Commonwealth Games? Should we be taking it all the way down to Gold Coast Airport? Another question is whether gains in property values served by the project could be “captured” to fund such infrastructure.
Read more
REnew economy, 30 May 2017
A world first hybrid renewables trial, pairing a grid-connected wind farm with lithium-ion battery storage and energy management software, has been switched on in Spain, in a bid to boost the integration of variable-generation renewables into electricity networks around the world. The project, led by Spanish wind energy giant Acciona, will use in-house developed “simulation” software to control the battery storage systems at a specially developed hybrid power plant, which is located next to Acciona’s experimental wind farm at Barasoain (Navarra).
Read more
The Guardian, 30 May 2017
British Airways’ chief executive says he will not resign despite a “catastrophic” IT system failure that grounded scores of flights and led to cancellations and delays for 75,000 passengers over the bank holiday weekend. Alex Cruz said on Monday he was “profusely apologetic” for the computing glitch, which caused havoc at Heathrow and Gatwick airports, stranding passengers including many families on half-term breaks.
Read more
The Guardian, 29 May 2017
Frank Black has a simple message for those who predict truckies like him are done for thanks to the arrival of self-driving vehicles: good luck getting tech support in the outback. For more than 30 years the Brisbane truck driver has hauled goods across the vast expanses of Australia, keeping watch for fast-bouncing kangaroos, felled eucalyptus trees, and other natural obstacles littering remote highways that can run for thousands of kilometres without a single bend.
Read more
Peter Newman’s new book is here (Tim Beatley and Heather Boyer, co-authors): Resilient Cities, Second Edition: Overcoming Fossil Fuel Dependence (ISBN: 9781610916851/US$35.00). It shows how we are going in cities around the world in getting rid of fossil fuels and what more we can do. See https://islandpress.org/book/resilient-cities-second-edition
ABC News, 1 September 2016
The wheels are turning on a cycling revolution across Australia. Electric bicycles, known as e-bikes, have surged in popularity as an increasing number of people ditch driving for pedal power with an electric battery boost.
Read more
Linen Theme by The Theme Foundry
Copyright © 2017 Sustainable Transport Coalition WA | Built by Zolid.com.au. All rights reserved.
