Boiled by oil and not a drop to drink

phill Parsons

Based on Lennon’s use of a greenhouse justification for the proposed Tamar mill the people of Triabunna and Burnie will also get their mills in time, provided the rainfall remains high enough for tree growth [above 600mm per annum].

I suggest that such matters should enter the consideration of investors in pulpmills and indeed anything else.

Whilst at APEC a declaration on carbon emission goals without targets will be signed, there is no sign that half the world’s economies have any other plan than to emit greenhouse gases at a business as usual rate and therefore one can expect further climate chaos driven by short sighted greed.

The National Climate Center says it can no longer predict the climate and considers it a possibility that the southern oscillation has adopted a new pattern of perennial drought, something flagged by this writer.

Rainfall may remain below the former averages for a very, very long time [or forever, except that nothing is]. Currently the Forth Vegetable Research Station is at 38.1% of average rainfall for the last 9 months with the projection for the next 3 months taking the total from 600mm to between 750 and 900mm.

That’s not bad you say, stop whingeing and whining, think about the Victorian country cities where storages are around 20% and they should be prepared for more stages of water restrictions. Including the last one when it’s the coach out of town?.

Lennon is telling of the wonders of the proposed pulpmill including it will burn waste to generate power. Not the forest floor waste lie by Lennon in his Mercury opinion piece, he should know the leaves and branches will not roll on to the mill, it will be the waste from the process [the bark].

Either his greenhouse message is from a barking mad imbecile, a congenital liar or someone who is not as across the facts as they claim.

Some older folk will remember the wonders offered by the hydro electrification of the wild rivers and great lakes.

Here we are almost a century after large scale hydro commenced and 24 years after the largest single public investment in infrastructure in Tasmanian was stopped. [Robin Gray of Gunns board remembers].

The current storage capacity of the Hydro system is 73% empty and the high rainfall period is almost over. Tasmania will be dependent on coal fired power this summer unless the climate chaos brings an unseasonal dump in the dam catchments.

Imagine depending on your car’s fuel with a supply system like the rain. Sometimes you can drive and drive but other times you are stuck to going to the corner for a petrol head fix.

One cannot blame the Lennon government for the climate chaos, that level of incompetence is beyond any single government, the blame lies around imperfect knowledge combined with human greed.

However one can take this government to task for its almost complete inaction on the matter.

Every action taken by this government to address climate chaos has been on a no cost basis and limited to low grade measures, so it cannot laud cost savings by Gunns as greenhouse measures to be proud of until all of the Tasmanian government drives the lowest emission technology cars, has the lowest emission light bulbs, has the lowest emission buses, has safe cycleways and a program to heat water using the sun directly because all these are technologically possible and affordable, especially when compared to the impact of continuing as we are.

Various governments have adopted some or all of these measures so wearing climate as a badge of courage rings hollow when it is someone elses.

Now we are also faced with another mega export plan, to send water by undersea pipeline to Victoria and South Australia.

750gigalitres [750.000,000,000 litres] for a big $400M a year to the state or $0.53c a kilolitre.

Is that good money for raw water and is an investment of $2.5B the best way to supply water where it is needed given rainfall may fail expectations in the Tasmanian catchments.

The answer to question 1 is yes when compared to market prices here, provided that it does not impact on current uses that transform it into greater value such as vegetable growing and processing or produce negative effects by reduced environmental flows in rivers and estuarine environments.

Assuming of course the water will be taken after the maximum power generation has been wrung from it.

Allowing for $7,500 to install a 20,000 litre water tank fed from the roof then 333,333 water tanks could be installed, about 22 weeks supply for a household considerate of domestic use [900lt per week].

This would supply all of the households in SA to well past 2026 or almost half of all households in Victoria now with a water tank. [ABS]

At a projected cost of $1B for a 120 megalitre desalination plant the comparative cost of piping compares favorably per litre provided delivery proves cost effective. Pumping water is, because of the weight, more expensive than moving gas, thus affecting delivered price in comparison to the short and potentially solar powered cost from the roof.

Interestingly, in boosting this project the water was to flow from the NW coast and be 750Gl in the Advocate but fell to 500Gl by the time it made it to the Mercury and it all flowed under the sea from Strahan according to the map. [That’s 0.80c a kl for raw water, hard to believe that golden price]. Please tell the same story guys, it makes it less like on from the fairies at the bottom of the my garden or a booster taking a chance .

If the water flows from the NW and results in water restrictions then there will have to be compensation for local users, be that in the form of hospitals, jobs, lower taxes and charges or free water tanks for there not to be political impacts.

The perceived impact on popularity of water restriction going to Stage 4 in Melbourne was such that the Premier, Steve Bracks, avoided taking the measure before the last state election. A gamble that found Melbourne entering another summer with less water in storage than the last.

Investing such large sums in a scheme must either be an attempt to white shoe the current water crisis, something that seems to rear itself in some water scheme or other at every election in recent times, or the investors see great difficulties in the coming climate of coastal SE Australia and western Victoria.

If it is the latter then further targeted measures beyond moving or desalinating water are clearly warranted to avoid much more of Australia turning into sunburnt dustbowl, a land of firestorms and deserts.

When considering how you vote the party with the clear plan on addressing the causes of climate chaos should get your number one, no other issue ranks with the importance of sustaining a livable climate.

phill Parsons

Millenialists have been around for some time. It is inherent in the traditions driving Western civilizations discourse and therefore predictions of its imminence are eminently ignorable or accepted as some form of predestination.

In this case it is evidenceable on the record, modellable on the data and before your very senses. Monkeys, overcome your stupidity.