Transport Fuels from Australia’s Gas Resources

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The transport sector in Australia depends heavily on imported oil-based fuels. With this comes the ever-present risk of oil supply shortages. But Australia is gas-rich and oil-poor, so it makes practical sense to assess how our own gas resources can be used to produce these fuels.

Natural gas can be used directly as a fuel, blended with diesel in modified diesel engines, and converted into a conventional liquid fuel – all at a modest cost. This book, written by Australia’s leading experts in the field, demonstrates how using natural gas as a transport fuel could increase our fuel self-sufficiency to 50–70 per cent by 2030. And with three-quarters of our freight being moved by road, it’s clear that these developments will have major benefits for Australian transport efficiency.

Order a copy from New South Books. 

Preserving the knowledge edge: Surveillance cooperation and the US–Australia alliance in Asia

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The US–Australia alliance is the bedrock of Australia’s defence policy. Successive governments have looked to the alliance for access to military technology, intelligence and training, as well as a promise of support against direct threats to Australia.

However, Australia, the US and other regional allies today face a rapidly changing strategic environment in the Indo-Pacific. The American ‘rebalance’ to Asia represents recognition by the US that it needs to give greater priority to its management of the changing balance—an effort firmly endorsed by President Obama in his address at theUniversity of Queensland.

Acting alone, Australia couldn’t possibly achieve the level of awareness that the evolving strategic environment demands. In alliance, it has the resources to ‘fill the gaps’ that remain in the US’s coverage of the region. This is why the C4ISR relationship with the US in the Indo-Pacific provides such a critical benefit to both members in the alliance. US–Australian C4ISR cooperation will be essential to the success of the US rebalance, but also to Australia’s own immediate security in a strategic environment in which more and more countries operate high-technology platforms that once used to be the preserve of Australia and its allies.