Outrageous increases in the price of electricity over the next year is sure to focus minds on mining and the environment. The increases would have been much worse if Kevin Rudd and Penny Wrong had got their way with their madcap Emissions Trading Scheme at Copenhagen. Even so their pursuit of alternative green energy schemes will cost us dearly and comprises a large component of the whopping 64 per cent increase in electricity bills coming to a mailbox near you.
State Labor’s plundering of our energy corporations over the past 15 years and the Rudd-Wrong Emissions Trading Scheme is about to send a seismic shock through NSW households.
Given that we have the world’s largest reserves of uranium the most effective way to reduce our carbon emissions is to establish Nuclear power plants in Australia. Unfortunately this is an unacceptable form of energy for environmental evangelists in the Labor-Green political movements. It’s OK to sell it to other countries just as long as we don’t use it in Australia because we have solar, wind . . . and pedal power! Unfortunately none of these will insulate NSW households from Labor’s electric shock they are about to receive.
The extraction of oil and minerals from below the earth’s surface is essential to our global health, wealth and lifestyle. Unfortunately mining can have a devastating effect on our environment which can have an equally devastating impact on our health, wealth and environment.
Mining exploration and development often requires a high degree of risk and massive injections of capital. Shareholders who provide risk capital will demand a commensurate return on their investment. Governments’ role is to strike a balance between the demands of the mining industry and their responsibility for protecting our environment. It is not an easy task.
The issue also includes debate in the Hunter region over the benefits of high-return non-renewable coal mining operations as opposed to sustainable agricultural industries. The environment of the Hunter is one of its great assets but our demands for energy and food will create stress amongst miners, farmers and environmentalists in the region.
Unfortunately any type of industry created by ‘capitalists’ is anathema to Green evangelists and their camp followers in the commentariat. Generally the closer they are to inner-city areas the louder they spruke. Some walk across bridges as a form of protest, others jump in their BMWs to visit a site but most just gather for group hugs in trendy cafes and sing kumbiyah. It doesn’t do anything to resolve the conflict between mining and the environment but it makes them all feel good.
