Article by Dryblower courtesy of Mining News.
“TO mine or not to mine”, with apologies to Hamlet, William Shakespeare’s tragic hero, but that is the question Dryblower reckons will soon be asked of Australia’s new prime minister, Anthony Albanese.
On the one hand, Albo knows that the Australian economy is powered by natural resource exports, led by the fossil fuel family of coal, gas and oil.
On the other hand, he will lead a government which wants less fossil fuel production and might even need the support of green (and greenish) independents who want to kill it.
Walking the fine line between life and death for fossil fuels will not be easy but it’s something he must try or risk a repeat of Australia re-entering the revolving door which has seen repeated changes of political leadership in both the Labor and Liberal parties.
The solution for Albo, as far as Blower can see is to promote a replacement for “old energy” industries with “new energy” industries which makes sense given Australia’s abundance of renewable energy metals and fuels – the sun and uranium.
Oops, did someone say uranium?
Yes, he did, because outside Australia, uranium has come in from the cold of decades in the wilderness and is even recognised in Europe, the greenest of regions, as part of the world’s energy solution and not part of the problem
Some of Albo’s Labor Party colleagues also accept the conversion of uranium from enemy to friend but there’s little chance of the “Teals” (also known as light greens) accepting the shift, and no chance whatsoever that the true-believing Greens will ever accept the shift.
So, in one metal can be found the first test for the new Australian government’s mining and energy policy and somewhat amusingly it’s the same test which has been causing ructions in political circles for 50 years.
Like Hamlet, Albo will be forced to pick a side in the uranium debate as he will be forced to choose sides in another mining debate, what to do about coal?
Just as uranium is what might be called a flashback mineral that haunted past Labor prime ministers, all the way back to Gough Whitlam in the early 1970s, coal will deeply trouble Albo because it is a mineral which divides Australia in several ways.
Much of outback Australia, especially in the coal mining regions of Queensland NSW, are keen to see coal mining continue, whereas much of inner-city Australia wants it closed.
Albo will understand the problem because there’s nothing new in the divide, though today he is the man who must decide and he is also the man in control of Australia’s finances and that introduces a powerful element in the debate about all mining – money.
In a nutshell, Albo and Australia want the money, the Greens and the Teals reckon the country can do without it, and in that split lies another challenge for the new boy in Canberra’s Lodge – the money or an environmentally pure conscience.
It isn’t that simple, obviously, but the pull of money to fund the new government’s promises and the push of the Green/Teals to close the fossil fuel industry has political crisis written all over it.
Without revenue from coal, oil and gas (with uranium to come) the Australian government could suffer a financial crisis to rival that which eventually brought down the Whitlam government.
But to defy the Green/Teals could force Albo to split with political friends while also pointing out that most of them are independently wealthy and would not feel any pain from reduced government services or higher prices for gas and electricity.
Government is never easy because it is full of compromises which eventually create problems because making decisions always alienates someone.
Mining is going to be the big one for Albo because most of his inner-city supporters have never seen a mine and have been told since birth that all mining is bad because it means disturbing mother earth.
The reality is, of course, quite different and that’s something Albo must explain to his Labor supporters and to the Green/Teals, starting with a few home truths about what it means to shift from fossil fuels to a renewables future which can’t happen without mining.
A useful starting point on this journey of education for new members of the Australian Parliament is to spend time looking at one of the wind turbines which have popped up all around Canberra and ask a simple question: “what’s it made of?”
Most of Blower’s readers know that a wind turbine is made of aluminium, steel, nickel, rare earths and a host of other metals which can only be supplied by miners.
It’s the same with electric cars and the stationary batteries which store electricity produced by harnessing renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar.
Albo, who’s been around a while knows all this, but it’s a fair bet that some of his new colleagues in government do not.
Reality bites and can sometimes be an inconvenient truth, especially when it comes to matching political goals with financial reality and for Albo that’s going to mean relying on mining to provide the money he’ll need.