COAL-ED HARD FACTS
Can you believe our Minister for the Environment and our Prime Minister somehow believe that because the coal industry calls a process they are still experimenting with "clean" that it therefore qualifies for the Clean Energy Subsidy.
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By Turnbull’s own admission nearly $600million has already been spent by taxpayers on this Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology but we still have nothing practical to show for it.
Very simple science tells me that CCS is impractical in any case.
You burn one tonne of coal, that steals 2 tonnes of oxygen and you end up with 3 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) which if pressurized and kept in liquid form requires four times the space of the original coal.
Assuming you can capture it all, where are you going to put it?
Maybe some of it in abandoned underground mines, but sealing it in, under pressure, permanently, is going to be tricky.
Australia currently produces six per cent of the world’s coal, 420,000,000 tonnes/year.
That’s enough to make a pile five metres wide, two metres high and long enough to go right around the world.
\Where are you going to permanently store the carbon dioxide from that?
Thomas Hunt, Oak Flats
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
At the risk of being accused of plagiarism I believe the people of the world are currently confronted by an inconvenient truth.
When Al Gore used that phrase as the title of a film it was in reference to the damage to life present with global warming.
Unfortunately, the inconvenient truth the world faces since January 20, 2017, is more dramatic in its impact.
In the US White House, the people of America have installed as president; an irrational individual with the capacity to turn our beautiful planet into nothing more than a cloud of super-heated nuclear dust.
Yet we still have people within our midst who see the emergence of Donald Trump – and other populist loonies peddling snake oil solutions rather than achievable agendas – as representing a refreshing change from the political status quo.
Barry Swan, Balgownie
REAL REVENUE RAISING
If Wollongong City Council wants to build up its revenue to cover the cost of the council rangers, why don't they stop picking on local dog owners and start charging to park in our beach car parks.
My father leased the Austinmer beach kiosk (now the surf club) in the early seventies and he had to charge beach goers (on weekends) then which was part of the council lease agreement which come with the kiosk. Why did it stop?
Our western neighbors flock to our beaches on weekends and they don't seem to spend much money as they bring most of their stuff with them.
The only thing they leave behind is their rubbish for council workers and locals to pick up mainly on Monday mornings and after public holidays.
They charge at the beaches in Sydney (locals are free with a sticker on their windscreen) so why don't they do it here?
Rick Supple, Austinmer
A KICK WHERE IT HURTS
Mike Baird has given Newcastle a kick where it hurts as he resigns.
All the years the Government Bus Service has operated in Newcastle providing an excellent service to the residents, but this service will finish on the June 30, 2017.
An overseas operator from France will take over which means instead of the Federal Government ATO getting around 30 per cent company tax, under the new owner it will get if it is lucky three per cent.
It is time our Federal Government raised the company tax for overseas companies from three per cent to at least 25 per cent which would reduce the debt.
Richard Cannan, Warilla