australian oil refineries to close

[dddd]

Originally Posted by z80

okay.....



It's called climate change abatement.
Sounds like a sound strategy to me, I am a climate change believer.

Let me ask you this...we export what type of coal?

And what type of coal do we burn in our power stations?

Which colour coal has a far greater CO2 emmission per megawatt produced?




I am certain that the exchange rate is a much more significant factor with the relative and highly visible desparity between accessible asian labour markets making it extremely attractive to not employ australians where possible.




Apart from liberating rhetoric,can you prove it?

I can't find any evidence to support your assertion....except Tony Abbott says so....

With the renewable energy policy, there has already been numerous reports submitted to the government suggesting to shut it down. Renewable energy (wind, solar etc) is just not commercial viable at present, as previously stated about 10 times more costly to produce per kw hr, there is just no getting around this fact.
This is the main reason our power bills have gone through the roof in the last 2-3 years. Does anyone believe that industry is immune from these same price rises. I'm all for the idea of it ,BUT it must be commercially viable and perhaps in another 20 to 30 years it maybe but not at present

I have no doubt the high exchange rate is doing its share of damage to the Australian industry at present, but it is an entirely separate issue to the 3 points I pointed out

The work place agreements brought in by Rudd/gillard have no doubt given us better wages and conditions, however are any of us really stupid enough to believe that we can have all these extra benefits and there will be no trade off, and it wont make us any less competitive with other countries, especially considering we already had arguably the best wages and conditions in comparison to our competing countries
No mater how much we hold our breath and stamp our feet, we can't change the fact Australia is part of a global market and as such we have to remain competitive with other countries to some extent. Companies will easily move to other more accommodating counties if manufacturing gets to expensive or difficult and why shouldn't they
This doesn't mean we have to work for a bowl of rice, we haven't in the past and industry has not only survived but grown, however in past years we have been able to utilise our one natural advantage cheap coal fired power stations that has now been completely taken away to the point where our power will be amongst the most expensive

As to the carbon tax, do you honestly believe that imposing another tax on our industry is going to help them compete with other countries industry ??
A tax that 95% of our competing countries have not got and have no intention of introducing on its industry/people. Let alone the introduction price point of approximately 3 times higher than the miniscule amount of countries that do have it.

Call me cynical but somehow I believe if the federal government had not gone through the 46 billion surplus (and god only knows how much from the future fund) that Howard left and then plunged us into another 225 billion debt on top of that (all in just 3 years) this carbon tax would not have been as important to them

As to climate change, its been changing all by itself for million's of years without man's doing. Hell carbon dioxide isn't even a pollutant, I think the figure is around 90% of it is produced naturally from the oceans, I haven't noticed gillard referring to the oceans as dirty polluting manufactures but then she cant tax the oceans yet can she

[mik]

i agree with most of what you have said except for the bit about manufaturing growing, i think it`s been on the decline for years.

[ivorya]

Originally Posted by dddd

Call me cynical but somehow I believe if the federal government had not gone through the 46 billion surplus (and god only knows how much from the future fund) that Howard left and then plunged us into another 225 billion debt on top of that (all in just 3 years) this carbon tax would not have been as important to them

Sorry, but if Howards Man 'Costello' Hadn't SOLD all of Australian's Gold from the Reserve bank, we probably wouldn't have had that money anyway.

If we had it today, how much has gold increased since he sold it?

[JG34JA]

Quite a few of us have posted on the topic of policy leading to de-industrialisation and the resulting poverty it created in developed countries; research into the refiners closing down is only a symptom of the more general malaise.

We have reached the absolutely extraordinary position where our policy is deliberately targeting our one advantage in the global economy - cheap power sources. A nation blessed with abundant energy will become dependent on others for its liquid fuel, just as a nation with widespread agricultural land is dependent on food importing. It's insane. And these products are produced in no 'greener' way overseas, and certainly no more humane ways, if anyone has a conscience. Our coal, exported overseas and not applied with a carbon tax, still emits the same carbon.

For Australia taxing its domestic energy advantage away, will any difference be made to the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, as growth in other non signing countries will massively eclipse any declines we make? Canada and Kyoto, anyone? They looked into the abyss and pulled back. Even after halving our refining capacity, we'll still be importing around half the liquid fuel according to this study, so we'll still be burning it at the 3% or so increase per year, so our overall emissions will increase anyway?

I'd love to see evidence of MASSIVE renewable energy power projects, solar steel mills, solar factories, algal fuel plants, huge wind farms producing incredible amounts of energy - and this permitting real 21st century factories equal in scale to the NW and its iron ore and gas to bloom here in Australia, creating productivity gains and well made products that can be proudly exported; I'd love to see these products actually be ALLOWED to be exported in renegotiated, true Free Trade agreements. I'd love to see this, maybe I'm not looking far enough, but I just cannot see it.

[JG34JA]

Originally Posted by ivorya

Sorry, but if Howards Man 'Costello' Hadn't SOLD all of Australian's Gold from the Reserve bank, we probably wouldn't have had that money anyway.

If we had it today, how much has gold increased since he sold it?

+1 for selling the gold reference.

Whose debt did he extinguish by selling the gold (and Telecom, Commonwealth Bank, etc)? Doesn't matter the party; it's the nation living beyond its means and losing its assets as a result.

Best ever selling of gold was Gordon Brown ("Brown's bottom") selling England's gold right at the nadir of pricing before a decade plus boom...

For Australia:

http://www.gold-eagle.com/analysis/aftermath.html

167 tonnes in a single day so it seems. The great irony is now central banks are scrambling to buy it, at vastly higher prices.