Blogotariat

UNSW deal for mass-production of next generation solar cells will help cost of solar power – already the cheapest in the world – to halve again.

Carbon dioxide emissions rose strongly last year after several years of a near plateau. It appears that the main factor was increased use of oil, mainly as motor fuel. I’ll try to do a more detailed analysis later, but the central element of the required response is obvious. Just like coal-fired power stations, petrol-driven motor cars need to be phased out, as quickly as possible. Australia, as an oil importer with no domestic car production is in a position to pursue this target aggressively. We should, as others have done, commit to a date, say 2030, after which all new cars sold would be zero emission.

I like John Kehoe. He has talent. But he should be careful of what company he keeps: One quarter of soft economic activity does not make a trend, so chatter about the Reserve Bank of Australia being forced to switch its bias to interest rate cuts is premature. …the fundamentals for the local economy remain

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Energy minister's wife says rolling blackouts are needed to prove left-wing populist policies are wrong.

The post Energy minister’s wife says rolling blackouts needed to teach lefties a lesson appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Via Martin North: DFA has released the November 2018 mortgage stress and default analysis update. Across Australia, more than 1,015,600 households are estimated to be now in mortgage stress (last month 1,008,000). This equates to 30.9% of owner occupied borrowing households. In addition, more than 22,500 of these are in severe stress. We estimate that

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By Leith van Onselen Over the past year or so, I have ridiculed the new found push by Coalition politicians towards decentralisation, noting that this is a pipe dream based on the settlement pattern of new migrants, which have overwhelmingly chosen to flood the major cities. My view was initially based primarily on data from

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By Leith van Onselen Over the past few years, I have called for an overhaul of Australia’s dietary guidelines, including Australia’s Health Star Rating System, which has too often ignored the prevalence of sugar while demonising natural saturated fats. I have also criticised Australian dieticians’ staunch defence of existing failed dietary guidelines that promote a

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Via the ABC: Canada has arrested Huawei’s global chief financial officer in Vancouver, where she is facing extradition to the United States on suspicion she violated US sanctions against Iran, reports say. Meng Wanzhou, who is one of the vice chairs on the Chinese technology company’s board and the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei,

The post Australian dollar smashed by Huawei arrest appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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Our research finds, emphatically, that in electricity there is no dilemma between decarbonisation and lower wholesale prices. The “tri-lemma” concept is already past its prime.

British-Dutch oil and gas megalith reveals plan to develop new, shorter-term Net Carbon Footprint targets – that will be tied to executive remuneration.

The post Shell unveils new climate targets, links them to executive pay appeared first on RenewEconomy.

By Leith van Onselen Last weekend, CoreLogic released its preliminary auction clearance rates, which revealed the following results: Today, CoreLogic has released its final auction results, which reported a large 5.7% decline in the national auction clearance rate to 41.3%, with Sydney’s auction clearance rate diving 9.0% to 41.6% and Melbourne’s falling 3.1% to just

The post Final auction clearance rate crashes to 2011 low appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released retail sales figures for the month of October, which recorded a 0.3% rise in retail sales over the month in seasonally-adjusted terms, with annual sales growth steady at 3.6%: In trend terms, annual retail sales growth was flat to 3.5%. The below chart

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By Leith van Onselen The immigration-driven population boom in Sydney – which has added nearly one million people to Sydney’s population over the past 13 years and is projected to increase Sydney’s population by 94,000 people a year over the next 48 years – is the gift that keeps on giving. Over recent years, we

The post Crush-loaded Sydney schools mull double shifts appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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