Burma, August 15: military increased price of fuel 500pc; CNG up 500pc, diesel doubled, petrol up 67pc

Soaring fuel prices trigger for Burmese protests: unfair quota system in place A surgeon in a public hospital in Burma earned $US15($17) a month and ran private clinics after hours to make ends meet, wrote Connie Levett in The Sydney Morning Herald (9/10/2007, p. 9).  Burma Heads of government departments earned $US14 a month until late 2005, when the Government increased salaries tenfold to stem dissent about the move to a new capital, Naypyidaw, in central Burma.

Burma military energy economics: bought fuel in US dollars; sold in the local currency, the kyat.

While the military reaped rich profits from selling quotas on the black market, the Ministry of Energy subsidised the price of petrol. It lost money on each transaction because the ministry bought fuel internationally in US dollars but sold in the local currency, the kyat.

Natural gas and renewable generation options, combined with demand side measures, to meet demand for electrical energy services at tenth to half greenhouse-intensity of a coal-fired power station using super-critical technology

In a submission to the Owen Inquiry into Electricity Supply in NSW, energy and environment consultant George Wilkenfeld said the rapid enhancement of demand side programs, the introduction of carbon pricing and strengthening the support for renewables and small-scale generation, along with increasing net imports from Victorian and Queensland, should delay the need for new baseload generation.

Leading bankers warning of the worst crisis in the money markets for 20 years

Leading bankers are warning of the worst crisis in the money markets for 20 years, which would come to a head when $US113 billion ($137 billion) of commercial paper — market IOUs — came up for refinancing, mainly through London, reported The Australian (10/9/2007, p.29).

“The Iraq war is largely about oil”, says ex-US Fed Reserve chair, Alan Greenspan

Former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan created another Iraq-related crisis for the Bush Administration, alleging in his new memoir that “the Iraq war is largely about oil”, reported The Canberra Times (18/9/2007, p.7).