Feedback from the Box

This morning's feedback reminded me about certain aspects of the aluminium industry.

You see, the Aluminium business is big business not just in Weipa but throughout the world.

However the one problem aluminium producers really have is energy use. The aluminium production process consumes vast amounts of energy. It's part of the reason why Rio Tinto bought Alcan. Alcan had great assets in Canada - Hydro power stations. In a modern world the word 'energy' is often sitting alongside the word 'crisis'. Hydro-power is like liquid gold in this world.

But there isn't a whole lot of hydro power in Australia for aluminium production, which is why Rio Tinto probably isn't too keen on the Federal Government's new carbon emissions trading scheme.

Which brings me to the entry in the feedback box:

Hey you know the local company that sends out those laughable sustainable development reports each year. Yeah, the same one that is tearing the place down. The same one that just announced a huge profit and a huge increase in the annual profit. Yeah, the same one that gets all the corporate welfare so that we taxpayers have the joy of watching them wreck the place (our place), put the money in their pockets and we pay them to do it. Well guess what! The same greedy bastards are lobbying hard in Canberra today for special consideration under the new carbon emissions trading scheme. They reckon they won't be able to keep on being so productive if they actually have to pay the real costs for the damage they are doing to the atmosphere. They reckon that they can only be profitable if they are allowed to continue to pollute the atmosphere. And that's only the start of it. You see the profits that these guys make are made by NOT paying the real costs of damaging the atmosphere and everything else. IE their business is NOT SUSTAINABLE.