 | The Bullroarer - Friday 22 February 2008 | TOD: Australia/New Zealand | Tapping The Source: The Power Of The Oceans |  |
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This will likely be dealt with in the next article, but anyone have a handle on the size of Australia's LBG supplies, depletion rates and how much is locked in to long-term contracts?
IOW, how much will Australia be able to substitute it for petrol?
If you mean LNG, then I'll be posting something on Australian Gas real soon now (which might still be a couple of weeks away, at my current slow rate of progress).
LNG it is! I'll look forward to that, Gav
Dominoes and International Commerce. Otherwise known as "Connecting the Dots".
Do shortages in Australia affect the rest of the world, and how fast does it fall apart? You bet it does buckos! So the ELM kicks in and causes Auzzie Land to undergo large industrial cutbacks, so what? Well, there is a large and significant Aluminum production facility in Canada (initials RT) that depends on the Alumina coming from Gove, Au for the feedstock. N. American energy use is accelerating towards electricity use to displace fossil fuel use. Greater electricity use means more aluminum conductors for transmission and distribution circuits, and the dots start to connect. Trouble in Auzzie Land means big trouble in Gross Consumption Land (GCL) and the dots get connected while the dominoes continue to drop.
S. Africa remains as a microcosm of what/will happen on a global scale in the world of interdependent industries and processes. We are not independent nor isolated. Bad weather in the southern hemisphere means tomato prices rise this week, Brazil joins OPEC because it desires protection from American hegemony, the Athabasca River has no more water to offer so the Alberta Tar Sands will not offset Saudi oil supply, and hush, hush, hush and we all fall down.
Natural gas prices in western N. America will soon compete with world prices because LNG is happening. Really! Shipping natural gas around the globe has to be the clearest sign of mass insanity. Both shipping inefficiency and application inefficiency dictates we are either i) no smarter than yeast, or ii) not socially evolved past the Chimpanzees.
In closing, I hope posting this on the Aussie site will prevent the black suburbans filled with men wearing dark glasses from showing up at my door. No, really, its coming to this... the battle for gas and oil has gone domestic.
/vsyxx
We are likely to give everything a go. In a report on ABC TV last week, Linc Energy are trying to produce liquids fom coal seam methane. The alrming thing is that they were going to ignite the coal in situ, pump in air to keep the fire going which in turn provides a heat source to drive coal gas and steam out through a well. The resulting liquid was touted as clear "diesel" which could be further refined.
If this works, one has to wonder how long our export coal industry will last.