[LINK] Telstra propose biggest rollout in Australia's history

[Craig Sanders]

On Thu, Jan 18, 2007 at 11:05:59AM +1100, David Lochrin wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:33, Craig Sanders wrote:
> > the point of capitalism is that the investors reap the profits. 
> > if they can offload the expenses onto someone else, 
> > then so much the better. 
> 
>    Privatise the profits and socialise the losses!

as ever.  it's the law of the land.

> > and the point of privatisation is to offload any public 
> > infrastructure that has any chance of making a profit 
> > into private hands - and give the government a short-term 
> > windfall to plough back into corporate welfare (and a bit of 
> > pork-barreling on the side - watch how much of the T3 
> > proceeds gets spent getting Howard & Co re-elected 
> > this year). 
> 
>    Another bit of corporate welfare is LJH's campaign for nuclear
>    power.  Nuclear power in Australia will not contribute much to
>    reducing greenhouse gases - even Dr. Switkowski thinks the most
>    ambitious rollout of nuclear power (25 stations by 2050) will only
>    result in an 18% reduction over business as usual.

i reckon it's just a huge red-herring. distract the greenies and
environmentalists into fighting the nuclear bogeyman (and hopefully
cause some infighting between those who think that GH-gases are a worse
danger than nuclear and those who don't*). with luck, the ensuing
"debate" will allow the government to sit on the sidelines and continue
to do nothing about coal and oil and the pollution they cause. which is
exactly what their masters in the coal industry want them to do.


the nuclear issue also brings the seriously loony "environmentalists"
out of the woodwork - the ones for whom their anti-nuclear stance is a
religious conviction rather than a rational evaluation of the evidence.
they're great for TV, sensational! and it's easy to paint ALL greenies
as seriously disturbed lunatics when you have such great examples
plastered all over the nightly news.  faith-based nutcases.



* personally, i'm a greenie and i'm in favour of nuclear power as PART
OF an alternative energy mix. but a) i wouldn't trust howard to choose
the best/safest technology or b) to properly regulate the (inevitably
american) corporations that would end up with the contracts, and c) i
wouldn't trust any american corporation to put safety ahead of profit.

so, while on a technical level i'm in favour of nuclear power (modern
reactor designs are *SAFE* - and the waste issue is trivial, even in
absolute terms but more so when compared to the waste from coal-fired
power plants**), on a practical real-world and political level, i just
don't trust the bastards.


** especially brown coal as used in victoria - spewing out megatonnes
of CO2 and more noxious pollutants, *including* uranium and thorium
particles.

>    Given LJH's announcement of his nuclear plans five minutes after
>    seeing George Bush, it's probably safe to assume part of the plan
>    is that Australia will become a repository for the world's waste
>    in order to help the U.S. nuclear industry.  New Matilda ran a few
>    articles about this if anyone's interested.

frankly, a nuclear waste dump in the middle of nowhere in australia
actually makes sense. nuclear power (and thus nuclear waste) is a
fact of life, it's gotta go somewhere, and better for it to be in an
isolated location in a geologically (and politically!) stable region.
and australia is actually the original source for much of the uranium
anyway.

Maralinga, for example, would make a great location.  it's already
contaminated and off-limits to people.


craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>           (part time cyborg)