News Flash 30 June 2010

theage.com.au

Greens slam Gillard on brown coal export deal

THE federal government has been accused of sending a bad signal on climate change policy after one of its first acts was to back the first major deal to export Victorian coal. Read More

EurActiv

EU plans 'transition subsidies' for coal sector

The European Commission is planning to prolong subsidies for the coal industry until 2023, in an effort to help the sector's transition to cleaner energy and the eventual closure of mines, EurActiv has learnt. Read More

Business Day

Coal Miner Exxaro Resumes Expansion of Grootegeluk

Johannesburg — COAL producer Exxaro on Friday marked the start of construction on an expansion to its Grootegeluk project in Limpopo, which the company believes will see the mine become the biggest coal operation in the world. Read More

Bloomberg

India Utility Invites Bids for 250-Megawatt Solar Hybrid Plants

Uttar Pradesh Power Corp., an Indian state utility, has invited bids for plants that use both solar energy and fossil fuels to generate electricity
Read More

U.S. vehicle CO2 emissions still almost double Europe and Japan

Despite ongoing efforts to wean itself off the teat of foreign oil, the U.S. car market is still almost twice as polluting as Europe and Japan. This new finding from automotive data provider, JATO Dynamics, comes despite the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) – better known as “cash for clunkers” – program that replaced over 690,000 vehicles on the roads with more fuel-efficient models and the fact that American consumers are significantly more inclined to adopt Hybrid technology than Europeans. Then why is it so? Read More

Virtually silent, fully enclosed, bladeless wind turbines on the way
A wind turbine that uses boundary layers instead of blades to generate power has been patented by Solar Aero, a New Hampshire based not-for-profit scientific research organization. Modeled on the 1913 Tesla steam turbine, the Fuller turbine is virtually silent and completely enclosed, which avoids many of the drawbacks of bladed turbines such as noise, radar interference, visual pollution and wildlife injuries.Read More

EyeTV joins the fight against the vuvuzela

With FIFA President, Sepp Blatter, defending the rights of South African fans to blow their horns at World Cup matches, TV viewers have turned to technology to tone down the incessant buzzing that accompanies the on field action of World Cup TV coverage. In what is sure to be music to the ears of many of the users of Elgato’s EyeTV software, the company has announced a free update that features a Vuvuzela Filter. Read More

2010 World Cup's biggest star may be the Jabulani

Professor Derek Leinweber has been studying soccer balls. He’s interested in the physics behind them, and is particularly intrigued by the design of the official ball for the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, the Adidas Jabulani. He thinks it will behave in a much different fashion than the previous World Cup ball, throwing goalkeepers for a loop - all because of the ridges on its skin. Read More

Extracts from Creamer’s “Engineering News”

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

Sasol eyes GTL ‘sweet spot' as shale gas widens oil/gas price spread
 
South African energy and chemicals group Sasol indicated on Thursday that it was intensifying its efforts to discover and acquire new gas reserves internationally, where a potential "sweet spot" was emerging for its gas-to-liquids (GTL) technology as the price differential between gas and oil widened. Gas prices have come under pressure as technology that enables extraction from natural shale gas has been proved viable. Large new reserves have already become available in the US and more... Read More 24/6/2010

COAL AND RAIL 

Mozambique’s 5Mt/y Sena coal line requires 30 locos, 600 wagons
 
Mozambique’s Sena railway line is expected to carry five-million tons of coal a year, starting operations from July next year, as well as one-million tons of general cargo, such as cotton, granite and tobacco. Companhia Dos Caminhos De Ferro Da Beira (CCFB) CEO Arvind Khare tells Engineering News that the Sena Line was completely destroyed in 1983, during the Mozambican civil war. However, the line is now being rehabilitated through a $230-million (R1,73-billion) investment to carry... Read More

Extracts from Creamer’s “Mining Weekly”

COAL

Riversdale agrees $800m China deal for Mozambique mine 

 Australia-listed Riversdale Mining has agreed to jointly develop its Zambeze coal project with China’s Wuhan Iron & Steel Corporation (Wisco), in a transaction that values the Mozambique mine at $2-billion. Wisco could acquire a 40% interest in the Zambeze project for $800-million, and would be issued an 8% shareholding in Riversdale at an agreed price of A$10 a share. Read More 24/6/2010

COAL

Beacon Hill expects 200% increase in Minas Moatize output 

Coal production at Aim-listed Beacon Hill Resources’ Minas Moatize project, in Mozambique’s Tete province, would increase to 8 000 t/m now that refurbishment work on the underground mine had been completed. Beacon Hill’s 49%-owned BHR Mining subsidiary bought the project from mining investment firm Borneo Mining SA for $35-million, in April. Read More 24/6/2010

COAL

Freight rates draw South Africa, Colombia coal to Asia
 
The recent plunge in freight rates has re-opened the price arbitrage for Colombian and South African coal to move into Asia, sparking renewed interest from Chinese buyers, trade sources said on Friday. The Baltic Exchange's main sea freight index, which tracks rates to ship dry commodities, fell to its lowest in over eight months again on Thursday after posting its 21st consecutive sessions of decline. Read More