Reading Time: 6 mins 1st June 2024
Author: Robert Watson

A WIN FOR US ALL - EXCEPT GLENCORE
The climate and Australia had a win this week. A proposal by the Glencore mining group to store liquified carbon dioxide (CO2) derived from a planned, but unproven, carbon capture process into subsurface sandstone beneath the Great Artesian Basin was rejected by the Queensland Government.

Reading Time: 11 mins 7th May 2024
Author: Robert Watson

GLENCORE AND THE GREAT ARTESIAN BASIN
Despite unified and diverse opposition, Glencore, one of the world's largest miners is proposing to capture carbon dioxide from it's Moonie gas field, liquifying the waste and transporting it almost 200km to deposit in the largest artesian water body in the world, the Great Artesian Basin covering 22% of the Australian continent.

Reading Time: 20 mins 26th January 2024
Author: Robert Watson

CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE - an expensive exercise in greenwashing
The effects of climate change and global warming are now being felt world wide. Respectable science is unanimous in acknowledging climate change, recognising that anthropogenic climate change – that caused by human impact – has quickly escalated the natural climate cycles that have occurred throughout Earth’s history.

COP28 all but failed to reach it's stated goals, settling for the lowest common denominator to pacify the growing fossil fuel lobby attending COP. The same board rooms of fossil fuel miners around the world have managed to elicit strong support for the carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology as a means of reducing CO₂. CCS has not been successfully utilised as a major carbon reduction technology anywhere in the world despite billions of dollars being spent ...

Reading Time: 34 mins 5th July 2023
Author: Robert Watson

DECARBONISING AUSTRALIA
With the widespread use of carbon credits, expensive and unproven technologies, as well as new coal mine approvals, Australia is making the difficult job of reaching net zero by 2050 almost impossible.

Since May 2022 there have been three significant matters that will largely determine Australia’s direction on climate policy in the next few years. The first was the defeat of the Coalition government by the Anthony Albanese led Labor Party. The second matter was the reform to the Safeguard Mechanism by the new Labor government early in 2023, and the third and related matter was the Chubb Review into the Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCUs) scheme.

Reading Time: 14 mins 4th February 2022
Author: Robert Watson

REVERSING GLOBAL WARMING AT THE GRASSROOTS LEVEL
How to employ regenerative farming techniques in your own garden.

Many of the techniques and principals that apply to regenerative farming/agriculture can be employed on a much smaller scale for suburban gardens and small acreages. In fact, many of the methods you probably already use are basically the same as used on a more “industrial scale on large acreages.

For example, one of the most utilised regenerative farming practices is crop and grazing rotation. Crop rotation is the practice of planting different crops sequentially on the same plot of land to improve soil health, optimize nutrients in the soil, and combat pest and weed pressure ...

Reading Time: 10 mins 6th December 2021
Author: Robert Watson

HYDROLOGY, THE SOIL SPONGE & GLOBAL COOLING
Walter Jehne is one of a number of respected and influential scientists advocating the study of the earth’s hydrology so with a greater understanding we can assist the earth, or nature if you like, to cool the place down.

The hydrology of earth is complicated and extremely varied from region to region, unlike CO₂, hydrology cannot be easily modelled nor easily explained ...

Reading Time: 8 mins 30th October 2021
Author: Robert Watson

CARBON CAPTURE & STORAGE – FICTION OR FACT?
The anthropocentric process of carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been tried and tested for over 30 years. Until now, there has never been a CCS project that has sequestered any substantial amount of carbon.

The fossil fuel industry speaks of projected figures approaching 90% sequestration, when the best result is about 30% and the average only 12% of sequestered carbon, leaving 88% escaping to the atmosphere. Is CCS viable or an expensive greenwashing exercise?