It has been an amazing couple of weeks in politics that included a change of Liberal Party leaderhip and the ETS defeat.

I wonder whether the Climategate scandal timing may have had something to do with it.

Regardless of whether climate change is real, I am all for reducing energy consumption. It simply makes sense to use our energy sources wisely. However, I believe that the proposed ETS would have unnecessarily caused job losses and other major economic consequences to the Australian economy.

I believe that there are better ways of reducing energy consumption.

One of my biggest problems with these type of schemes is that they penalise Australia, while our competitors benefit. Countries like China that are taking Australian jobs talk about reductions but do not make any real change. The result: Australia becomes even less competitive against these low labour cost countries.

What real alternatives are there?

Firstly, rather than just create subsidies to offset costs, I believe that any emissions tax should be used directly to improve energy efficiency. Use the money to figure out how to more efficiently mine coal, generate power, etc.

Secondly, make the scheme dependent on other countries also reducing emissions. This way, Australia can commit to emissions reduction while still remaining competitive.

It will be interesting to see how this all pans out next year when the government is supposed to tackle the issue again.

Calvin Close
Australian Mining Reference

The great thing about it is that the same system can also be used to transport workers to / from the mine, in many cases eliminating the need for expensive fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) transport.  The system can also be used to transport supplies to / from the mine.

Another major benefit for the mining industry is that this system can eliminate the need for expensive port loading infrastructure because the transport modules can load directly into ships.

This system is also an answer to some of the criticism received from the environmental movement.  The system can be installed with minimal earthworks and can cross sensitive environmental areas with minimal impact.  The system is also extremely fuel efficient.

The cost to install the system is about half the cost of installing a conventional railway line. If you combine the savings from line construction and eliminating the port requirements, the savings amount to hundreds of millions of dollars.  In some cases, this can mean the difference between proceeding or not proceeding with a new mine development.

Read more about the application to mining transport.

The same company has also developed a system for high speed passenger transport.

Imagine being able to travel from Sydney to Melbourne in less than 2 hours! Imagine doing it without all the hassles of airport check-ins and going through security.

Their inner city passenger transport solution will enable people to travel across the city at speeds of up to 110kph.  This type of system can be installed in just about any city because it is installed ABOVE the city.

For more information, go to the Alternate Transport website. The website has lots of images and even a few videos to watch.