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 AUSTRALIA

Peak Oil Will Dwarf Financial Crunch Soon
Peak Oil occurred in 2005 and is now in decline at rate of 9% per year
This is frightening, there is real urgency to find alternatives and time is short!  Read More

Australia and New Zealand must expect severe supply disruptions before by 2013 as the supply gap between global demand widens. The super powers, the USA, the EU, Russia, Japan and China are already taking measure to ensure their needs and Australia and New Zealand are extremely vulnerable and are likely to be among the first of the industrialised countries to experience severe supply disruptions.  Read More
 
Australia the nation with the highest per capita emissions in the developed world won't see legislation to reign in greenhouse gases anytime soon.

Sounds sorta familiar, doesn't it--coal interests getting in the way of major legislation to fight climate change? Coal is huge in Australia--the country is the 4th largest producer of the stuff in the world, and is the source of 85% of its electricity. So it doesn't come as much of a surprise that coal interests succeeded in obstructing the passage of a carbon trading scheme.  Source

PEAK OIL - THE END OF CHEAP OIL
Former Holden Chief's Grim Warning
Buy an LPG car now or get used to walking. That's the warning you would have heard issued on Radio Australia yesterday. 

Not by some greenie or "Peak Oil" nut. No, this prediction comes, amazingly enough, from former advanced engineering chief at General Motors Holden, Professor Laurie Spark. He's the latest industry insider that's joined the argument we've been making for the 12 months: 
Australia is about to face an energy crunch that will dwarf the oil crises of the 1970s. 
Professor Sparke says when the global economic downturn is over, demand for oil is going to far outstrip supply and prices will go through the roof. "As soon as the countries that use large amounts of oil for their industry - China, India, Japan, USA - recover, demand will exceed supply," he said. "There are signs already that the economy in China is starting to pick up and Japan's picking up, and already this year we've seen the price of oil double from January to July. So my expectation is within the next five years, we're going to have trouble." Some think trouble could come much sooner. 

The issue is deceptively simple. Australia's reliance on foreign oil will increase two thirds by 2015. But the amount of foreign oil on the market is projected to shrink by 25% within three years. That's critical. But it's not the core of the problem
What really keeps us awake at night is the fact that Canberra has no policy in place to deal with what's about to happen. How will this crisis unfold? 

AUDIO INTERVIEWS

 An Interview with
Dr Louis Arnoux - Early October  08
- on Radio NZ News Talk ZB
Presentation on Climate Change, Peak Oil, Plan B and IT MDI-Energy Solutions by Dr Louis Arnoux at Parliament House, Canberra, Australia-1 March 07

Quote from AIRPod  Media Release

Running on Air… towards 100% Solar & Sustainable Lifestyles  -  9 October, 2008

............“We have demand for more than the first two years of production of power generators and vehicles for the first manufacturing facility that we are planning in Melbourne”, said Dr Arnoux.

“Our partners, the well known Australian high performance automotive engineering company Perfectune – Yella Terra are scheduled to begin manufacturing for us the first batch of MDI engines in Melbourne before the end of 2008, ahead of IT MDI – Energy’s own manufacturing facility being planned for establishment during 2009. We aim to create a substantial amount of new jobs in both Australia and New Zealand”, he said.......

Read full release at http://www.itmdi-energy.com/news/airpod_launch-091008.php
 
        IT MDI-Energy has the licence for  

  • Information,
  • Communication,
  • Energy, 
  • Transport Technology

 in Australia, New Zealand & Pacific Islands.

Dear Prime Minister - A letter to Mr Rudd concerning coal-fired power plants and carbon dioxide emission rate

ALTERNATIVE POWER

 Does Australia need cheaper, environmentally, sustainable Power?

    Australians named worst emitters

Australians were found to be the world's worst polluters per capita, producing five times as much CO2 from generating power as China. The inventory lists CO2 emissions from more than 4,000 companies

Least efficient stations Carma points out that Australian power stations are the least efficient on a per capita basis, with emissions of 10 tonnes, compared with the US's 8.2 tonnes.

CO2 EMISSIONS PER CAPITA

The Carbon Monitoring for Action (Carma) website is the first global inventory of emissions and looks at 50,000 power stations. Its data was compiled by the Center for Global Development, a US think-tank. The philosophy behind the website is to provide people with information that they currently do not have. Source

   Australia - 10.0 tonnes
   US - 8.2 tonnes
   UK - 3.2 tonnes
   China - 1.8 tonnes
   India - 0.5 tonnes
     (Source: Carma/CGD)

In Australia currently over 96% of electricity generation comes from fossil fuels of which 65% comes from coal and this makes Australia on of the worlds worst polluters per capita. Source  

 Do you want it:

•   without all the red tape of resource consents?
•   without more unsightly pylons and transmission lines?
•   without a huge carbon footprint
•   without polluting the environment?
•   initially the cost 25% less than current power prices?
•   to eventually achieve 80-90% efficiency compared to today’s
     20% efficiency?
•   to be independent of power outages and blackouts?

If your answer is YES to any of the questions above, then read on

 Consider Intelligent Power - iPower

Revolutionary - distributed power generation, decentralised energy - using MDI’s CAE (Compressed Air Engine) & integrated into power grid through IndraNet Minder = iPower.

Generate your own power at home with a unit not much bigger than an air conditioner and link this unit to the power grid through an IndraNet Minder (communication device) and any excess you generate goes back into the gird.

There are larger units for offices, businesses, shopping malls, hospitals, schools, built in scale to suit your needs. And yes they run on compressed air!

If one (1) MDI manufacturing plant produces 25,000 power generators (12 KW each)  per year this adds  300 MW of electricity, then think globally of what small factories worldwide could do, hundreds and hundreds of factories each adding 300MW per year (to the power grid) will do to replace and increase power generation for the planet. AND units will be run at point of use, minimising the carbon footprint, as well as being environmentally friendly - Power generated from AIR yes AIR!
p.s. The power supply solution is a combination of compressed air driven power generators and IndraNet Minder which form meshed networks that synchronize the power within the existing power grid.

So how much is 300 MW? 300-megawatt is enough to power a city of 175,000 people
 

Air Car Worldwide Preview - New York Car Show - 19-22 March 2008

           Source            

Demonstrations
at
 MDI Factory,  Nice, France
December 2007

◄

MDI Air Car

  
     
 

Power Generation

 ►

For

  • Representatives of Federal Government of Australia,
  • State Government of Victoria
  • Representatives of Electrical Trades Union of Australia

Watch Videos at IT MDI-Energy

.
MISCONCEPTIONS & Q & A with Dr Louis Arnoux of IT MDI-Energy 
           Dr Louis Arnoux wishes to clarify comments posted on The Oil Drum-Australia/New Zealand (Part 1 at tailend of blog)       

IT MDI – Energy – What’s it about?
It’s great to feel the excitement, interest and intrigue about the MDI “air car” as posted on The Oil Drum – Australia and New Zealand. However, a large number of those comments are in my view mistaken and made without the required knowledge and expertise. In this posting I wish to clarify a few matters.  Read More

THE AIR CAR PART 2  The Oil Drum-Australia/New Zealand (Part 2)
I asked Louis if he would like to do an interview to answer some of the questions we had about the  IT MDI-Energy technology. Read More

Air Car's first manufacturing plant will be located in Melbourne, cars sold in Australia next year -

Guy Nčgre and Louis Arnoux of IT MDI-Energy, the company behind the air car, are in Melbourne, Australia, demonstrating the air car technology to government and potential investors as part of a five year, $1.5 B plan to make and sell the cars in Australia     Autobloggreen 4 Dec 2007


Model factory in Carros, Nice, France
Australia expected to see 7,000 new jobs    Source  3/12/2007

Find Engineering jobs. The designers of a new type of car engine are confident that it can boost the country's job market over the next five years. IT MDI-Energy is set to manufacture engines that run on compressed air in Melbourne, helping to significantly reduce car emissions, the Age reports.

Aiming to establish the first manufacturing plant in the city, the company believes that over 7,000 jobs will be created during the next five years following the launch of the engine.

Louis Arnoux of the firm said that the technology could also be used to power homes as well as their vehicles. "We are used to thinking of green being more expensive and cumbersome. This makes a rapid transition to 100 per cent sustainable and enhanced lifestyles possible," he remarked.

In May, IT MDI - Energy announced that it had been viewing a number of potential sites for the first manufacturing plant, including Kempsey, near Sydney, Geelong and Melbourne.
Air car to call Melbourne home - business.theage.com.au - 3 December 2007

MELBOURNE is set to be the manufacturing home base for a car that operates with zero emissions and can run solely on compressed air..........

Union to invest $2m in clean energy

27 Nov 2007 | The Australian Financial Review | Tracy Ong
The Electrical Trades Union is poised to invest $2 million of members' money into clean energy technology, in a first for unions in the commercial sector.
http://www.afr.com/home/viewer.aspx?ATL://20071127000020012251&title=Union+to+invest+%242m+in+clean+energy

ADVANTAGE

  • Tata Motors agreement with MDI, strengthens IndraNet - MDI joint venture for Australasian markets and potential exports of combined IT-MDI distributed electrical power generation technology package.
AUSTRALASIA'S FIRST DEMONSTRATION (info courtesy IT MDI Energy Website)

A demonstration of the MDI Power Generator and Presentation of the IT MDI - Energy industrial development plans in Australia and New Zealand was held in Melbourne during the week of 5 - 9 November 2007 and in New Zealand (Christchurch and Queenstown) during the week of 12 - 16 November. Attendance was by invitation only.

The events are fully covered on IT MDI Energy Website.
PDF Melbourne review (244 KB)

This is a prelude to the unveiling of the OneCAT car by MDI, planed for January 2008 in Nice, France and to a road show
demonstrating the OneCAT car and the Power Generator in all the Australian and New Zealand metropolitan centres
towards the end of  July Source

Affordable, Extremely Competitive and Environmentally Sound Commercial Solutions to Climate Change and the Post-Oil Era
Speech at Menzies Centre, Parliament House, Canberra by Dr Louis Arnoux, 1 Mar 2007
 Canberra Newsletter

Renewable Energy Australia Submission
Submission to;
The House of Representatives, Industry and Resources Committee
Renewable Energy in Australia - Inquiry into Developing Australia’s Non-Fossil Fuel Energy Industry.
 Read submission


http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3526   January 19, 2007

Q & A with Dr Louis Arnoux of IT MDI-Energy

It’s great to feel the excitement, interest and intrigue about the MDI “air car” as posted on The Oil Drum – Australia and New Zealand. However, a large number of those comments are in my view mistaken and made without the required knowledge and expertise. In this posting I wish to clarify a few matters.

To call the MDI vehicles an “air car” is a misnomer. It is no more an “air car” than a “gasoline car”, or a “diesel car” or an “ethanol car” or a “rapeseed oil car” or a “what-have-you car.” The point being that the MDI engines (there is a whole series of them) are being designed to accept a very wide range of primary energy inputs including fossil fuels, bio fuels, waste heat recycling from other processes and thermal solar energy. Transport is only on aspect of the applications of the MDI technology. Power generation at the point of use, on customer premises is another. Power generation applications are at least as important as the transport applications.

Question: When will construction of the manufacturing facility in Melbourne commence?

Answer: That depends on investment levels and MDI's delivery timetable. At present rate I am expecting establishing a first manufacturing facility during the second half of 2008 and being in full production in 2009. Initially, our focus is going to be on producing power generators, then we plan to move on the automotive applications.

Question: When will air cars first appear on Australian roads ?

Answer: MDI plans to unveil its OneCAT before the end of January 2008. I plan to show case one in Australia towards July 2008.

Question: Is the Melbourne plant the only one planned ? Some articles have mentioned three manufacturing plants in Australia / New Zealand.

Answer: The joint IT MDI business model is to manufacture at or close to the point of sale in small networked factories. We are planning a substantial number of such factories distributed throughout Australasia. We plan to complement this network of factories with a few hubs. We plan to establish the first of those hubs in Melbourne.

Question: How long do you believe it will take to obtain approval from the various Australian state vehicle licencing Authorities ? Has crash testing been undertaken and approved by Australian authorities ? What would happen if an air tank is ruptured ?

Answer: MDI is constantly monitoring regulations world wide and designing each feature of its vehicle to meet the most exacting of all specifications. So I do not expect any significant issue to obtain approval in Australia. The OneCAT will have very innovative design features concerning crash safety. Nothing much would happen in case of a tank rupture. The tanks are underneath the car floor, built within the chassis frame and design to bleed towards the ground in case of a rupture; so just a big "pshiiiit".

Question: There have been many reports over the years that production of the Air Car will begin shortly - for example, in 2000 this BBC report (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/988265.stm) claimed cars would soon be rolling off production lines in France then South Africa, with a raft of countries to follow afterwards - what obstacles were encountered back then and have these all been overcome ?

Answer: In my view, the two main obstacles have been

(1) that some parties do not like the prospect of a revolutionary energy and automotive technology and have been keen to stop it, slow it down, or take it over, and

(2) low investments levels because parties able to provide larger levels of funding by and large did not know how to evaluate an initiative that was so out of what they were use to (so-called change agent or disruptive technology) and/or wanted to take it over.

As is often the case and up to 2007, both MDI and my own company IndraNet technologies (the IT in IT MDI - Energy Ltd) have progressed entirely with the financial support of relatively smaller investors and small individual investments.

Both factors combined has meant many delays and much slower progress than would have been the case if the companies had been left to do their work in peace and had been suitably funded. The first commercial models could have been on the roads at least 2 years ago. However, we are resilient people and now things are getting very exciting.
 

Question: Tata have been reported as saying it will be at least 2 years before they produce an air car.
Do you expect to get to the market before Tata ?

Answer: Yes. We are in a joint venture with MDI.

Question: Could you give me a "roadmap" outlining the dates of the product releases you are planning and a brief description of each product. I think some of the confusion generated by the press coverage is due to a range of different products being described without any clear differentiation between the different versions.

Answer: We have entered the productisation phase, i.e. the use of new technology to generate new products. With pioneering technologies, timetable must remain very flexible as one cannot rely on the same support systems as in the case of well established products. We aim to have a first manufacturing facility established in Australia in 2008. Our plan is to first produce power generators for distributed point-of-use electricity generation (such as for emergency back up units, and replacing UPSs, remote locations, farms, recycling of waste heat in industrial settings, and communities aiming towards sustainable independent lifestyles). We then plan to begin producing a small market entry vehicle code named for now OneCAT by MDI. Over the ensuing five years we intend this to lead to production of an expanding range of vehicles, including family cars, utility vehicles, tractors, forklifts, trucks, buses, boats and light aircrafts.

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