By Jo Nova
What’s left of Australian manufacturing
The CEO of Bluescope Steel is a fan of renewables, but for Mark Vassella to make steel, what he wants is cheap gas, not wind and solar power — and he’s getting desperate. These are strong words from a CEO of one our Big-50. “Manufacturing is at a ‘tipping point‘” he says. “Energy costs are now 3 to 4 times higher than the US”. Furthermore, “Without immediate intervention there will be no Future Made in Australia.” — He twists the knife, talking about the PM’s pet project (the one where we somehow make solar and wind power here cheaper than the slaves do in China. )
He’s especially scathing of the idea that one of the biggest exporters of LNG in the world, now has to import it back.
“ In what world does exporting LNG in massive quantities only to re-import it to supply a shorter domestic market make any sense? It’s like importing sand into the Sahara.”
Vassella knows US and Australian energy prices all too well. Bluescope also own the North Star steel mill in Ohio and is looking to expand further in the US.
BlueScope CEO: Manufacturing at ‘tipping point’ over energy costs
By Perry Williams, The Australian
“Today, the situation is more dire than ever,” BlueScope chief executive Mark Vassella said after its annual results on Monday.
“Manufacturing is at a tipping point with energy costs that are no longer just too high, but unsustainable. What was once our competitive advantage is gone.”
“And let me be really clear about this,” Mr Vassella said. “This does not increase our sovereign risk. Restricting exporters from buying domestic gas for re-export and prioritising domestic supply over LNG imports. In what world does exporting LNG in massive quantities only to re-import it to supply a shorter domestic market make any sense? It’s like importing sand into the Sahara.”
BlueScope warns soaring energy costs threaten Australian manufacturing as profit drops 90pc
ABC News
BlueScope has sounded the alarm over Australia’s energy crisis, warning that unsustainably high gas prices are pushing domestic manufacturing to a “tipping point”.
The steelmaker has reported a full year profit of $84 million, a 90 per cent drop from the $721 million reported a year ago.
“Without immediate intervention there will be no Future Made in Australia.”
Mr Vassella said BlueScope had submitted a detailed response to the federal government’s Gas Market Review including suggested immediate and long-term changes.
At least he’s honest about why he likes unreliable generators — they buy his steel. So he repeats the impossible mantra:
“We need more energy, we need it to be renewable, we need it to be reliable, we need it to be affordable,” Mr Vassella said. “And we were supportive of the wind industry. Our products go into the wind farm industry.”
Just so everyone can appreciate the historic inanity of our situation — this graph below is the state of the top five players in the global LNG export market.
Australia is sending off ships full of LNG only to pay someone else to turn them around and send them back.
Alternately we could just dig up more brown coal, more black coal, some uranium, or we could explore for more gas, but we don’t because we dream of being a better global weather controller.
Interestingly the US has launched itself out of bottom left during the first Trump presidency, right through Covid, and it kept on growing (despite Joe and Kamala).
Photo: Smelter From a Bluescope video | Photo: LNG carrie by Shahamah
Everything you write about Australia can be said of the UK, I fear, plus we have many more ‘New Britons’, even proportionally, than does Australia.
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At least the UK has Nuclear Power and great Companies like Rolls Royce. And the Reform Party is waiting in the wings.
Not so Australia. The Libs are worse than useless. At least the Nats have some bottle.
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No, the U.K. does not have the ability to build like they used to. 😱
Their nuclear power stations were built years ago.
I worked for Babcock Power Nuclear Pressure Vessels branch in early 1980’s.
They have lost the skills and infrastructure and have to get China to show them how.
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The Lunatics have taken over the Asylum and the ‘Pollies’ are the Lunatics.
Vale Australia which is fast becoming an Asylum.
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Why Anthony Albanese risks becoming the ‘Dangerous Dan’ of Canberra
Anthony Albanese could well become the Dan Andrews of federal politics. Albanese and Andrews are good friends. Once they were housemates.
Both from Labor’s left, they became utterly ruthless machine politicians.
Andrews remains an extremely popular figure in the ALP. He won lots of elections and entrenched Labor into unchallengeable political dominance in Victoria. Albanese wants to entrench Labor federally into a position where it is the natural government of Australia.
If a party achieves electoral dominance through good performance, what you might call ethically innocent good governance and good politics, that’s entirely to be praised. But Andrews in substance was a disaster for Victoria.
The idea that the benighted, suffering citizens of that diminished jurisdiction should have to fork out for a statue of the all-conquering Dan adds a layer of irony and contempt to an era of failure, one in which autonomous institutions became weak or compromised.
Andrews was premier from 2014 to 2023. His government led the nation in profligate spending and he left office with Victoria having a bigger debt than any other state. He was absolutely brilliant at campaigning and, partly as a result, absolutely terrible at governing. He left the state a deeply dysfunctional education system. He pursued every trendy, woke, identity-political cause (except for his genuine sympathy for Israel) going.
There was something approaching, in effect if not in design, a two-tier legal system. You could go to jail for promoting an anti-Covid lockdown demonstration, but left-wing causes were given very wide leeway and tolerance.
Andrews was often contemptuous of parliament. The scrutiny of the Victorian government became so anaemic that major scandals, such as the famous “red shirts” case, which involved the misuse of electoral staff for political purposes, even when exposed had no consequences.
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Deadly Dan did not have to lift a finger to get elected. 😱💪
The L.N.P. were his secret weapon.
Did all of Dan’s heavy lifting.
What hope has Victoria when the Loyal Opposition are not smart enough to be the Village Idiot. 🥴🤡
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Whyalla Steel will close soon, it’s already running on subsidies,
The nickel refining industry has long gone!
Mr Isa mines is stuffed with the refinery paralysed!
The aluminium industry is next!
The media won’t talk about everything that’s on the verge of shutting down!
Can someone out there list the losses of manufacturing companies over the past 10 years
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The Port Pirie smelter has been on life support for quite a few years now… as has the Hobart Zinc refinery, which started to cut production by 25% in March.
A pilot Antimony processing plant is likely to be built at Port Pirie, now it has $135 million in funding from the federal, SA, and Tasmanian governments. I am sceptical, ad imagine all manner of red and green tape will appear shortly, but you never know…. it could succeed despite the obstacles – and I hope it does.
With the current federal government fast-tracking industrial and economic demise more efficiently than the Liberals, one can only wonder how long Nyrstar stays in the country.
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$135M for a new plant. I don’t think so.
Firstly design fees will take $10M, if not $20M. Planning another $10M. Approvals process, court time, lawyers, another $10M.
And then the stop go paddle holders, all 20 of them, each wanting $200k per year.
And that’s all before you start leveling the ground ready for the drainage to go in.
$135M barely gets you a row of houses anymore.
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They did say pilot plant (as did I)… but I don’t claim to know how big said pilot plant would be.
Plus, thiere was no mention of how much Nyrstar was going to spend themselves.
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Construction labour is over $200k per year per attendee, (note I didn’t say worker).
A VERY SMALL pilot plant, where you test out the process would be around 1 year in the construction phase, attendees on site averaging around 50. So the labour costs for that little plant are going to be $10M. Add up all the previous costs and you are left with about $95M for all the plant equipment, freight, insurances, PPE, accommodation, flights, management during construction, etc, etc, etc.
I just don’t see anything larger than a 50m by 100m shed for that sort of money, even less if you want to put some plant inside and connect some sort of power to it.
My 20 years in heavy/industrial construction gives you a good idea of just where all the money goes. Very little goes into plant and equipment unless you can build it as modules in Indonesia and ship it to site ready to land onto some footings.
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Correct on every level.
If you want an insider’s real-world view on global trade and China checkout:
YouTube: Inside China: Business by Kevin Walmsley ref: [email protected]
A reality check on global trade from inside the Dragon’s lair from an American Businessman working and living in China running an export manufacturing business, then this YouTube site will give you hard facts and insights from someone who has to walk the talk every day to survive.
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In your rush to hammer out another bizarrely condescending comment, you still seem to think the budget is $135 million, but as I already said, the Nyrstar budget has not been stated.. at least nowhere I have seen. Maybe it’s a lot, maybe it isn’t…If you know some specifics, please feel free to share.
You seem desperate to somehow prove me wrong….yet… I really claimed nothing in particular. I merely stated the funding level from governments, and an expression of general goodwill towards this project, knowing as I do, people who live and work in Port Pirie, and those who have done so in the past.
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If the Australian government were smart, they’d be subsidizing the heck out of rare earth extraction industries. The Trump administration desperately wants to cut China’s multiple monopolies in rare earths out of America’s supply chain, and the first friendly ally to step up and make it happen is going to reap a bonanza. At least, they will if they beat American mining companies to the punch. Australia has oodles of mineral resources, much of which are located away from dense population centers, which should make them a prime candidate. Sadly both USA and Australian mining interests are hamstrung by watermelon (green on the outside, red on the inside) environmental bureaucracies that want nothing more than to kill extraction industries dead), so it will be a long slog to bring any change to fruition.
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One more question about purposeful destruction of ALL INDUSTRIES & MINING !
Where are the MSM. Where is the criticism & questioning from the media. Zip, zilch, zero!!
The only criticism from opposition is coming from Nationals leader.
Liberals as usual have nothing to say unless of course they need to test the wind to make sure that nobody is offended by their words or they’re arguing about which gender should make the announcement which in any event will be a nothing burger deluxe!
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“Where are the MSM. Where is the criticism & questioning from the media. Zip, zilch, zero!!”
The Fourth Estate are in lockstep with the Fifth Columnists.
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Where?
Try Sky.
They are trying.
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I think Sky News, in particular the 5 hours at night with Kenny, Credlin, Bolt, Markson and Murray is the only station that is telling it how it is on a variety of subjects from Israel to , so called, renewable energy.
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One more question about purposeful destruction of ALL INDUSTRIES & MINING !
Where are the MSM. Where is the criticism & questioning from the media. Zip, zilch, zero!!
The only criticism from opposition is coming from Nationals leader.
Liberals as usual have nothing to say unless of course they need to test the wind to make sure that nobody is offended by their words or they’re arguing about which gender should make the announcement which in any event will be a nothing burger deluxe!
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IF the Australian government were smart….if only…Labor are only just smart enough to fool a lump of the gullible public with lies and false promises while simultaneously destroying all that was good about our culture and economy.
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” … destroying all that was good about our culture and economy. ”
I wonder – might that be the plan of the Brezhnevites?
Destroy the West from ‘within’?
Certainly seems to be working here in the UK.
Two years ago – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66060490
“RAF diversity targets discriminated against white men”
“The head of the RAF has admitted some men were discriminated against. The internal inquiry was sparked by the resignation of a female RAF Group Captain who told her superiors the policy penalised white men. The inquiry found she had faced significant and unreasonable pressure to meet diversity targets.”
Not the best of the best to be fast jet pilots, but a diverse set of people …
” … those who led the initiatives believed they were ‘pushing the boundaries’ of positive action rather than acting unlawfully, …”
And ALL of our police, and Nurses, MUST have a degree.
Some, I have no problem with – but all …
I won’t go on, but you probably get the idea.
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If a business was sensible, it wouldn’t accept a cent of government subsidy. Take a subsidy and it’ll have public servants making decisions for it. If the Australian government WAS smart, it would make sure that any startup company could compete on the world stage for product, price, conditions, wages, costs and profit. Unfortunately, a company’s high performance in product, conditions and wages don’t make up for the dismal failure in price, costs and profit.
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It would have been much cheaper to shut the plant down, then give every adult in Whyalla a quarter of a million dollars to assist with relocating to alternative locations that had better job prospects.
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According to the Australian Industry Group and ABS data cited in a July 2025 report, 5,136 established manufacturing businesses closed in the year to June 2024. That figure refers specifically to manufacturing, not general business exits across all sectors.
Indicative Breakdown of Manufacturing Closures (Estimated Share):
Food & Beverage ~20% Includes regional processors, dairy, and legacy brands like Bega
Plastics & Chemicals ~15% Qenos closure; high energy costs drove exits
Glass & Ceramics ~5% Oceania Glass shut down; energy-intensive operations
Fertiliser & Explosives ~10% Incitec Pivot and Orica downsizing
Metal & Fabrication ~15% BlueScope downsizing; smaller firms hit by input costs
Textiles & Apparel ~5% Long-term decline; few remaining domestic producers
Machinery & Equipment ~10% SME manufacturers affected by supply chain and demand shifts
Other ~20% Includes niche and regional manufacturers
• These are estimates based on known closures, sectoral trends, and insolvency data—not official ABS sub-sector counts.
• Victoria had the highest concentration of closures, suggesting a geographic skew.
• Many closures were SMEs, often family-run or regional, not captured in headline corporate news.
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Are you sure about Bega? Still on sale here
https://begagroup.com.au/
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It’s obvious that, as a business, the only reason Bluescope is still operating in Australia is that they could not sell their Australian plant and equipment.
To up and leave all of their infrastructure behind would smash the company.
Nobody in their right mind would buy into the situation that they are in.
We are Not on the edge of the cliff: we are up to our knees in the mud of modern ugliness and unless reality returns next week. We Are Done For.
When government at every level sees “borrowing” as legitimate to cover profligate expenditure, we are already up to our necks in the swamp.
The Australian population have officially been deemed as fools by the political class and next week we will all be gives jobs in Canberra, but Working From Home.
Goodbye Australia, it was nice knowing you.
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Bluescope advertises that their products are made FROM Australia, NOT IN Australia!!!!!!!!! A not insignificant distinction.
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I see quite a number of products ‘Proudly Designed in the UK’.
And when you look – ‘Made in China’ … in [very] small print.
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Not in the news was the development of new blast furnace technology here but not to be developed for Australia as the operating costs, taxes and regulation compliance costs are not competitive
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“Decarbonising Europe by deindustrialisation is idiotic,” Sir Jim Ratcliffe said in an open letter to European politicians. “We lose jobs and security and the CO2 simply floats back over Europe anyway.”
“The gas bill is €100 million higher than its US equivalent,” said Sir Jim. “The electricity bill is €40 million higher than in the US. And the carbon tax bill is rising towards a shocking €100 million.”
https://www.ineos.com/inch-magazine/articles/issue-29/european-chemical-sector-on-the-brink-of-extinction/
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As planned.
You will own nothing and ‘they’ will be happy.
Why would you want domestic production, (which was existing and you had no ownership in), when you can smash that ‘competition’ and use your overseas producers to supply the demand, making a dollar at the factory, a dollar in the shipping and a dollar in the distribution.
This was never about making the weather change, it was about destroying a business or two so that a new player could make a larger profit. And the taxpayer/consumer will be paying at every step along the way.
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Marxist ideology. Abolish private management of industry.
The sozzled thugs who run our labour in heavy industry believe that if they break the bosses the “workers” will walk back into the factories and keep them running.
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One of the top countries worldwide for natural gas reserves Australia has most of the reserves locked away from extraction for political reasons and purposes despite this common wealth of Australians being managed not owned by elected Members of Parliaments.
It is claimed that below Gippsland in Victoria there is more natural gas than there was in Bass Strait before operations commenced to extract from that gas field.
One example of several, another not very far from the South Australia Moomba gas fields under Coober Pedy.
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“Australia is sending off ships full of LNG only to pay someone else to turn them around and send them back.”
🤔A little clarity, please.
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I think the gist is that production is predicted to fall to a level insufficient to supply domestic use and existing export contract commitments.
The exports will have to be met, so imports will be required, it may not literally be their own gas (+$s on top), but it could be.
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John, fair question. I should have spelled it out. Australia exports so much gas, but also has stopped exploration in some states. We’re in the stupid position of running out of gas on the east coast (where 90% of Australians live) and are actually starting to build import facilities to bring in LNG ships. On the West coast the government set up mandatory reserves where something like 15% of the gas was made available for domestic use, but the East coast didn’t do that. Since we are cutting back on coal use, and don’t use uranium at all, we’ve squeezed out the supply to the point where we’re running short of gas. Bizarrely stupid.
Though the latest news only last week is that the new import facilities are being delayed indefinitely.
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It’s interesting that the US on net has so far avoided nudging as close to calamity as AUs and the UK. The big difference, IMHO,
generally unremarked, is that the US has states with a modicum of independence, and for more than a decade has been making the U-Haul
trailer company rich by sorting ourselves into red and blue states. New York and California are every bit as energy challenged as the
UK, while most of the southern states have plenty of energy and are growing fast. And the population shift has supported the politics of energy and industry,
so the jurisdictions that have a robust economy have a population of will workers and conservative voters, while Cali leads in energy prices, unemployment counts,
and welfare population.
This is not helpful day-to-day for the Californian with inherited property or a geographically constrained business, but it’s like having a good lifeboat if the
boat you’re in can’t weather the storm. California doesn’t have to fix it’s problems for disgusted Californians to leave, but remain close enough to visit the grandparents on a weekend. They have plenty of fuel but import at great cost as does Australia — but at least much of the money stays in the US.
Hope y’all can fix things. Once a party of politically deft economic fools rig the system, the only way out may be bankruptcy court. AS Adma smith said, “there is a lot of duin in a nation”. One doesn’t have to bottom out before fixing things, and if that means alternate energy capital holders go broke….
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Thanks for the insight. 😀
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The big difference was Trump from 2016 to 2020. He provided direction and made the hoax mush clearer.
Australia almost made it with Abbott but the UK cooked a plan to oust Abbott by asking him to knight the Duke, which was, unsurprisingly, unpopular with The Australian public.
Australia had a 1 year reversal in the march to the cliff. USA had 4 years and is now into another 4 years where the ship will be completely turned rather than just slowed down
States cannot turn down Federal gifts. They disadvantage their constituents if they do not take what is on offer. And Federal governmentents have an unlimited supply of money – except in places like Europe where individual nations have given away their authority to create money.
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As populations move from Blue states to Red states it makes sense that those Red states should have more representatives than the Blue states. The Demoncrats are furious that this will give Red states more seats in the House of representatives. But that is democracy in action and should serve as a warning that bad governance has consequences. We once had states that had different education systems, that had different tax systems and different licensing conditions so that there was competition just as the founders envisaged. Now there is a sameness unlike what we see in the US. The only reason to move now is the weather.
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If only Australia followed the example of Qatar, which was partly implemented in WA, then Gas would be cheap and plentiful. But, of course, Qatar is not like us westerners, so we should not use their example
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Hell no. It is LNG – it contains carbon. When burnt to releaser energy, it releases CO2. It is not green. Vasella wants green hydrogen. He is a “renewables” nutter. Bliuescope even supply into the wind industry. He does not want fossil fuels.
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You’ve made a good point PF. ( for once !) I’ve been hearing about Qatar for years now and how they reap all the royalties from their gas exports and put Australia to shame. We, on the other hand, just effectively gave our gas away to China and Japan and locked it away in future contracts. People blame John Howard- maybe so, but there was also a bunch of companies, government advisors/ bureaucrats who all participated in that flawed market. At least Western Australia had the sense to allocate some gas for themselves. For Victoria to be now building gas import terminals when the state has realisable gas deposits it just bizarre. But, here we are. Most of the idiocy is because of the belief in AGW or man made climate scam.
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So it is just another game of blame shifting, as the reason that we have expensive gas, and expensive steel is because we are spineless in negotiations for inputs (including iron ore) and we use inefficient technologies to make the steel. we still act is if it was 1950, and we had high immigration, and relatively competitive technology, but we forgot the iron law of capitalism, “innovate or die”
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Yet we still have high immigration, but with a focus on security guards and local shop and petrol station operators.
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I’m not sure if Qatar has a gas reservation scheme, which is a great success in WA, giving us lots of cheap gas for domestic and industrial use. And keeping our electricity prices low, with only a one cent price rise recently.
Also easy to add gas peakers in the Perth suburbs along the north-south gas line that runs through Perth.
And gas is also fed to Kalgoorlie and right down to Esperance on the south coast.
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Alas gas pipelines need large volumes to continue to operate in a profitable manner.
As of 31 March 2023, the Esperance Gas
Distribution Network will no longer supply
natural gas to the Esperance community.
https://www.climatehousing.com.au/post/getting-off-gas-in-esperance
Though natural gas in Esperance is still part of the electricity generation process.
https://pacificenergy.com.au/project/esperance-power-station/
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Thanks Fred, very interesting. I’m guessing that insufficient residences took up the offer to use gas in their homes.
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You mean the airport stripsearching of females.
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We do that already in Australia using electronic scanners.
Lookup terahertz nudie scanner and there’s plenty of example photos showing what goes on in our airports.
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You think gas would be more plentiful if only governments taxed it more?! Ummm … I don’t even know where to start answering that … you are now so far out on a limb you are arguing up is down.
What is the effect of high tax on cigarettes? It discourages people from smoking. What do you think happens when taxes are imposed on industry? Seems unlikely it would have the reverse effect and encourage more industry.
https://greens.org.au/vic/no-coal-and-gas
There’s the reason, it has nothing to do with Qatar.
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High taxes on cigarettes just supports a black market and criminality. You also lose your view of how much is consumed as the government is out of the loop and guessing.
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Australia is de-industrialising because of this energy insanity. It is as simple – and terrifying- as that.
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Australia is de-industrialising because of this energy insanity. It is as simple – and terrifying- as that.
Perhaps the biggest danger lies in a belief that doubling down on a net-zero energy transition will produce the economy-wide benefits that are necessary for future prosperity.
Grasping the net-zero ambition is being presented as low-hanging fruit. According to Productivity Commission chair Danielle Wood, given the size of the environmental and economic prize “net zero could be ground zero for productivity reform”.
Her suggestion is for an overhaul of environmental legislation to empower an independent regulator backed up by “a well-resourced strike team with strong clean-energy capability dedicated to approvals for high-priority national projects and a co-ordinator-general to work with and across government to keep approvals on track”.
This is a recipe for more bureaucracy to run roughshod over the objections of those who stand in the way.
Missing has been a clear explanation of how exactly doubling down on renewable energy will deliver the productivity boost that is needed. This is particularly so given the amount of government money that must be waged to underwrite the profitability of projects – that by necessity of intermittency must be overbuilt – and the rollout of billions of dollars’ worth of controversial transmission infrastructure.
Experience to date is that the cost of the energy transition belongs firmly on the negative side of the productivity ledger. As has been noted repeatedly, Australia’s traditional competitive advantage of low-cost energy is being squandered on a clean-energy transition that has proved more costly and less effective than was promised.
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Terrifying it is indeed. Historically Australia didn’t have a lot going for ourselves on the world stage. We’re far away from most decision centres and have a low population. Not good if you are an international business executive tasked with selling “stuff”. We have some nice attributes such as good climate, stable government and a modern economy. Compared to many other countries in the world we still rate well. But in order to attract industries and companies in the past the real kicker was- Australia has a very dependable energy supply/ electric grid and the power is cheap. That latter advantage would be the most powerful attractant for any industrial power broker. But now we cant claim cheap electricity- so why would anyone base any new manufacturing or industry in this country? Nice beaches and high quality food can only get you so far. (once we even had cheap food- but that also has reversed)
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Government Borrowing: how much and from whom?
Currently Australia has borrowings of one thousand million dollars which represents a personal share for each Australian of about AUD$40. Interest on that may be about sixty million dollars a year.
Is this total debt figure correct?
Sorry, that total was wrong.
Multiply everything by one thousand
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The Fix
Currently Australia has borrowings of one thousand, Billion dollars, which represents a personal share for each Australian of about AUD$40,000 .
Interest on that may be about sixty billion dollars a year or AUD$2,400 each per year.
Who owns the mortgage on Australia?
Perhaps Dan might know.
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Important to clarify what debt, gross debt is what is owed and what interest is calculated against.
Net debt is gross debt less assets like the Future Fund investments.
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Nett debt. An accountants dream solution to the problem.
IF the future fund makes a profit, IT keeps the profit and increases it’s assets. It doesn’t send the balance back to the people.
The last time I looked, the future fund was all about trying to fund the massive pensions owing to the public service. I doubt that it has enough money yet.
So I wouldn’t count that as an asset, UNLESS you are all also counting the unfunded pensions in the debt too. Since that is effectively a future debt, you just know that the government have already hidden that from the bottom line. Only putting into the budget the amount that falls due in any one year, not the full liability owing.
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😀
All government debt is gross, ugly and a burden we shouldn’t have.
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But Governments are addicted to giving away ‘freee stuff’ to its [likely] voters …
It’s bribery, with their [and other people’s] money.
All so they can say ‘We’re now spending X £million on cars for folk with depression;
‘And Y £million on ‘freee’ school lunches for all kids [except those parasites who go to private schools];
‘And Z £million on workshops on transgenderism for civil servants, in office time’
Whilst pensions, defence [if well spent!], and help for the destitute, probably do good, it is unclear how much total good HM UK Government is doing with the money it is spending this year – in 23-24 they spent about £1,200,000,000,000, so likely ten or twelve percent more two years later.
Auto – feeling poorer by the minute.
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Mark Vassella. Phht, what would he know. He’s not even a professional politician or an activist.
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If he actually stated this:
Then he proves himself a moron. Supporting the wind industry in Australia is immoral. If the first sentence was not inconsistent drivel then Bluescope should be building their own turbines and generating green hydrogen for their process needs. If there was money in it, why isn’t Bluescope doing that.
The reason Ohio is cheaper for manufacturing is because the USA had Trump from 2016 to 2000. It will ben even better placed after Trump 2.
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I thought he proved himself to be a moron too Rick.
Either that or a grifter happy to go along with it as long as he was making money off the scam that is unreliables.
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He seems to describing nuclear power. It’s the best fit with those words
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Simple – IF (big if) net zero emissions was important (I don’t accept that it is) then zero emissions nuclear power stations are the best option.
Power stations are superior.
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He is the grifter absolutely.
But the truth is, the government is now 25% (more) of the economy. Almost all CEO’s are frightened to speak up and say anything that makes them unpopular with the biggest “customer” in the country (which also approves all their projects). Look at the capricious whimsical blistering pain Tanya Plibersec put McPhillamys Gold Mine though. Cost them hundreds of millions. No company can afford to be honest now. They know the government can add fantasy clauses to their environmental regs and wipe out their businesses.
I don’t know the McPhillamy’s even annoyed the government. They got hit anyway. So Vassella must be pretty desperate to say anything this harsh, because there are big risks in getting on the Uniparty radar.
Yes, all the stupid corporate CEO’s should have said something 20 years ago. But the captured media has been awful about supporting whistleblowers for decades too.
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“We need more energy, we need it to be renewable, we need it to be reliable, we need it to be affordable”
Everyone knows the last two are incompatible with the first two.
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Aussies importing gas is the same as importing more sand to the Sahara and that’s about as clueless as our stupid govt is today.
Toxic , unreliable, super expensive W & S are a disaster and can only hasten our demise as a modern OECD country.
We’ll still be burdened with TRILLIONs of $ of debt when we could be using cheap reliable BASELOAD energy that will last until 2100.
So why are they so barking mad when the answer is so easily understood?
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We are seeing the sunset of our heavy industries, which seems to be the script for both sides of the political aisle.
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You would think that the Unions were all for Heavy Industry to stay here.
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Nah, just sue the employers like Qantas. The judge ruled that the dismissal of employees during covid was “unfair”. The penalty was a fine of $90,000,000.
That’s right, ninety million dollars of which $50,000,000 will be paid to the union. The remaining $40,000,000 will be divided up somehow amongst other agrieved parties. Presumably, some where along the line those put out of work will receive “something”. I’m sure Qantas won’t simply put their prices up to cover this penalty.
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Most union membership now are public service employees.
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Mark V is part of the problem. It’s only now he starts to speak up, whereas he and the rest of the leaders of industry needed to be making such statements years ago. But, the irony is he believes in renewables, which means he believes in the whole man made climate change scam. But like the politicians, he’s ok on his big salary and benefits and lifestyle. Employ young Australians in profit making meaningful jobs- pfffft, they can go work in government. It will be very soon that the only work sectors making export income for Australia will be our farmers and miners.
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The decline of Australia continues.
A really strong Opposition can make a difference. If they could get the message across.
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Strong opposition ……….surely you jest!
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And that’s the problem.
There isn’t one.
Australia is effectively a One Party State as proven by the fact that the Left in Australia are operating fully without restraint, scrutiny or accountability.
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The first sentence is obviously the magical thinking of a moron. If any of that was practical, Vassella would not be at all concerned with what Australia was doing with LNG exports. If it was not magical thinking then he would be building a green hydrogen plant running on wind to fuel his operations. Even Blackout has gone cold on that one.
If they are selling products into the wind industry then they are party to the terminal decline in productivity in Australia and it would be value adding to shut up shop. They are helping to destroy the economy.
All Australia needs to do to dramatically improve productivity is to follow Trump’s example and kill the climate hoax. That would include selling off their CSIRO, their ABC and their BoM. Three productivity destroying funding black holes.
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Supposedly he’s selling products into the wind industry? Is it really that much? Would it parallel the volumes of steel we once supplied to our car manufacturing sector? My gut feel is probably no. There’s certainly some steel in a wind turbine tower- the tower is about 2-300 tonnes depending on size and about 2/3 is steel. There’s upwards of 100 tonnes of steel in the footing for each turbine. So, maybe 300 tonnes, tops. Obviously, what Mark V is counting on is all the new powerlines/ connectors. Maybe that’s where he hopes all his green Bluescope steel is going? Pylons and cables that we didn’t need anyway, all subsidised by us mugs- the taxpayers.
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Lots of electrical stanchions for those 1000’s of km of power lines.
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The data is very easy to find that tells us we can’t mitigate their CC for thousands of years, so why would we bother and at a cost of TRILLIONS of $ for a zero return? See the Royal Society study and reported in “the Conversation” article.
And the CSIRO and their ABC told us last year that the cost of one Dutton Nuclear power stn was 8.5 billion $ or about 60 billion $ for seven.
Meanwhile Finland’s new Nuclear power stn has seen a 30% drop in their cost of electricity.
Also Renew Economy tells us our full W & S costs would be 7 to 9 TRILLION $ and the toxic, unreliable mess would have to be replaced every 15 to 20 years.
So does anyone really THINK or even believe that this is the future we should choose to help create more private sector jobs and a more prosperous future?
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If Australia keeps on electing Honkerheads like Sleazy Albanese and Deadhead Bowen to places of authority, the country is doomed, and it is not doomed from ‘Climate change’ but from Stupidity.
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Hey!
Easy there.
🙂
Although I do think I would be good for Australia.
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I know we’ll never convince the pig ignorant Greens or Labor or the Teals in Australia, but in Finland and Canada the Greens and far left are strong supporters of safe, cheap, reliable Nuclear power.
In fact they are strong supporters and promoters of Nuclear energy.
In this 24 minute video Nick Cater talks to the Greens woman who convinced the Greens to change their minds. Very impressive and great to see genuine people who can use logic and reason for a change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AN0KLrzYHQ
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Even the Communists in the old Soviet Union supported Nuclear Power for electricity.
Not so the Marxists in Australia.
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In addition to the risk of blackouts, the cost of power is killing power-intensive industries. Before the rise of RE, our coal provided some of the cheapest power in the world, sustaining a substantial manufacturing sector including numerous smelters. Manufacturing has been gutted by the spiralling cost of power although it cannot be quantified due to the scandalous lack of official documentation. For example, two of the six aluminium smelters have closed, and all the others are at risk while the Copper, Nickel and Zinc smelters are actively seeking state support.
The Government is apparently in denial about the loss of industry, and is obsessed with the golden economic opportunities that beckon when we become a wind and solar superpower.
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I can hear CHINA laughing from where I’m sitting!
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You’ll be confused if you follow their ABC and CSIRO who tell us that toxic, unreliable W & S are much cheaper than Nuclear or gas.
But the Renew Economy tell us that W & S cost is 7 to 9 TRILLION $ and their ABC and CSIRO tell us a large Nuclear stn would cost 8.5 billion $. Thet’s about 60 billion $ for 7 large Nuclear power stns.
Again, divide 7 trillion by 0.06 equals 116 and 9 trillion equals 150 times the cost.
Here’s the ABC article from 2024 and I suppose it’s a case of who do you believe, the 3 Banks and Nous gr0up study or their ABC and CSIRO?
Or just listen to the Finnish Greens woman at my prior link.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-22/nuclear-power-double-the-cost-of-renewables/103868728
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Don’t forget it was the fake conservative Howard who is ultimately responsible.
He signed us up to the renewables scam plus also the bizarre gas export plan whereby gas would be sent to the Chicomms at world’s cheapest prices on a 30 year contract (still running) with no provision for market prices or inflation.
https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/how-australia-blew-its-future-gas-supplies-20170928-gyqg0f.html
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.
Anyone who doesn’t think that Australia’s energy crisis is a deliberate Albanese government strategy isn’t awake. There’s far too many coincidences of excruciatingly bad policy by this government to think otherwise. Australia is being sold out by the Marxist Albanese government. In this regard Albanese is a kind of Quisling.
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Not sure how Oz charges for electricity. In USA, VA, I pay approx US 17 cents/kwh. All in, fuel, transmission, distribution, taxes, etc. About 26 cents AU/kwh. This is for unrestricted, no “time of day” penalty consumption. California pays 47% more, because “green”. My bill shows about 4.5 cents/kwh for generation costs and about 4 cents/kwh for fuel costs. The rest is transmission, distribution, and tax costs. So, about 13 cents AUD/kwh for power, and the rest is investment recovery and taxes.
However, a short distance away, say 80 km, their rates are double of mine, because they invest in solar and wind. I’m thankfully supplied by a Sane provider instead of a politically motivated, grifting/grafting, supplier. I wish Oz well. You’re going to need the luck.
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In WA it’s $1.16 per day just to be connected and 32c/KWh all day every day. It used to be cheap. It’s not anymore.
https://www.synergy.net.au/Global/Synergy-Price-Changes-2025
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Is this a new change Jo? My recent WA bill was based on 29c/kWh.
00
0.287112 / unit PLUS 10% GST = 0.31583
Now to go complain about ESTIMATED bills
00
I did complain about estimated bills recently, because they were missing my solar export deductions. All quickly sorted.
00
Western Australia, electricity costs from 1 July 2025:
$1.1605 per day supply charge
32.3719c per kWh
00
A doco from a fews days from the UK said that 50% of fish and chip shops will close by the end of 2025 (yes, THIS year) due to rising costs.
Could be a bonus for those left, or just take down the whole industry.
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Just close the whole industry it will leave more fish as compensation to the EU
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Fish in the English Channel are shared property with the EU but illegal migrants in the Channel are all taken by the UK.
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Why am I reading all of this nonsense. The Sun rises every morning, the Moon travels around the Earth every month, the Earth orbits the Sun annually and each of these events cause a change in the atmospheric CO2 concentration, obvious and clear proof that the associated temperature change drives a change in the CO2 concentration.
From the South Pole across the globe to the Alert Station in northern Canada, the time series for CO2 all plainly show the Seasonal variation since the first year that recording began yet we are told that CO2 causes global warming and climate change. Really ? What has happened to human intelligence ? Is this the result of the genetic therapy Covid injection – brain failure?
Or is it the result of a corrupt media promoting propaganda for aspiring World dictators ? Wake up Australia !
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Its really a testament to woke stupidity, the global crisis of competence and Australian political ineptness Donald Horne wrote about in The Lucky Country, that Australia could get anywhere near having a energy crisis.
We are among the most energy blessed countries on the planet, yet here we are. What fools we have become.
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Australia is an energy superpower, but we don’t act like it!
Gas superpower
We are the 3rd largest gas exporter
We export 3x more gas than we consume
But we won’t drill for gas
Australia is a coal superpower
We have 4th largest reserves & are 2nd largest exporter
We export 7x more coal than we consume
But we don’t want to burn coal any more
Lastly, we are a uranium superpower
We have nearly a 3rd of worlds uranium
But we won’t build nuclear power plants
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There is a Nuclear Power Plant at Lucas Heights in NSW. This is a Sydney Suburb with many houses close by.
With AUKUS (If it ever happens), there will be nuclear powered submarines. Manned by humans.
So, what is the problem with Nuclear Power to generate electricity?
30
It’s a reactor for medical isotopes and research, not a power plant.
Many Australians are terrified of nuclear power because they don’t understand it due to the general dumbing-down of the population by the Left.
Ask any kid how many supposed genders there are and they’ll rattle off a whole list but ask them how a nuclear reactor works and they won’t have a clue but they will tell you that they know they’re “bad”.
20
And who do you think wants to control a 3rd of the World’s uranium ? Just the thing to use for atomic weapons and threaten the whole of the democratic World, care of our PM ?
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Who is this ‘we’ you speak of. Please don’t include me.
10
We as a nation who have made serial stupid decisions for many decades. A few people sitting on the sidelines feeling superior wont move the dial at all.
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Albanese is shutting down Australian manufacturing. His unions drove the car industry out of the country. Energy prices are killing every industry, even though Australia’s biggest exports all turn into massive amounts of CO2. Wheat is digested. Natural gas is burned. Coal is burned. Coal is used to make steel in China. Iron ore is reduced in China and the oxygen turned into CO2. Everything which pays our wages is produced by CO2, but Albanese wants to ban CO2.
The Productivity Conference is a joke. How can you produce anything if you cannot afford electricity/coal/gas/wood/oil/diesel/petrol?
The most exciting idea was from the ACTU. If everyone moved to a 4 day week, productivity will soar 25%!
I have a better one, put everyone in the public service and do nothing and don’t go to work, saving masses of CO2. And a massive gain in productivity because no one does anything but you divide by zero. Problem solved. The geniuses in Australian Unions will allow everyone to stay home and do nothing and earn nothing which is a fair return or no day’s work. Potentially infinite productivity, or indeterminate as mathematicians would say. And how China and Albanese will thank us.
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这是个骗局
Zhè shìgè piànjú
30
This is a scam? Partly. Also preparation for invasion. Or at the very least, a subservient satellite state. You will need your Chinese.
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And I cannot believe anyone seriously thinks crippling Australia’s energy supplies, shutting down our manufacturing and taxing it out of existence is because there is a moral obligation to save the planet. Not one part of that makes sense. Yet no one dares say it’s all nonsense. 2% of the world’s CO2, less than the 1.4Billion Chinese just breathing out and we are not allowed use our own coal and gas or explore for more? But we are allowed export to China at prices they dictate? No, it’s a scam. Run by the Australian Labor party and International Communism. The only boom area, 80% of new jobs, is in the public service.
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Got it. Isn’t Google translate wonderful.
30
I started learning Chinese but it’s too hard and silly. Also tonal.
Cantonese is worse with seven tones. Up to 30% of Vietnamese have perfect pitch. 2% of Europeans. And 300 million Chinese are learning English. And working out which Melbourne suburbs they prefer.
60
Box Hill- I can tell you already.
00
Here’s a poll on BASELOAD, safe and reliable Nuclear energy from Canada just 6 months ago and well over 60% are now in favour.
This poll is up 12% since 2021 and proves Canadians now understand the BS and lies from their con merchants are just more extremism and delusional nonsense.
Of course Canadians will prosper and have more highly paid jobs while Australia will quickly decline under a burden of TRILLIONS of $ debt for decades into the future.
https://canadianpolling.substack.com/p/support-for-canadian-nuclear-power
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Review 1975 Lima Declaration signed by Whitlam Labor, Democratic Labor Party (DLP) recommends …
https://dlp.org.au/dlp-calls-for-review-of-the-1975-lima-declaration/
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Yes, that’s consistent. We are to be the open cut mine for the world. And consider ourselves lucky to be able to make decisions, as long as we do what we are told by China. Lucky us.
There is no fear though of dumbing down Australia. It could not sink much lower. Soon everyone will be working for the government. Doing nothing. From home. Paid by China with coal, gas, food at prices they set. Or else they will send more ships to conduct live fire drills off the coast. We have been warned.
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And as the missile launching warship sailed along the coastline missile operators practising launch drills and recording GPS marks of targets
50
And scanning all the undersea cables for future reference.
50
Why do you think, in the UK, the Micro-competent Mr. Miliband is actively pushing offshore wind – with their many wires connecting them to the shore [and a couple – at sea – to bring power from Scotland, if the wind is kind enough to blow just right , down to England, for £6,000,000,000 plus, at 2024 prices]?
Nothing to do with the delightful cuddly Mr. Putin’s Giant Underwater Scissors.
Of course not.
Auto
20
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30
FWIW
“Green Energy Wall Coming Into Focus In New York?”
“If we ever get to the point of building dozens of gigawatts of wind and solar generation capacity, and enough backup and storage to make them work to support a grid, that would cause electricity rates to multiply by a factor of five or ten or more. We are a long way from that. But here we are just trying to add enough substations and transformers to support 30-50% vehicle electrification, and a comparable amount of building electrification, and it is causing politicians to start to scream. How much more before of this will it take before we quit?”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/08/18/green-energy-wall-coming-into-focus-in-new-york/
The coming phase for Oz?
20
There is hope for Australia: some of its export industries are finding markets in unusual places
https://thefactbase.com/saudi-arabia-imports-sand-and-camels-from-australia
20
In the past, Australia has exported swimming pool filter sand to a Middle East country.
10
FWIW
“US to build $750m sterile fly factory to combat New World Screwworm threat”
https://www.beefcentral.com/news/us-to-build-750m-sterile-fly-factory-to-combat-new-world-screwworm-threat/
Screw worm eradication started in the 1950’s –
“Screwworm control and eradication in the southern United States of America”
https://www.fao.org/4/u4220t/u4220T0a.htm
I was in contact with ranch people there in the early 1970’s and the story was that the early irradiated sterile male campaign had got to around 90-ish percent of success when funding was run down in anticipation of that success – which didn’t happen.
There was then a new campaign underway that was releasing sterile males well down into Mexico and that was looking like being successful.
So the eye has been taken off the ball again it seems?
20
Oops! Wrong thread again
00
We need (energy) to be renewable
We need it to be reliable.
We need it to be affordable.
The fact of the matter is, we can have any two of that list. To have all three is not possible.
30
And we need the energy source to be commandable. Us in charge, not the sun or the wind. Not like a solar powered car or wind driven elevator.
20
We need energy to be plentiful, reliable and affordable. That includes being available on demand. If we have enough to see us through till the sun goes out then we don’t need energy to be renewable. We don’t have that much yet, of course, but technology has a habit of improving. I would expect nuclear fusion to be a better prospect for technological advance than reliable renewables.
00
How about the water heater outfit that claims to be able to convert AIR into energy. Seems to me that they have the answer to any energy supply dilemma.Why has the CSIRO not jumped on this bounty of energy to date??????
10
I have also read that coal and gas suppliers are buying big batteries. no suprises there. Second class citizens because of the cost of worthless certificates for black electrons, they have worked out that the ‘grid’ will pay infinitely to prevent vote losing blackouts. So when they are dumped, ruining their economics, they will simply put the electricity into giant batteries. And sell it at record prices when the wind stops. And we will pay for it all. Utter madness.
And the wind farms will be the ones going bankrupt. Vengeance.
This is despite the absurd $20+Billion Snowy II, nowhere near being finished with now three giant tunneling machines. After all, who is going to pay double to pump that water back up the mountain? (40% losses) So the coal storage batteries will put Snowy II out of business. What’s another lost $20Billion after the desalination plants for the Climate Change drought which would never end? As long as there is a nice brass plaque honouring socialist entrepreneur Malcolm Turnbull who was never loathe to waste our money without even a business plan. Where’s the $444Million Malcolm? How’s the reef?
Leftists hate three things. Carbon Dioxide and Israel and Donald Trump. And Bowen praises China for output of 40% of the world’s CO2 as a lesson in renewable electricity, having tripled their CO2 output in twenty years while the UK and Australia have blown theirs up. Not clever countries.
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