Government Gas Wastrels.

Image: The Peoples Cube.

By Viv Forbes.

1. Government Gas Wastrels.

Four energy sources power most of our world – oil, coal, uranium and gas. These are the natural earth energy resources that provide heat, light, transportation and power for most homes, factories, farms, vehicles, engines and appliances (for Australia and New Zealand, cross out uranium).

Australia has huge buried resources of all of these fuels, and we lead the world in exploration, drilling and extraction technology.

So what could go wrong?

In just three words – stupid energy policies. Big Nanny must intervene in energy markets with ever changing rules on land tenure, investment policies, development conditions, restricted and no-go areas, market mandates, export embargos and discriminatory taxes and subsidies.

One of the worst examples of poor government policy in Australia today concerns the gas market.

The gas policies of federal and state governments could be major chapters of a text book entitled “How to Waste Energy Resources”.

Most of these stupid energy policies can be traced back to one universally corrupting source – the International Green campaign to control, ration and tax the usage of coal and oil, all under the cloak of hysteria about global warming.

Every government intervention in the energy markets creates temporary winners and long term losers. Naturally, the winners support the policy and the losers (usually consumers or taxpayers) do not realise what is happening until too late.

Who benefits?

Australian energy policies are full of contradictions, scientific stupidities and perverse consequences. They will result in massive misuse of energy resources, soaring electricity prices, closure and migration of energy intensive industries and supply interruptions for consumers.

As if that was not enough, the Queensland government is now considering gas export embargoes. Export embargos always assume that no new resources are discovered. They are always a self fulfilling prophecy. Few people bother to explore for something that cannot be sold. No exploration = no resources = no industry.

To recycle a truism of the Whitlam era:

“Any fool politician can bugger up Britain, but it takes real genius to bugger up Australia”.

Current Federal and State politicians are showing they have sufficient genius to bugger up the whole energy/electricity market, by encouraging overuse of gas, sterilisation of coal, prohibition of nuclear and mandated use of expensive unreliable wind and solar options.

All of our backbone industries rely on low energy costs to offset the low labour and other costs in Asia. Current energy policies threaten their existence.

Natural gas is a marvellous source of portable energy and also provides the feedstock for many other industries such as fertilisers, explosives and petro-chemicals. To deliberately encourage overuse and waste of this valuable natural resource on jobs better done by coal, hydro or nuclear power is energy vandalism, not Climate-Smart.

For more details on the whole sorry story of the Government Gas Wastrels, including the now forgotten history of the iron ore embargo (which was imposed in 1938 and delayed development of Australia’s iron ore export industry for over 20 years) get a print friendly pdf of the full article here:

And to read how they are turning off the lights in America see:

Skeptics in China.

Xiao Ziniu, director general of the Beijing Climate Centre, told the British Guardian newspaper recently that:

"There is no agreed conclusion about how much change is dangerous....Whether the climate turns warmer or cooler, there are both positive and negative effects....In Chinese history, there have been many periods warmer than today."

He disputed the disaster warnings of the UNIPCC, saying, "The accuracy of the prediction is very low because the climate is affected by many mechanisms we do not fully understand."

See here for full article:


2. Tide Turning in UK, Australia and USA.

Three straws in the wind:
· Britain is less concerned about global warming than any other country in the world. Just 15% worry about climate change, down from 26% last year. (Daily Telegraph 2/11/09).
· Australians also care less about climate change, and are more concerned about domestic issues and the financial crisis. The number “concerned” dropped by 14% in the last year – the largest drop among developed nations surveyed. (ABC News 2/11/09).
· There has been a sharp decline over the past year in the number of Americans in favour of aggressive action to curb US emissions - 35% now compared to 44% a year ago. (WSJ Environmental Capital 22/10/09)

“Carbon Sense” is a newsletter produced by the Carbon Sense Coalition, an Australian based organisation which opposes waste of resources, opposes pollution, and promotes the rational and sustainable use of carbon energy and carbon food.
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