You are wrong Belly, the future supply of oil is at the heart of all
considerations of all future developments.

Have you not noticed how difficult is for countries to get any
significant GDP ? Without excess GDP you can do nothing.
The increasing price of oil and coal is burning up our GDP.

Ludwig, you are dead right of course, population is the amplifier of the problem.
As well as increasing normal demand it increases travel requirements and immigrants travel more than the rest of us.

What Rechub said is also correct, the cost of energy is cutting into
everything we do. Fuel is an overhead in running any economy.

Peak Air Travel is with us now whether we wish to accept it or not.
Something else you need to remember we do not pay the US$105 oil price
that our media tells you about.
We are not at Cushing Oklahoma but we pay US$134 at Singapore.

The upshot is we need to pour the resources available now into land
transport, in particular rail. Forget the high speed rail what we
need is "Fast Enough" rail like they have in the UK which is about
twice NSW speeds. It will not need new dedicated permway just the
technical improvement and most importantly straightening the tracks
built with horses and scoops.

Bazz maybe I am, but it could be you too.
This year or the next oil prices will go very high, maybe extreme shortages, due to things like Iran, Syria North Korea.
Things briefly will get tough.
As a result other fuels will be found /used and real start to new fuels to truly being profitable.
It is the self interest and trillions of dollars to be lost by petroleum that stalls this.
Air port
Both sides of politics understand the impacts of not proceeding.
To our National Economy.
NSW is holding out for political advantage,and its costs, no other reason.
But, by the federal election, both sides will promise it.
How then will you see this if it is not the stone you wish to throw at Labor while blind to the impacts?

Look Belly, there is no way any of these other alternate fuels can
replace oil & coal. They just cannot be scaled up.
You said;
As a result other fuels will be found /used and real start to new fuels to truly being profitable.
>
But right there is the problem with these new fuels. They cannot be
produced with a sufficient gain of energy input over output so the
money side of it is irrelevant. Corn ethanol has a ratio of about 1:1.4 !
Sugar ethanol is better but not that much better.
They all use large amounts of diesel to produce and transport them.
In any case we do not have enough land.

Short term shortages are not a problem, they are short term.
You said;
Both sides of politics understand the impacts of not proceeding.

The trouble is they don't.
With the Epping-Parramatta railway, it is not needed, there is already
a rail service there ! The Rouse Hill line is badly needed.

Barry O'Farrell thinks we need another airport a long way out of Sydney.
We will not need it, Peak Air Travel is either here now or soon will
be when oil prices force passengers off planes and onto trains.
At present if I travel at off peak times I can fly to Melbourne
cheaper than I can by car, however at peak times the car is cheaper.
The train is between the two costs. It cannot be long before the off
peak air fare is more than the train. Another $40 on the oil price
would probably do it. Some expect the Tapis oil price to be $200 by
the end of this year.
I don't know what to expect, it won't be lower thats what I know.

Our population is a double edged sword.

On the one hand many would like to see it slowed, if not halted, while on the other, inf like high speed rail is just not affordable as there are not enough people out there to use it.

Where parts of urope have say 15 million people, we have 1 or 2 million. The sums just don't add up.

Like anything, if it could handle peak hour without suffering, it would lay idle for 20 out of 24 hours, and that is simply unaffordable.

We either build the inf to attract more people (must have jobs), or, we leave it as it is.

The reality is we have gone from having strong savings to massive debt in just over four years. We simp,y can't afford to continue down that road.

I say make do with what we have, ride it out, then revisit in a few years.

Now is not the time for taking risks, especially with regard to tourism, as nothing will change until the dollar drops, and that looks unlikely in the near future.

Rehctub, we have a major infrastructure problem ahead of us to get
ready for a restricted energy availability and at the same time
invent a new energy regime. We should not be exporting our natural gas
as it is an alternative transport fuel for areas where it cannot pay
to build a railway. I know, I know someone we will say we have 100s of
years of gas, but not if we have to use it to run our economies
transport as well.

It is the scale of the oil industry that upsets many peoples
understanding of these things. A good illustration is to look at Japan.
It uses 8 million barrels a day (before Fukashima).
It has to have 4 two million barrel tankers arrive in its ports
EVERY DAY !
A round trip to the Persian Gulf takes about 100 days.
That means 400 of the worlds largest tankers are engaged in supplying
just Japan.
And we think we have problems !

Bazz, I'm with you there, I don't think we should be exporting our gas either, or at least not giving it away, which is the case.

Trouble is, take away the gas and coal, what's left?

There is little doubt we are in a right mess and, if the likes of China cut their spending, we will be in huge trouble.

Another huge problem is that our governments are now reliant on mining income (taxes) just to keep the wheels turning, whereas, these taxes should be money going in to the bank, for the day when mining is no longer the driver of our economy.

The selling of assetts ( minerals) should be for profit, not to repay debts, or to fund the hanger oners.

Once they are gone, the debt will still be there and those who take from the system will still be there as well.

Then what?