Rinehart’s Hancock weighs $3.3 billion iron ore mine project
Hancock acquired a 51% interest in the Mt Bevan project from Legacy Iron Ore Ltd. and Hawthorn Resources.
The Great Barrier Reef is at risk of permanent damage should huge coalmining and a port development in Queensland go ahead, scientists say in a new report.
“Industrializing the Great Barrier Reef coastline will cause further stress to what is already a fragile ecosystem,” reads an executive summary of the report by the Australian Coral Reef Society (ACRS). The report was drawn from five reef scientists from Australian universities and submitted to the United Nations.
In it, the scientists say that nine proposed mines in the Galilee Basin will produce coal that, at capacity, will emit 705 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, making the basin the seventh largest source of CO2 emissions in the world. Warming ocean waters said to be caused by climate change can cause corals to bleach and die. According to the report, in the last 27 years the Great Barrier Reef has lost over half of its coral cover.
“ACRS believe that a broad range of policies should be urgently put in place as quickly as possible to reduce Australia’s record high per capita carbon emissions to a much lower level,” the report states.
“Such policies are inconsistent with opening new fossil fuel industries like the mega coalmines of the Galilee Basin. Doing so would generate significant climate change that will permanently damage the outstanding universal value of the Great Barrier Reef.”
The society is therefore calling for a halt to Galilee Basin mines, including the A$6.9 billion Alpha coal project and the US$4.2 billion Kevin’s Corner mine which, at a production capacity of 30 million tonnes of thermal coal annually, would be Australia’s largest coal mine. Both mines are being developed by GVK-Hancock, an Indian-Australian consortium. ACRS is also urging the Queensland and federal governments to rethink a planned expansion of the Abbot Point port, where the coal would be loaded into coal carriers for export.
The expansion calls for the dredging of 5 million tonnes of seabed in order to facilitate increased shipping through the reef.
“Dredging for the Abbot Point expansion will have substantial negative impacts on surrounding seagrass, soft corals and other macroinvertebrates, as well as turtles, dugongs and other megafauna,” the scientists say, adding that a further impact of the expansion will be an increase in coal dust pollution over the Great Barrier Reef.
This time last year the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority approved a permit for the state-owned coal terminal operator to dump as much as 3 million cubic meters of dredged sediment inside the Great Barrier Reef, a 345,400 square-kilometre marine park along the country’s eastern coast. However last October, Australia’s Queensland state government backed plans for dumping dredging waste from the expansion of coal export terminals at Abbot Point onshore, instead of near the Great Barrier Reef.
In 2013 more than 150 marine scientists from 33 institutions signed a letter warning Australian authorities of the mounting threats new coal ports and other industrial projects pose to the reef’s habitat.
8 Comments
Ranajit Das
From the article, it seems that the coal is going to be burnt at Gallilee basin to produce 705 million tonnes of CO2. Coal from Galilee basin will be exported to India and elsewhere. In any case if not Galilee, India is going to source coal from somewhere else and burn it..they have no other way at the moment. That burning has nothing to do with Great Barrier reef. Two independent issues.
The issue of dumping into the great barrier reef for port construction is no longer there, please publish the updated information.
At least these projects will create several jobs in the Australian mining industry , which is pretty much needed. The country will gain from this export as well. Several other industries servicing to them will also grow.
Investors have other places in the world to go to for coal, and they will eventually move on if Gallilee basin does not come up, However, Australia will miss the opportunity. This kind of articles create pressure on the investors to generate finance to develop the Gallilee basin.
Chris Baldys
If the comment below is correct: “The issue of dumping into the great barrier reef for port construction is no longer there, please publish the updated information” – there is still an issue of port development that still remains. Please see the picture above – at the top of the article. Is Australia really willing to forgo billions of dollars of income from tourism industry? because Queensland government can not pick up a phone and talk to federal ministry responsible for tourism or sustainability is mind boggling.
Ranajit Das
Link http://www.afr.com/business/infrastructure/onshore-dumping-for-abbot-point-dredging-waste-20150311-140rr1
JH
300 members only. I thought the days of hyperbole were over – apparently not “we are concerned”, “we believe”. This document is an article of faith and nothing to do with facts or figures.
The only numbers are on species and dates and the height of walls. No modelling no timelines no nothing.
I sure felt warm and fuzzy though.
Well meaning misdirected and usual scattergun bleating in all directions. Might help gets some new members and funds for their next jolly.
Steffen Kalbskopf
With all it’s uranium,I can never understand why Australia has not gone for nuclear power to show it’s resolve to decrease Co2 emissions. Apart from this issue, Aussie is a desperately dry land with excessive saline water, and in the long term, large scale, nuclear powered desalination will alleviate this challenge for generations. Are there any leaders with ‘kahunas’ to think beyond the next elections?!!?
HardWorker
Most people won’t put their own kitchen scraps in their back yard, there is no way we want to bury Nuclear waste for 200,000 years on our pristine soils.
Scooter
Which is weird given how geologically stable Australia is, as well as the centre being one of the least populated places on Earth. If you’re going to dump stuff somewhere, the Outback is pretty much perfect.
HardWorker
Come on now Greenies, try to provide a solution instead of just making alarmist statements.
If you drive your family friendly SUV past my house, you ‘COULD PERMANENTLY DAMAGE’ the Lemon tree and Chilli plants in my front yard. Who should I hold responsible for that? The Oil Industry, the Steel Industry, maybe the Shipping Industry for bringing the cars to our shores?
How will I ever be able to enjoy another Tequila Slammer with this sort of problem in the back of my mind?
Let us be realistic and use Gladstone as an example, Gladstone used to be a quiet little fishing village and since the mid 1800’s has gone through several expansions. Since the mid 1900’s it has been every 10-15 years.
Every single time people have complained that the fish have disappeared during the dredging, within 2 years the fish and dolphins return and flourish better than before, to a point that people expect to catch a monster fish from the banks of the rivers and creeks every time they throw a line.
These, new to the area people, work in the newly created Industries, earn a good
dollar and expect that their new life will be the same forever. When the next
expansion happens they complain that the Harbour is stuffed again, because they have got used to the way it is, not the way it was before they got there and was interrupted during the expansions for their Industries.
At the Abbott Point Terminal, they were going to put the dredged sand and old crushed coral back in the middle of the Reef (sand banks) where it came from during the last Cyclone, they are not going to dump it on top of the Coral and kill it off, the waters may become a bit cloudy where they dump it but it is not going to kill great tracts of reef, they are not that stupid to create the public back lash that will shut down their Industry.
QLD used to have three Industries, Cattle/Sheep, Coal and Tourism, now we can add a fourth, Gas, Three of these Industries provide the majority of the money to the State and have the potential to destroy the fourth, but they haven’t and with good management, they won’t, yes we need to keep watch, all of us.
If you are going to complain, show us the solution to be able to work together in balance, don’t just try to close down the money earners, we need the income,
Some good points came out of the last discussion, don’t dump the dredging’s on the Wetlands, dump it next to it to create the next reclaimed site. Good work, good solution, thanks Environmentalists,
Now to the Reef Scientists, the CO2 will be created whether it comes from our top quality Thermal Coal or from inferior overseas lower quality and/or Brown Coal.
India, China and the next ones Africa, do not have the money to create power from other sources other than cheap Coal, stop whining about the ‘POSSIBLE PROBLEMS’ for the Reef and work on ways to burn Coal cleaner or create cheaper Alternative Energies for them rather than try and shut down our Industries.
And here are the questions I really need answered,
With the tilt of the Earth, the Sun should only come as far South as the Tropic of
Capricorn,
I am in Brisbane, Why does the Sun shine on the South Side of my house during Summer?
We are now in the middle of Autumn, the Sun should be somewhere near the Equator,
Why is the Sun still roughly overhead and still below the Tropic of Capricorn?
Maybe this has something to do with warmer water temperatures, the hottest Summer on record and Coral bleaching?