All of them probably idling along supplementing the green energy. Night time loads would be pretty low. Gas would be the main source of heating. Bet their coal burners produce less emissions than ours.
I live in the Hunter Valley, i go outside on a early winters morning take a breath and all you can smell is coal burning and i'm about 80 ks direct from them. Fly around the area and see a dust plume rising to 3 grand out of the open cut mines. Asthma is at the nations peak in the area. Our roads are stuffed by mad truck drivers that have never heard of speed limits and the miners drive like peckerheads. Try to enter the highway at peak commutes and you have to wait 10 minutes at a minimum to enter. There are 140 rail wagons of coal passing every 15 minutes day and night. On a still night you hear every one of them, they are busy duplicating the line but not one cent is being spent on getting the noise down. If you want to commute by train you have a few absolutely packed services into Newie in the AM and same out in the PM. Yes it keeps the economy going but the mines contribute diddly squat to the area. The F3 freeway extention will be finished next year, 90% of the movement will be mine related but who is paying for it. Not the mines. Farmers being forced to sell up and already we are seeing the water table screwed up by gas extraction. My missus and i are splitting and i need to find another place to live. Roll up at rental inspection and find at least 20 to 40 people there. As for buying forget it, almost the same as Sydney. And they want to slug me for putting some fuel in an aircraft for some weekend enjoyment. How much of that carbon tax is going to go back into fixing this area? Sweet FA.
Last edited by fencehopper; 4th Jun 2012 at 04:39.