23 July 2012: Reduced consumption impacts on clean coal projects and Qantas launches "social commerce" Hooroo

Electricity Gas Australia 2012 report on the state of the energy sector by the Energy Supply Association of Australia, figures for year ending June 2011: There are more than 250 new power projects or expansions planned , mainly lower emission generation. 38% of the new capacity installed was gas, 35% wind, driven by the 2020 Renewable Energy Target.  Annual growth in generation capacity slowest since 2005-06, energy consumption fell by 0.6%. South Australia has highest ratio of wind power (17%), Queensland highest solar. New capacity mainly displaced cleaner black-coal generators rather than more emission intensive brown-coal plants due to provision of financial assistance to brown-coal plants plants. Black-coal generation fell from 57% in 2009 to 51% in 2011. Emission generation fell in most states, but increased in Victoria where large brown-coal generators are situated. Federal government’s draft energy white paper estimates that up to $240 billion of new investment in electricity and gas infrastructure will be needed by 2030. [CR: Finding the balance of new projects and new capacity. The headline of the story was “Clean coal projects suffer”. I wonder what another headline would look like of “Success in reducing energy consumption”.]

US Presidential candidates silent on gun control after Auroro shootings that killed 12 and injured 59. Obama called for a moment of silence and ordered flags at half mast, Romney called the killings a “hateful act”. Gun control blamed in part for Al Gore’s 2000 defeat. [CR: Americans like their right to bear arms. Taking a step back, only reason to have guns apart from hunting is to mitigate a future fear of having to use them on other human beings. How much of our laws are defined by distrust and fear.]

Analysts expectations say Coles to outperform Woolworths. Woolworths expected to grow by 3% to $8.5 billion, Coles expected to grow by 6% to $6.55 billion. Both companies rejigged customer loyalty programs, launched new advertising campaigns, and cut prices. Coles revamped FlyBuys in April, increasing reward points and offering 10% discounts on five favourite items. Woolworths offered loyalty card members discounts between 20 to 40% on over 1000 products in an “extra special extra simple” campaign, and rolled out heritage and fresh food credentials campaign and flagged new store formats offering freshly cut meat and vegetables and freshly baked bread. Analysts say that Woolworths initiatives will take more time to result in revenue. [CR: The reporting year is like a political election, where everyone tries to get their initiatives returning results to be the “winner”.]

Theil Fellowship in the US offers a two-year US$100,000 in the “20 under 20” grant, encouraging students to drop out of college. Two sides of the debate. One side involves skills to write software or build a robot, plus an outsize does of ambition and a youthful belief in one’s ability to change the world produce fame and fortune as college graduates have to move back home due to not being able to get a job. On the other side, if the start-up fails, unemployment for those with only a high school diploma is 21%. [CR: Everyone wants to be Jobs or Zuckerberg.]

Gruen Transfer to be shelved this year, internal goal was to “entertain, yet leave the viewers feeling smarter”. [CR: Always like a brand that makes me feel better as a result of my engagement with the brand. I wonder if they will come back the year after and analyse themselves?]

Qantas launches “social commerce” travel booking site Hooroo to compete with Wotif and tripadvisor in $2 billion agency booking sector. 45,000 people signed up before official launch. Idea is to blend travel booking with content and user conversations and ratings. First phase of Qantas brand overhauls started three weeks ago, asking Australians to upload photos of themselves for a chance to feature on Qantas planes, 300,000 people viewed the pre-TV launch video, 64,000 people uploaded photos. Hooroo is spending $3 million to $5 million in coming months on online advertising and word of mouth seeding.Initial seeding program for bloggers reached 250,000 people, who were not paid but given domestic trips to create content and “talkability” about Hooroo.

Mobile device stats: Yahoo! Research indicates 39% of Australians intend to buy a tablet in the next 12 months. 4.3 million unique monthly visitors to Yahoo!7 out of 8.8 million total access the site through a mobile device. 30% of realestate.com.au, about 25% on Seek.