[Peakoil] Anti Westconnex article in SMH explaining peak oil

Thu Sep 12 13:56:18 EST 2013

...and why they have to take money away from foreign aid to pay for them!

Jenny

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alex Pollard" <alex-po at trevbus.org>
To: <peakoil at actpeakoil.org.au>
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2013 12:43 PM
Subject: [Peakoil] Anti Westconnex article in SMH explaining peak oil

I am bewildered as to how Labor and the Coalition are so easily conned
into funding these road projects after previous road
projects have proven so uneconomic and unpopular.

Alex

O4O4873828
ACT Peak Oil Inc.

---------------------------- Original Message
---------------------------- 
Subject: Anti Westconnex article in SMH
explaining peak oil
From: "mushalik"
<mushalik at tpg.com.au>
Date: Thu, September 12, 2013 07:27
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

/"WestConnex will fail on all fronts because it is
old-paradigm thinking
in a new-paradigm world./
/"One of
the most sustained and devastating critiques is ''Greiner's
Folly'',
a three-part YouTube video by EcoTransit's Gavin Gatenby &hellip;"/

Greiner's Folly is the road to ruin

Date
September 12, 2013

* **

Elizabeth Farrelly

<http://www.smh.com.au/comment/by/Elizabeth-Farrelly>

Read more:
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/greiners-folly-is-the-road-to-ruin-20130911-2tkob.html#ixzz2ecUOT9mj

For me, the election take-home was that a lying politician is
easily the
best sort. Under a Coalition government, the biggest
threat to
civilisation is that Abbott may actually keep his
promises.
Admittedly, no one I know expects this. Further, although
we've just
given Abbott's denialistas power, the same election
revealed 60 per cent
of Australians want stronger action on climate.
This may make Abbott
rethink his max-roads-and-carbon policy.
Yet still Abbott insists, well after it is electorally required, that

he'll honour his promises. If he does, it'll be one big fat backward

step for Sydney. WestConnex, aka Greiner's Folly, was stupid when

proposed by Infrastructure NSW last year. It was still stupid in May

when Julia Gillard offered a $1.8 billion kick-start. It's even
stupider
now as Abbott promises his $1.5 billion fast-tracking.
The proposal has two arms: converting the whole of Parramatta Road to

motorway (funded by massive high-rise development en route) and a

north-south connector, partly tunnelled, from Camperdown to the M5.

Abbott claims this will ''modernise'' us but, 10 years hence,
WestConnex
will likely be as embarrassingly obsolete as the Cross
City Tunnel, now
heading into receivership for the second time.
Advertisement
WestConnex even signals its flakiness with the
cheesy neologism of its
name. And there's the election insight of
new member for Lindsay Fiona
''Sex Appeal'' Scott that asylum
seekers cause traffic congestion.
Surely this means that stopping
the boats (promise 1) should obviate the
road (promise 5b).
We're so lucky Abbott's parliamentary team is the full bottle on urban

dynamics.
But Fortress Australia is not the only reason
WestConnex will be /un
pachyderme blanc/ before it is even complete.
Asking any expert about
this ridiculous road produces words like
insane, idiotic, backward and
old-fashioned. At $15 billion it is
both extravagant and futile, since
it won't help the commute, the
congestion, the economy or the ecosystem.
WestConnex will fail on
all fronts because it is old-paradigm thinking
in a new-paradigm
world.
One of the most sustained and devastating critiques is
''Greiner's
Folly'', a three-part YouTube video by EcoTransit's
Gavin Gatenby, ably
assisted by Jessie the Kelpie.
It begins
with that stupendous 19th-century folly the Great North Road.
Built
over 11 years, this 260 kilometre convict-hacked highway was to
open
the Hunter for mining and development. Before its 1836 completion,
however, paddle steamers shrank the Sydney-Newcastle journey from a week

to half a day. Hardly unforeseeable. Yet overnight, the engineering

masterwork became a disused embarrassment.
WestConnex will
take a similar time to build (2015-25) and risks the
same inglorious
end. Why? Because, inevitably, we are entering a
post-fossil era.
Already Australians - like the Americans, Brits,
Germans, Swedes,
Canadians and Japanese - are driving less. As driving
becomes more
expensive and less admirable, this decade-long trend is
likely to
continue.
The discovery of new, costlier methods of oil extraction
(fracking,
shale oil), especially in the US, has lulled us into the
delusion that
peak-oil was a bad dream. But there are still two
compelling arguments
against fuel profligacy.
One is the
climate-changing effects of their use (which, after the
hottest
decade on record, 300,000 extreme-weather deaths, and
ever-earlier
spring bushfires should figure more strongly than they do).
The
other is peak-oil No.2.
Local pundits such as Alan Kohler may
declare ''the death of peak oil'',
yet even the conservative
magazine /Forbes /concedes that peak
conventional oil has almost
certainly passed. Despite major new oil
discoveries, the new
''tight'' oil is less accessible, more expensive,
dirtier and much,
much quicker to peak. So the real peak oil is still
imminent,
probably before your kids turn 30. It is virtually impossible
that
we can continue polluting as we have. Futurists put private
transport as a luxury.
As clean-energy entrepreneur and Big Switch
chief executive Gavin
Gilchrist told a high school group the other
day: ''By the time you're
30, in 2030, nobody will be driven to
school. Nobody will own a big car
because they just won't be made.
Nobody will be allowed to fly around
Australia frivolously,
polluting the upper atmosphere.'' Which is why,
for nine years
already - in fact, since petrol hit 90¢ a litre - driving
in
NSW has been falling. The crucial unit of measurement here is VKT, or
vehicle-kilometres travelled, a measure of road usage. Normally, VKT
rises with population, so VKT per capita becomes an indicator of choice.

If it falls, people are either travelling less or, more likely,
choosing
some other means of transport.
Gatenby argues it like
this. In NSW, VKT has been ''virtually
flat-lining'' since 2004,
well before the global financial crisis.
Taking into account
population growth of 9 per cent during that time,
VKT per capita has
fallen significantly.
This means that by the time WestConnex is
completed in 2025, ''private
motoring will be a luxury''. It also
indicates massive unmet demand for
public transport. Electric
vehicles will not change this since, being
effectively coal-fired,
they are both dirty and expensive.
Gatenby's alternative to
WestConnex constructs a cleaner, greener,
faster public transport
future. It has two parts. First, substituting
for WestConnex's
southern arm is an airport line buyback from Westpac, a
new Doody
Street station along that line, an east-west light rail link
from
Dulwich Hill (where the light-rail now under construction finishes)
to UNSW and a Kingsgrove park and ride.
The second part includes a
Parramatta Road light-rail line, a White Bay
green-link and a
Victoria Road light-rail line. All up, it constructs a
light-rail
orbital for about $3 billion: one-fifth of the $15 billion
dirty,
private version. Abbott's $1.5 billion and O'Farrell's $1.8
billion
could fund this without the private sector even being involved.
Which will get up? If past experience is our guide, we'll build the
option that, like the Cross-City Tunnel, is exorbitantly expensive,
privately built, demands public bailouts and offers a transport option

that, despite massive artificial support, no one actually wants; a
big
fat white elephant in the room.
Where's that nice Shooters
Party chap when you need him?
*Twitter: @emfarrelly*

Read more:
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/greiners-folly-is-the-road-to-ruin-20130911-2tkob.html#ixzz2ecUXG4f4

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