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25.01.2022 Property developers lobby for high population growth to justify their shoddily built investments. When these poorly built behemoths inevitably fall apart, prop...erty developers have invented sneaky legal structures where the public purse pays for their poor decisions. As a community, we really need to start standing up to this terrible state of affairs. "While NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has wholeheartedly encouraged Opal Tower’s residents to take every legal opportunity they have, The Australian can reveal that her government’s own Sydney Olympic Park Authority, and not Ecove the company that developed the land into Opal Tower could be sued by apartment owners because of changes in building warranty laws designed to close a loophole" https://www.theaustralian.com.au//3dd1783e234d058af2d5e36a

25.01.2022 Growing For Broke Chapter 8: Mining and Resources Closing down the Polluters State governments have now sold most of the public utilities they once owned to meet the cost of building roads, schools and hospitals to sustain the rising population. In 2015, the latest saleable state-owned asset to appear on the auctioneer’s block was the electrical transmission and distribution system of New South Wales which state Premier Mike Baird explains was being leased to private interest...s to raise money for infrastructure investment. Since poles and wires are already infrastructure investment, we assume the infrastructure in which Mr Baird intends to invest is that which has no return on investment, such as suburban roads and public buildings for new suburbs for the expanding population, rather than infrastructure which makes a financial return, such as the electrical transmission system being sold.

24.01.2022 Growing For Broke Chapter 8: Mining and Resources The Adani Group The Adani Group is an Indian multinational company founded in 1988 by Gautam Adani who is chairman of the company. Its expansion in India since that time has been phenomenal. It has established a portfolio of ports, power plants, mines, ships and railway lines within and outside India. In 2006, Adani became the largest coal importer in India and is now responsible for 60% of the country’s coal imports. Imported... coal is supplied to Adani’s own power stations and those of other companies in India. In 2008 Adani acquired a coal mine in Indonesia with reserves of 180mt, (which is only three years’ production from the proposed Carmichael Mine). In 2014, the company became India’s largest privately owned producer of electrical power. If Adani’s coal needs were supplied within India, they would come from Adani’s government-owned competitor Coal India (CIL) which is considered by Adani to be an unreliable supplier. Hence the need for new supplies off-shore from India.

24.01.2022 Dick Smith - err - Scott Morrison, calls for a plebiscite to go to war against coal in this short 2 minute 44 second video. Is Scott looking better these days?

24.01.2022 "GDP provides no indication of a country’s damage of its capital, such as withholding education from certain groups or depleting natural resources for immediate economic benefit. Similarly, profit growth provides no measure of corporations use of capital, whether it be destoying employee, community, environmental or any stakeholder value. Growth for growths sake is the ideology of the cancer cell" https://www.abc.net.au//gdp-flawed-and-out-of-dat/9821402

24.01.2022 Growing For Broke Chapter 8: Mining and Resources Renewable Energy Subsidies Three key federal bodies involved in overseeing the national energy market are the Australian Energy Market Commission, the Australian Energy Regulator and the Australian Energy Market Operator.... In addition, each state has at least one regulator. For Victoria, we now have eighteen different organisations competing to send out bills that one organisation once did in the days when the electricity business was government owned. Having eighteen different retailers retailing the same product that they don’t make through distribution systems they don’t own would seem to violate one of the favoured theories of growth enthusiasts - that the country needs more people to improve its economies of scale. In addition, each of these businesses, being private, will need to be headed by a CEO being paid millions a year to compensate him or her for the bother of turning up to work every day.

23.01.2022 Endless pursuit of GDP growth is supposed to eventually give us that ever elusive happiness it has been promising us, right?

23.01.2022 Growing For Broke Chapter 8: Mining and Resources Adani Project - issues The project has been controversial since the start. As noted above, scientists contend that if we want to get through the next 100 years without killing off about half the global population we must leave most of the planet’s remaining reserves of coal in the ground. In this view, the last thing the world should be doing is opening massive new coal mines.... Specific grounds for objections to the project from the conservation movement are damage to the atmosphere, the Great Barrier Reef and the ocean itself. Concern about the Barrier Reef stems from two main sources. Firstly, the ocean is warming due to climate change. Secondly, seawater is acidifying due to increased concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide. Corals are stressed by both effects. According to reports, 50% of the Great Barrier Reef has already been destroyed or damaged by the consequences of climate change to date. Another environmental concern is dredging. This is destructive on two counts. First the shipping channel is thought likely to damage the reef physically. Abbot Port itself is on the edge of the reef, about 19 kilometres from the closest coral through which the ships have to navigate to reach open water. The second dredging problem is where to deposit the dredged material. Normally this would be pumped and dumped somewhere not too far from the channel being excavated. However, for the Abbot Point expansion this would mean dumping into the UNESCO Great Barrier Reef Reserve, which, even with Greg Hunt as Minister of Environment, was considered unacceptable. Instead it was decided to dump the material onto wetlands ashore, thus destroying another environmentally sensitive area.

22.01.2022 Growing For Broke Chapter 8: Mining and Resources Adani: Case Study We need here to distinguish between two types of coal - metallurgical coal and thermal coal. Metallurgical coal is used for making steel. Thermal coal is used for generating electricity. There is no commercial process for making steel from iron ore other than with metallurgical coal. But there are plenty of alternative ways to generate electricity other than burning coal.... The Carmichael deposit is thermal coal. Adani’s intention is to burn coal from the Carmichael mine to generate electricity. The proposed Carmichael Mine is massive. If it goes ahead it would possibly be the world’s largest new coal project with a total estimated production of 2.3 billion tonnes of coal to be mined and burned over the next sixty years. The maximum rate of production of the mine is designed to be 60 million tonnes per year. Given the current concerns regarding climate change, conservation interests consider it vital that this enormous new mine does not get started

21.01.2022 Growing for Broke Chapter 8: Mining and Resources Fossil fuel versus renewable subsidies - global Numerous studies of subsidies to fossil fuel power versus renewables inside and outside Australia have been published.... In a global context, the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) is regarded as the principal authoritative and impartial source on energy matters. The IEA has been measuring fossil-fuel subsidies in a systematic and regular fashion for decades. Its analysis demonstrates the impact of fossil-fuel subsidy on energy markets, climate change and government budgets. The IEA’s latest estimates indicate that fossil-fuel consumption subsidies worldwide amounted to $493 billion in 2014, with subsidies to oil products representing over half of the total. According to IEA, fossil fuel subsidies were over four-times the value of subsidies to renewable energy

19.01.2022 Growing For Broke Chapter 8: Mining and Resources Renewable Energy Subsidies Costs of these parallel bureaucracies, which produce nothing more tangible than paperwork, are passed onto customers through their power bills. So should we expect this voyage into privatisation of what are natural monopolies to implement efficiencies and reduced prices?... Mr Rod Sims, chief of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) doesn’t think so. Said Mr Sims on the subject: 'Deregulating the electricity market and selling poles and wires in Queensland and NSW has seen prices almost double there in five years. ' Said the Reserve Bank on the same subject: 'Electricity price increases are largely being driven by rising network charges, reflecting the need to expand network capacity, replace ageing assets, meet higher reliability standards and cover higher input and borrowing costs.'

19.01.2022 Growing For Broke Chapter 8: Mining and Resources Renewable Energy Subsidies - Australia Claims of subsidies paid in Australia to the renewable energy industry vary widely. As has been previously mentioned, in 2014 the Abbott government appointed climate change sceptic Dick Warburton to research subsidies to energy companies. ... Warburton reported that subsidies to the renewable energy industry were twenty-two billion dollars, a figure that has been widely quoted by the fossil fuel industry and the business friendly media. Since the Warburton Report has now been withdrawn from public scrutiny, how this figure was calculated, or whether it was a once only figure or per annum, cannot be determined. However, estimates can be obtained from other sources.

17.01.2022 Growing For Broke Chapter 8: Mining and Resources Closing Down the Polluters One of the disincentives to new renewable energy projects in Australia at the moment is the recent decline in national electrical energy demand. Over the past few years a number of measures such as improved energy rating on appliances, installation of pink batts, and the shift from incandescent light globes in favour of fluoros and leds, has more than compensated for increased demand from population ...growth. After decades of rising year by year, electricity demand peaked in 2008/2009 at about 210 TeraWatt-hours. By 2013-2014 demand had declined to 195 TW-hours. Until an uptick in the market occurs, new generating plants, whether fossil fuel fired or renewable, will be more difficult to justify. Apart from loss of revenue to the state, one of the downsides of privatising assets like the electrical industry has been the loss of control that comes with the sale. In April 2016 the premier of Western Australia announced that some of its state-owned coal fired generators were no longer required due to a downturn in energy demand. But in the eastern states, which are experiencing a similar downturn in demand for electricity, governments have no such control over power generators since they have already been privatised. It is possible that existing coal fired privatised generators which have become surplus to requirements either through falling demand for electricity or failure to meet climate targets could be shut down if their owners were compensated by taxpayers. How much this might cost would presumably be calculated on the basis of the privatisation contracts governments wrote with private suppliers when the state-owned facilities were sold.

15.01.2022 'The road to genuine sustainability entails abandoning the assumption that endless growth in numbers and consumption is good. It means looking seriously at crea...ting a ‘steady state’ economy that is focused on quality not quantity. That will involve stabilising our population and overall consumption of resources as soon as possible, and not seeking to grow them further.' Hats off to our experts at SPA, Peter Martin and Sandra Kanck, for your excellent Submission to the Economic and Finance Committee, Parliament of SA. The whole submission can be found on our website http://www.population.org.au//submission-economic-and-fina

14.01.2022 Growing For Broke Chapter 8: Mining and Resources Renewable Energy Subsidies - Australia Opponents of renewable energy were quick to attribute the rise to RETs and carbon tax. However, from the graph above, a maximum of only 30% of the rise (that which occurred over the period during 2012 to 2014 when carbon tax was in operation) can have been from this cause... To understand where the rest might have come from we need to look at how the charges for electricity mount up as power is transferred from generator to ultimate customer. Thirty years ago, most of the country’s electricity was supplied by government entities. A customer in Victoria had an account with the State Electricity Commission (SEC) which generated the power, owned the high voltage transmission lines, the transformers and the low voltage lines (the distribution system), the service to the house and the meter. The SEC generated a single bill to its customers for all these services. In the mid-1990s the SEC was privatised to raise money to finance various building projects, such as art galleries, convention centres, the F1 racetrack and museums with which the Kennett Government wished to decorate Melbourne at the taxpayers’ expense. In the process, SEC’s different generators were sold off to various companies, some overseas-owned, some local. The transmission and distribution systems of poles and wires were also sold off to independent companies, and a number of new companies, the retailers, were formed to compete against each other to sell power to the ultimate consumer such as businesses or householders. Currently there are eighteen companies retailing energy (electricity and gas) to customers in Victoria. Some of the larger ones (eg AGL and Origin) also generate power, but most merely buy power from generators.

13.01.2022 Growing For Broke Chapter 8: Mining and Resources Case Study: Adani For this reason, it is not within the spirit of the Paris climate agreement that any country authorise the development of large new coal mines that will operate for many years so that investors in the new mines can get their money back. Nevertheless, that is exactly what the Australian government is doing.... The most controversial of these new mines is the Carmichael Coal Mine in tropical Queensland for which the Adani Corporation of India has sought a mining licence. At time of writing a licence has been issued for construction of the mine, but an environmental impact study for the expanded shipping port on the coast near the town of Bowen has yet to be cleared, and Adani still has to obtain finance for the project.

10.01.2022 Growing For Broke Chapter 8: Mining and Resources Renewable Energy Subsidies How costs are proportioned between profit centres varies state to state. Based on the model for NSW, the proportion of each dollar customers pay for power is split as follows:: ... Wholesalers (generators) 35% Transmission (high voltage) 8% Distribution (low voltage 40% Retail 18% Sustainable Energy 4%

07.01.2022 Growing For Broke Chapter 8: Mining and Resources Renewable Energy Subsidies - Australia As distinct from fossil fuel subsidies which come out of taxes, subsidies to renewable energy are passed onto consumers through the renewable energy certificates (RETs). The amounts charged to households for RETs vary from state to state. The average electricity bill per annum to households in Australia in 2013 was $1,250 and the amount charged in Queensland as RET on an average annual bi...lls was $55.24 - or about 4.5% of the total power bill. The NSW regulator advised that RET added an average of 4.8% to power bills in that state, which is broadly similar. We note that the number of households in Australia is around ten million. On that basis the total RET paid by households as the total of subsidies to renewable energy would be about 500 million dollars per annum, or about 2% of the figure claimed by the Warburton enquiry. Carbon tax, imposed in 2012 and repealed in 2014, added about twice as much to household bills as RET. The figure quoted by the Queensland Competition Authority as the cost of carbon tax was around $100 per annum. Much has been said in the media regarding the rise in the price of electricity in recent years: justifiably so. The rise has been quite spectacular. Looking back to the start of the new millennium, prices almost exactly tracked consumer price index (CPI) from 2000 to 2007. But from 2007 to 2013 electricity prices rose by 100% during a period in which CPI rose by 18%.

04.01.2022 Growing For Broke Chapter 8: Mining and Resources Overview Adani’s proposal is to open-cast mine a large deposit of thermal coal in western Queensland. After it is mined the coal is to be transported by rail to an existing bulk handling port at Abbot Point, near Bowen on the Queensland coast. The project has an estimated cost to Adani of $17 billion dollars. This covers the mine itself, a 310 km rail connection between the mine and Abbot Point, extensions to increase the ship...ping capacity of the port from 50 million tonnes per year to 120 million tonnes. This extension requires dredging to deepen access for bulk ships entering and leaving port and to facilitate increased ship movements. To allow the proposal to go ahead, the project needed permissions from both the Australian Federal Government and the Queensland Government. These have now been granted.

04.01.2022 4 Growing for Broke copies sold at Sustainable Population Australia stall last Sunday. The book is still striking a chord with the wider public!

02.01.2022 Growing For Broke Chapter 8: Mining and Resources A case study: Adani and the Carmichael Mine Nations at the 2015 Climate Conference in Paris signed off on an agreement that global warming should be limited to two degrees above pre-industrial levels. Scientists consider this to be the temperature rise that will occur at a greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere of 450ppm CO2 equivalent. ... So how many more tonnes of fossil fuel can we burn before we breach the 450ppm limit? In 2009 the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 385ppm. From there, Bill McKibbon, environmentalist and co-founder of 350.org, estimated that humans could inject roughly another 565 gigatonnes (Gt) into the atmosphere and have a reasonable chance of staying below the two-degree limit. Moving on to 2016, the CO2 concentration had advanced to 404ppm, reducing to about 400 Gt the amount of CO2 that could be added to the atmosphere without exceeding two degrees of warning. To put this figure in context, in 2009 remaining known reserves of fossil fuel coal, oil and gas - expressed in CO2 equivalents was 2,795 Gt. If we burn even half of that, we’re cooked.