The increase in oil and gas use unsustainable and will be until is gone . The expansion of road transport facilities intensifies traffic congestion. The basic reason is that motor vehicle use is subsidized and thus the growth of the freeway and highway system leads to an increase in the demand for their use which increase private debt levels. Locally sourced production that saves money on transportation costs is what is needed to contribute to the revival of manufacturing and Constrain Chinese import model. Being near your market will be more important in the 21st century cut the growth in private debt levels

What is urgently needed is more public transport and active transport, to end subsidites to car commuters and increased tariffs on imported cars and turning Australian car production around to electric cars and petrol electric hybrids

This is simple economics. You subsidize something, people use more of it. Few who use the roads pay the full cost of their use — especially when you consider the costs of things such as urban pollution, depletion of oil reserves, global warming and focusing on road maintenance. Indeed, some parts of the road system are at breaking point now. The road foundation is so bad in parts that just laying new asphalt won’t work as the surface doesn’t last. As the surface gets rough, traffic slows and backups begin.

In the forseable future Australians will spend more time idling away in traffic. Congestion will continue to raise the cost of transporting goods. Costs to use this network will just go up and up. Thinking of it in this way, it signals a crisis for an old order and perhaps the birth of something new. But unlikely with new mob in Canberra

The first thing to recognise is that the shale oil boom is a con.
It has extended the life of big oil so that they can continue to lobby (bribe) governments to do their bidding.
It is not a panacea for continued business as usual. The cost is too high, the polluting effects are too high and it will not last for too long.
In the big tight oil plays in the US, there are wells every 750 meters.
They cost a fortune to drill and only produce for about five years.
It is not a profit making business but staggers along to keep the hype about the great US economy recovery going.
This is not a recipe for cheap oil.
It will fizzle out in the near future as the costs escalate.

Ahhh, Robert le Page stole my thunder !

Yes shale oil & gas is a giant Ponzi scheme that needs more and more
money to keep going. It is the financial side of the oil industry that
is pushing it the hardest.

Not once in the article was there even a hint at the elephant in the shale room.

Decline ! Average decline of tight oil is 60% a year and the less
successful wells it is as high as 80% a year.
The problem they are having is that the further they drill away from
the "sweet spots" the faster the decline rates.
The Bakken is a good example of this, there are already signs that
the Bakken field has started its decline.
What this means is that they cannot drill enough wells fast enough to
keep to keep up the whole fields production.

It has been calculated that the US tight (shale) oil fields will be
in rapid decline by 2017 to 2020. Probably led by Bakken and closely
followed by the Texas fields.

We, the world, face the reality that cheap oil is over, and petrol
and diesel prices must rise fast just to keep supply for essential services.
As we mix increasing amounts of unconventional oils with conventional
oils the pump prices will escalate to about five to eight times
the present price, if and only if, the supply can be kept at the current rate.
If it cannot then $15 a litre is quite on the cards.
However there is a buffer available, convert cars & trucks to natural gas.
That would require stopping export of natural gas.

Here in this country we are cutting our own throats by closing our
refineries and importing 100% of our petrol & diesel.
Our stupid politicians just cannot see what that means.