WITHOUT an urgent injection of funds the Western Port Biosphere could collapse within two months. Dire financial circumstances being faced by the biosphere were outlined last week at an extraordinary general meeting which gave the board of directors the power to wind up the “company” if money is not found by the end of this month, February. With only four of the five “partner” municipalities contributing towards its annual income the biosphere has been forced to use its cash reserves to make up the shortfall. Executive officer Cecelia Witton told the Tuesday 31 January meeting that the biosphere looked like…
Author: Keith Platt
NEVER one to miss an opportunity to make fun (and make a point) of those he sees as benefitting from the public purse, Seaford artist Tony Sowersby has chosen Foreign Minister Julie Bishop as the subject of his entry in this year’s Bald Archy Prize. Billed as “the art that laughs at art’s lighter side” the Bald Archy Prize “provides artists of all styles and standards with a genuine opportunity, ranging from the hilarious to the bizarrely vulgar, to create portrait paintings of humour, dark satire, light comedy or caricature”. Sowersby, who regularly wryly comments on public affairs through his…
WHILE politicians and environmentalists are on a collision course over plans to build a coal gasification plant at Hastings, Kawasaki Heavy Industries is already building a test vessel to carry liquefied hydrogen. The ship now being developed by the Japanese company is designed to carry 2500 cubic metres of the gas which will be produced with brown coal from the Latrobe Valley. Because of hydrogen’s high evaporation rate the ship will have a double shell to provide vacuum insulation. Kawasaki says it will have the Liquefied hydrogen transportation pioneering test vessel ready by 2020, the same year the state government…
A PILOT project to produce hydrogen from brown coal will require the gas to be liquefied near Hastings before being shipped to Japan. Kawasaki Heavy Industries says it will release more details of the project “in the first quarter of 2017 for consideration and consultation”. The company says it has been “exploring the opportunity” to create a hydrogen energy supply chain from Australia to Japan for more than six. During that time discussions had been held with state and federal governments, industry and research organisations. “The initiative is well known,” general manager of Kawasaki’s hydrogen development centre, Dr Eiichi Harada,…
MEMBERS of Maladiction Longboarders are organising a surfing contest to raise money for the Disabled Surfers Association Mornington Peninsula branch. The teams’ event will be on Saturday 1 April – April Fools’ Day – at The Pines beach (pictured above) Shoreham. Entry is $200 for each four-person team and surfers will ride the “soft” surfboards used at the annual events run by the DSAMP. As well as surfing ability, points will be awarded for surfers’ costumes. Prizes for the DSA Champs Surf Competition include $2000 in Jetstar travel vouchers; a Trigger Brothers surf pack; and dinner for four at Stillwater,…