Australian government suppresses its own Peak Oil report

I came across this comment - 


"Don't shrug this off. This story is significant, not because of the report itself but because an official report on the outlook for world oil output, compiled for the Australian Government, has clearly been suppressed, apparently because of reluctance to face its implications.

"No trace of the report – Report 117 – is left on the relevant Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) website. It has been replaced by a new "Report 117" on an unrelated topic. It's reminiscent of the "Hirsch Report" on peak oil that the US Department of Energy tried to "disappear". IF the story could get into the mainstream media it could be embarrassing for the Australian government, but what are the odds?

"The Australian Government's recent "Draft Energy White Paper 2011" is blithely confident about Australia's energy future, while admitting that it has only "about 0.3 percent of world oil reserves".

All evidence of this treachery went down the memory hole

This is a matter of serious national security concern but the Gillard Labor-Green-Independent minority government is so conflicted with its stance on global warming and the hated carbon dioxide tax that it cannot bring itself to address the crisis.

Piers Akerman 

the Daily Telegraph,

20 January, 2012

Instead, it has tried to hide the evidence.

Unfortunately for them, a Frenchman named Jean-Marc Jancovici has foiled their plans and put the document on the web. It is called Report 117: Transport Energy Futures -- Long Term Oil Supply Trends and Projections.

The report was prepared for the Minister for Infrastructure Anthony Albanese by Dr David Gargett of the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE).

BITRE provides economic analysis, research and statistics on infrastructure, transport and regional development issues to inform both Australian government policy development and wider community understanding.

But in this instance, Albanese and the Gillard government don't want the community to understand what is going on and have removed the report from government websites -- despite the fact that the report actually invites comments.

According to BITRE, Albanese declined to release the report. It has been sent, however, to a number of European organisations (which probably explains how it eventually ended up on the French website).

Albanese has given no reason for not officially releasing the report.

If you seek the report on BITRE's website you will find all reports up to 116 in a neat numerical order but after 116 they are in no order at all. Some are not even numbered.

That's to confuse searchers and make it less obvious that Report 117 has disappeared down the memory hole.

In George Orwell's classic 1984, the totalitarian government used "memory holes" to make politically inconvenient documents and records disappear. A document placed down the memory hole was supposedly transported to an incinerator from which "not even the ash remains".

Well, this time the ashes of Report 117 have remained, and the report has ended up on a website of a private French citizen -- with the only plausible explanation being that it was leaked.

According to the Parliamentary Library, the current BITRE website doesn't list the March 2009 report despite earlier and later reports being listed. There is a website which archives "old" websites (www.archive.org) and the report is not listed.

The report has been all but erased because it points out that our self-sufficiency in liquid fuels is over.

We are not even meeting our international requirement under the International Energy Agency agreement to maintain a strategic petroleum reserve equal to 90 days of prior year's net oil imports -- the purpose of which is to provide economic and national security during an energy crisis.

At current prices, it would cost the nation about $300 million just to buy that amount of fuel. Storage would be extra.

Federal Liberal MP Craig Kelly, who represents Hughes in NSW, is justifiably alarmed by the government's attempts to hide the truth. Yesterday he said the report gave an ominous warning about supplies of conventional liquid fuel, and the risk to those supplied, which present a real danger to our nation's economic prosperity.

"This is a real problem that we will have to face in years to come. So rather than face up to the problem and look at how we can try and minimise the risks -- if the report doesn't exist, the government can pretend they 'didn't know' therefore they can avoid responsibility, or public discussion," he said.

"Second, at the moment we are highly exposed to the risk of a global oil shock, but we in Australia have the ability to insulate ourselves by the development of coal liquefaction plants (coal to liquid oils technology).

"This is not pie in the sky. Germany used coal liquefaction during WWII to ensure oil supplies, the South Africans have used it for decades (brought on by sanctions), and the Chinese have opened a big plant as China, like Australia, has plenty of coal, but limited oil.

"Australia, with our abundant supplies of coal, is one of the few countries today where coal liquefaction makes economic sense.

"This is our national economic advantage, of which we must take advantage if we are doing to maintain our economic prosperity."

But the Gillard government has also embarked on the destruction of Australia's natural advantage with its introduction of the carbon dioxide tax from July 1.

Kelly argues that the international oil price makes coal-to-liquid-fuel technology viable and says there is substantially less polluting particulate matter in liquid fuel produced by such technology.

"Particulate matter kills. This is a huge issue in western Sydney which is being swept under the carpet," he says..

"The World Health Organisation has an upper recommended limit of a yearly average of 20 ug/m3 for Pm10 (a type of particulate matter). Europe has recently made a legally enforceable limit of 20 ug/m3 for a yearly average. Areas of western Sydney are sitting right on the yearly average of 20 ug/m3, and planned growth is likely to push us above this level."

He says Australia has no such yearly average limits. If we produced fuels from coal liquefaction we'd likely be able to keep under 20 ug/m3 in western Sydney.

Labor is ignoring the health of its heartland western Sydney constituents to pander to the Greens.

Kelly admits that coal liquefaction results in higher CO2 emissions than other fuels and says those whose faith tells them that CO2 is a satanic gas that must be cleansed from our world rather than being plant food -- or the gas that makes chardonnay into champagne -- think coal liquefaction is an evil.

"Therefore any report that provides evidence that we in Australia should be developing or even considering coal liquefaction plants is also an evil -- and must be destroyed, hence Report 117 disappears," he says.

Also, the upward-escalating CO2 tax kills off the economic viability of such plants in Australia.

We have an estimated 200 billion tonnes of brown coal reserves with the potential to produce an estimated 120 billion barrels of fuel oil, or 60 times as much as came out of Bass Strait back when Australia was self-sufficient in liquid fuels.

The Gillard government doesn't want you to know that we face a crisis and it certainly doesn't want you to know we hold the key to a solution.

A critique of this article is available HERE