Many people in PPRUNE had different and at times, strong opinions re global warming over the previous years, however there is virtually nil left now who say it isn't an issue of concern.
You think?
You really need to read 'The skeptical environmentalist' and then come back and talk about the subject with just a few more facts under your belt.
Mate even if oil supplies were a near term issue, like 20 yrs away, Australia is awash with energy.
Australia has an abundance of natural gas...we could run every form of road transport on that for 100s of years.
Australia has an abundance of coal...we could liquify it and run jets etc on that instead of exporting it..as can China and the US who have coal deposits that make Australia's coal abundance look pathetic. Suggesting that coal is environmental public enemy No 1 is to just deny the technology...fly past any coal powered power station in Australia and all you see is a little steam...the nasties all get filtered out.
Australia has an abundance of solar.
Australia has an abundance of uranium...although I am personally ambivalent about nuclear power and I don't think we need it I would agree to it just to piss off the greens.
Australia has an abundance of shale oil.
We have some of the lightest sweetest crude in Bass straight. New oil is being 'found' all the time...some of it is actually new finds and some is old finds that they capped years ago and didn't tell anyone about. The potential super giant under the Tasman between Australia and the Kiwi south Island is one of those...a big US oil company let the lease expire or some such feckup and a small Kiwi company moved in and grabbed it...been a HUGE court case about it in NZ...it's in deep water but it is there.
As mentioned by ozbuspilot there are vaste areas left to be exploited around Australia...and the world...the current crunch worldwide is NOT about a lack of crude it is about a lack of infrastructure and because the oil companies don't go out and look for more unless there is a good compelling reason...and at $10/barrel until just a very few years ago there was no compelling reasons. The oil industry has tested the waters of what people will pay and are now trying to hold the prices artifially high for as long as possible. Current proven reserves exceed all the oil we have ever used to date by 5 x.
Australia has an abundance of water but not the infrastructure to make best use of it...and as a result most is just wasted.
What do the greens and ASPO nutcases come up with?
Windfarms that kill more birdlife than the Exxon Valdez
Bio diesel that returns .75 unit of energy for every unit expended to produce it...even the deepest deepwater oil returns between 8 and 30 barrels for each barrel expended in the effort, depending on how deep it is.
Ethanol...you put ethanol in your fuel and you get significantly lower mileage. So to appease the environmentalists Govts mandate it and we get even less bang for our $ +10% Gst
If they took catalitic converters off cars and put lead back into it that would increase everyone's mileage by 10-15%. I should think if oil was a scarce as the greens say they would welcome a 15% increase in efficiency...but then they are greens. Lead pollution from cars was always just another greeny myth blown out of all proportion to reality
If you take away all the fuel taxes...some of which are greeny taxes, like diesel being more expensive than petrol
petrol would be about 50 cents a liter and diesel less again. It is a economic fact of life that things which are in high demand and scarce cost lots of money...50 cents a liter doesn't indicate scarce to me
The Peak Oil myth is over 100 yrs old...it keeps being trotted out and it keeps not happening.
100 years ago they didn't have the technology we do today to go and find oil and get it out of the ground....but mercifully they also didn't have the technology 100 years ago to spread the doomsayer BS far and wide...lucky them
Sorry if I can't get worked up about a problem that doesn't exist.
Gaunty
Amazing how every generation thinks the previous ones had no clue about the world around them and only 'they' have all the answers. I suppose we were no different...we just lacked the really good doomsayer bs to get worked up about
