# What happens when all of Australia is dug up & shipped to China?



## roland (25 January 2008)

I was just thinking about us digging up all our minerals, fossil fuels, precious metals and sending it all off to China. What are we going to have left?

Plastic toys, obsolete electronics, heavy metal pollutants etc?

I wonder if what we are importing as a replacement for our dirt is adding anything to our country, or depleting it.

Will we end up being a wasteland?

Will Australia end up being like a lunar landscape, or are we so blessed as being "resource central" that many lifetimes won't even notice?

Sometimes I wonder why such companies like BHP and others have the right to scar the Australian landscape and to ship so many tonnes of Australia to other places in the world.

Don't get me wrong, I invest in companies that do such things, so in a way I am promoting such behaviour - but sometimes wonder if it is the right thing to do.....


----------



## cuttlefish (25 January 2008)

roland said:
			
		

> What are we going to have left?




great great great great grandkids


----------



## Nyden (25 January 2008)

cuttlefish said:


> great great great great grandkids




If we ended up using *all* polluting fossil fuels, we'd have a planet of smog & unbearable heat!


Well, I guess - look at it this way. Prior to there even being fossils, the planet was fine? The landscape will of course heal, over time. 

Our 'wasteland' will come in handy, for solar collectors, & as a world-nuclear waste dumping site :


----------



## roland (25 January 2008)

cuttlefish said:


> great great great great grandkids




very deep response, glad you thought about it cuttlefish


----------



## roland (25 January 2008)

Nyden said:


> If we ended up using *all* polluting fossil fuels, we'd have a planet of smog & unbearable heat!




seems like we are well on the way Nyden - won't all that crap eventually settle and break back down into their original chemical elements?


----------



## So_Cynical (25 January 2008)

I think we are so lucky to have all those resources...imagine what Australia would be without those jobs and the money.

Last time I flew over Australia it was pretty much a wasteland anyway, once u get 3 or 4 hundred clicks from the coast its very unproductive land.


----------



## Tristo (25 January 2008)

The enormity of Australia, the rehabilitation programs that mines are forced to implement at their closure, and future technology are all factors you'll need to consider. Recycling is another.

"Shipping parts of Australia away" drives sentiment, but in the end, it's all just dirt. If it's sitting out there in the various deserts, and if we want to continue our lives as is, then we need to get it dug up and shipped out.


----------



## roland (25 January 2008)

So_Cynical said:


> I think we are so lucky to have all those resources...imagine what Australia would be without those jobs and the money.
> 
> Last time I flew over Australia it was pretty much a wasteland anyway, once u get 3 or 4 hundred clicks from the coast its very unproductive land.




and just maybe, what we are doing will reduce that to 1 or 2 hundred clicks????


----------



## roland (25 January 2008)

Tristo said:


> The enormity of Australia, the rehabilitation programs that mines are forced to implement at their closure, and future technology are all factors you'll need to consider. Recycling is another.
> 
> "Shipping parts of Australia away" drives sentiment, but in the end, it's all just dirt. If it's sitting out there in the various deserts, and if we want to continue our lives as is, then we need to get it dug out and shipped out.




great post Tristo - I'll need some time to think about what you have said - I'm not really very bright


----------



## Nyden (25 January 2008)

roland said:


> and just maybe, what we are doing will reduce that to 1 or 2 hundred clicks????




Start investing in midland property guys, you'll have beachfront houses in 300 years!  Woo ... knew I'd get there soon enough :


I'm waiting until they figure out how to use transmutation (economically!) to turn other elements into gold, & the likes. 

As far as I know, gold actually *can* be created, but the energy required to make even minute amounts far outweighs the expense of the actual gold.

So, watch out all you gold bugs!


And to repeat, Australia has a future purpose. World Nuclear waste dumping site :


----------



## roland (25 January 2008)

It's the usual story though, as a primary producer the profit margins tend to be less than a secondary producer.

China and others buy our dirt to make stuff that we buy back in manufactured products - there is some problem, we really need to take better control of our valuable resources


----------



## cuttlefish (25 January 2008)

> very deep response, glad you thought about it cuttlefish




lol sorry roland though it is friday night and the odd glass of wine has left the bottle.

I have put thought into what you say at times - there have been quite a few times I've looked at the photo of the prospective exploration ground in a junior miners prospectus/cap raising doc and thought  - wow they're going to ruin that place - what are you doing investing in these companies!? But most juniors drill a few holes and move on.  There are some explorers that I'd have a serious dillemma about if they actually progress to mining.


----------



## roland (25 January 2008)

Nyden said:


> Start investing in midland property guys, you'll have beachfront houses in 300 years!  Woo ... knew I'd get there soon enough :
> 
> 
> I'm waiting until they figure out how to use transmutation (economically!) to turn other elements into gold, & the likes.
> ...




Even Merlin nor Newton were not able to transmute chemicals into gold - and they were pretty smart guys!


----------



## Nyden (25 January 2008)

roland said:


> Even Merlin nor Newton were not able to transmute chemicals into gold - and they were pretty smart guys!




Knew I read it somewhere :



> Nuclear experiments have successfully transmuted lead into gold, but the expense far exceeds any gain[1]. It would be easier to convert gold into lead via neutron capture and beta decay by leaving gold in a nuclear reactor for a long period of time.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_transmutation


----------



## roland (25 January 2008)

cuttlefish said:


> lol sorry roland though it is friday night and the odd glass of wine has left the bottle.
> 
> I have put thought into what you say at times - there have been quite a few times I've looked at the photo of the prospective exploration ground in a junior miners prospectus/cap raising doc and thought  - wow they're going to ruin that place - what are you doing investing in these companies!? But most juniors drill a few holes and move on.  There are some explorers that I'd have a serious dillemma about if they actually progress to mining.




cool dude, I've just about finished my 17 litres of self carbonising Heiniken beer keg and moved on to the Jim Beam !!

ever been to mine site after the fact????

sort of looks like a lunar landscape


----------



## Nyden (25 January 2008)

roland said:


> cool dude, I've just about finished my 17 litres of self carbonising Heiniken beer keg and moved on to the Jim Beam !!
> 
> ever been to mine site after the fact????
> 
> sort of looks like a lunar landscape




 Tonight???


----------



## roland (25 January 2008)

Nyden said:


> Knew I read it somewhere :
> 
> 
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_transmutation




maybe Zinifex can work it out too - would make our lead mines more attractive, the we could say suck eggs to AGM


----------



## roland (25 January 2008)

Nyden said:


> Tonight???




mmmm, actually I've been at the keg for a week, and the wife helps. Birthday pressy from last week, really cool - 17 litres and fits in the fridge!


----------



## Nyden (25 January 2008)

roland said:


> mmmm, actually I've been at the keg for a week, and the wife helps. Birthday pressy from last week, really cool - 17 litres and fits in the fridge!




Oh, I was going to say; call the bleeding ambulance! If you had consumed 17 litres of beer!

Still, 17 litres in 1 week? 
That's on average 2.5litres of beer per day? :
(Oh, & happy birthday!)




roland said:


> maybe Zinifex can work it out too - would make our lead mines more attractive, the we could say suck eggs to AGM




Ha, yes it would take that kind of miracle to save it :


----------



## roland (25 January 2008)

Nyden said:


> Oh, I was going to say; call the bleeding ambulance! If you had consumed 17 litres of beer!
> 
> Still, 17 litres in 1 week?
> That's on average 2.5litres of beer per day? :
> ...




I did say that the wife was helping ... didn't I??

Nyden, you are a card - hard not to like you (in a funny kind of way)


----------



## roland (25 January 2008)

Actually Zinifex were up 7.79% today, not bad huh? I topped up at $8.53 - lookin' pretty good now.


----------



## Nyden (25 January 2008)

roland said:


> Actually Zinifex were up 7.79% today, not bad huh? I topped up at $8.53 - lookin' pretty good now.




Don't remind me, I sold out a while ago! Ack, sitting on some heavy losses :
I missed out on this 3-day market rally completely!



> I did say that the wife was helping ... didn't I??
> 
> Nyden, you are a card - hard not to like you (in a funny kind of way)




Alright, we'll divide by 1.5 then : That's still 1.6 litres of beer per day .. not that bad I suppose!

Thank you! I think 


On the original topic, I believe by the time we even get close to exhausting Australia's supplies, most of it will no longer be needed by society


----------



## roland (25 January 2008)

Nyden said:


> Don't remind me, I sold out a while ago! Ack, sitting on some heavy losses :
> I missed out on this 3-day market rally completely!
> 
> I could say something here, but I am so much more polite than that
> ...




A horse and cart really only needs water and feed.


----------



## nioka (26 January 2008)

roland said:


> maybe Zinifex can work it out too - would make our lead mines more attractive, the we could say suck eggs to AGM




And I thought it was AGM telling ZFX to "suck eggs".


----------



## tigerboi (26 January 2008)

as for digging everthing up & having nothing left????this country of ours is

very very huge,as an interstate truck driver of roadtrains & b/doubles its not

until you get out of the cities that you see how big this country is,we are

78% desert mostly living on the coast,we fit inside the usa with a little room

either side to breath,with only about 7% the population of them,we will never

run out of resources,i understand the sentiment of using those resources

wisely & i reckon the world is getting them cheap,you only gotta look at the

io market landed in china from us v brazil we are getting rorted there,that 

could be a big reason for the bhp offer to rio as it was rio who left bhp

stranded last year in the negotiations with the chinese when they pulled

out of the fight to get higher prices.interesting moves in the bhp/rio battle.


----------



## grace (26 January 2008)

When our quarry is empty, we are in deep .... !  We have already lost our manufacturing base.  Once that is gone, you just can't get it back.


----------



## So_Cynical (26 January 2008)

we need to make sure the money isn't all spent on plastic and electronic crap,
some of the money needs to be invested in real things...infrastructure and
development...railways, dams and stuff.


----------



## Bruza (26 January 2008)

First thing to come to mind was the Sun will have burned out before then!

On a more serious note I concur with Tristo, & the point made by Nyden re changes as time moves on.
Already we see a lot of renewable energy platforms being fast tracked, as in Wind, Wave & Geothermal & many Co's involved.

Can't remember the exact number, but the entire land used by mining in Australia is .0 something.

So we may as well dig it out, ship it off & make some money, & hope a good portion is put aside to develop agriculture (our reemerging resource).


----------



## Smurf1976 (26 January 2008)

The peak principle doesn't just apply to oil. It applies to basically any finite resource (eg the UK coal peak nearly a century ago - coal is a rock much like any other in practical mining terms).

But energy is the big one. If we don't have cheap energy, and in practice that means domestic production, then there goes ALL of our mineral processing stright overseas. It's here not because we have minerals but because we have by world standards very cheap electricity and gas.

I've seen plenty of areas that have been logged, mined, had dams built and so on. In most cases nature recovers surprisingly quickly. Have a look for yourself if you don't believe me. Even the Queenstown (Tas) moonscape has trees on it now and much of it just isn't visible anymore (a point that upsets some locals fearing a drop in tourism if moonscape goes completely).

But minerals don't go back in the ground. That's the far greater problem especially with energy. No cheap electricity and/or gas = NO downstream mineral processing AT ALL. Just look how WA was getting OUT of the mineral processing business at the hands of OPEC prior to the NW Shelf gas. And it will be getting straight back out of it real fast when the gas is gone.

Even more telling is the situation in Tas. A minerals processing industry that dominates the state's exports built on the back of imported minerals. It's no secret that it works solely due to cheap power and that's the ONLY reason any of those plants were built in the first place. Even the paper mills are viable only with cheap power. 

Take out the cheap energy and the only thing that works, in practice, is to pursue a massive scale up in low value production no matter what the actual commodity is. And that's when the real concern over the environment will start too.


----------



## Knobby22 (26 January 2008)

I saw a comedian who said that China was stealing Australia. Taking our dirt bit by bit till we are a little island


----------



## numbercruncher (26 January 2008)

What do these big holes in the ground end up like I wonder ?

I mean once they are finished do the plant them out, fill up with water, ? 

Lots of inland lakes would be a good idea.


----------



## Smurf1976 (26 January 2008)

numbercruncher said:


> What do these big holes in the ground end up like I wonder ?
> 
> I mean once they are finished do the plant them out, fill up with water, ?
> 
> Lots of inland lakes would be a good idea.



Depends on the circumstances. 

Filling with water, either naturally (just let it fill up with rain) or intentionally (pump it in, divert a river into the hole) is one option.

For open cut mines it's common to dump the overburden (soil etc) back into worked out sections of the mine. That way the hole is only the size of the useful mineral removed and not the size of all material removed.

For coal mines near power stations it's common to dump the ash into worked out sections of the mine and then landscape it with trees etc.

For small quarries near dam sites etc it's basically a case of level it out and landscape it. Same thing can be done in the downstream area immediately surrounding the dam itself though not to the point of ending up with tree roots going through the structure of the dam. I'm aware of at least one dam that has trees growing on top of it though but it's not at all large.

The Queenstown moonscape was aerially seeded with a mix of seeds and fertilizer. It was done a few times and reasonably successful apart from the totally wrecked area immediately around the mine and old smelter site. The same thing is often done on a smaller scale with quarries, where hills are blasted away for roads or railways etc.

If you have reasonable rainfall then nature is pretty good at restoring itself though. The power industry has to keep clearing the areas under major transmission lines otherwise the trees grow back and, when they get tall enough, all hell breaks loose and the lights go out (fair chance of starting a fire in the process too). Much the same with roads - if you've ever seen a disused road then you'll have noticed that the bitumen slowly breaks up from the edges and nature takes over. Even houses end up being demolished by nature if left long enough (few decades).


----------



## numbercruncher (26 January 2008)

Thanks Smurf, Informative as always !


Councils etc are always looking for landfill, I wonder if there is many cases of dissused open cut mines turning into waste dumps ?


----------



## Kauri (27 January 2008)

instead of our pollies trotting off to far flung exotic locations on barely relevant "_study trips_".. slip them off to exotic Nauru and see what they learn... 
Cheers
.........kauri


----------



## nioka (27 January 2008)

It is surprising what can be made from a hole in the ground. The best one I know of is at Evans Head, Northern NSW. It is the hole left after sand mining and is now an ancient sacred Aboriginal water hole. There are also some great water holes in central Victoria that were once mines and quaries. Most coal mine sites in the Hunter Valley are returned to grazing land. Anything within a hundred miles of the major cities will probably be filled with garbage and be sacred sites in the future. The hills of Iron ore will become the tablelands of the west. Those things are not a problem. The problem is that the countries income will dry up unless we get very lucky, but then we are the lucky country aren't we.


----------



## numbercruncher (27 January 2008)

nioka said:


> . The best one I know of is at Evans Head, Northern NSW. It is the hole left after sand mining and is *now* an *ancient *sacred Aboriginal water hole.




Erm ......

Is it just me or does that sentence sound really bizarre ? or brazingly typical perhaps ?


----------



## nioka (27 January 2008)

numbercruncher said:


> Erm ......
> 
> Is it just me or does that sentence sound really bizarre ? or brazingly typical perhaps ?



 Actual fact. I worked for the sand mining company when the area was mined. The dredge pond was dug by my stepfather and after mining was completed the waterhole was left and the area revegetated. The same applies to a lot of the so called "virgin" coastal national parks. I was there, this is not hearsay.


----------



## Nyden (27 January 2008)

numbercruncher said:


> Thanks Smurf, Informative as always !
> 
> 
> Councils etc are always looking for landfill, I wonder if there is many cases of dissused open cut mines turning into waste dumps ?




Yes. For the worlds nuclear waste !! 

What, no body wants 3 eyed kangaroos?


----------



## Miner (27 January 2008)

My is that will be real test for our resilence.
All Australians will have to work harder 14 hours a day, no sick leave, no DOLE, no whinging, no one to complain if the police comes in the day light and take you to jail, no more Aussie Stock Forum to exchange share market information. Positive will be we all love how wonderful this Aussie Land was which we have been digging and digging with no core left for the nation.
Plus we can not say  it is racist taunt when year of monkey or goat comes to celebrate


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 January 2008)

Kauri said:


> instead of our pollies trotting off to far flung exotic locations on barely relevant "_study trips_".. slip them off to exotic Nauru and see what they learn...
> Cheers
> .........kauri




spot on mate lol
looks like a bad case of Acne hit the landscape yes?

Nauru will slowly grind to a halt I guess as the phosphate is finished.  Then again they've got a few investments in Aus etc (not that they've done that well - and not that I've been following it)

Good news is that Aus can always go back to shearing sheep, spinning wool, knitting jumpers, and growing carrots I guess


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 January 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> looks like a bad case of Acne hit the landscape yes?



.........
(not that it all looks like this )


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 January 2008)

Maybe we could follow Nauru into the tax haven business 
and set up some laundries etc. ("claims" now lifted )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauru


> In the 1990s, Nauru became a tax haven and offered passports to foreign nationals for a fee. The inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) then *identified Nauru as one of 15 "non-cooperative" countries in its fight against money laundering*. Under pressure from FATF, Nauru introduced anti-avoidance legislation in 2003, following which foreign hot money flowed out of the country. In October 2005, this legislation—and its effective enforcement—led the FATF *to lift the non-cooperative designation*.[25]


----------



## ithatheekret (27 January 2008)

Or we could create bio-fuel pits .............


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 January 2008)

or we could be an offshore detention centre for ? - USA?


> Since 2001, Nauru has accepted aid from the Australian government; in exchange for this aid, Nauru houses an offshore detention centre that holds and processes asylum seekers trying to enter Australia.


----------



## barnz2k (28 January 2008)

> 21 years since Chernobyl and still no superheroes




...


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 January 2008)

tigerboi said:


> its not until you get out of the cities that you see how big this country is.




tiger.. there are a couple of maps posted back there ... to the same scale..
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=175568&highlight=calais#post175568



> looks like Norwich to Lands End is about the same as Perth to Kalgoorlie  -
> and you don't have to dodge bludy kangaroos all the way
> 
> (and *a trip from Perth to the SA border - is like a trip from Lands End to Dover - Calais - thru Belgium and Holland and Germany to Denmark*)


----------



## bvbfan (31 January 2008)

We'll end up as Nauru did after the phospate mines were exhausted.
They tried to set up a fund to pay for futures need but somehow that was squandered.

The oil countries in the Middle East have their soveign funds which are at least creating possible sources of income in the future.

It's time the government here started to do more on this unless they are going to open the country as a dumping ground.


----------

