Yo, Sacha
In case you were unaware, there was a fifteen-minute interview with Hide, about Supercity, tonight on a Triangle TV show called Beatson Interview (8:30-9:00pm) (second half of show). It appears to be repeated tomorrow at 8:00am.

If someone feels like recording it, I have a feeling that…

But for anything that's being depleted (coal for instance, or Gerry's deleted unobtainium) the value is likely to increase faster than inflation.

Just to indulge in pendantry, it's the rate of interest you care about, not inflation.

Rich: that's certainly what mining companies think. Mining economics is all about optimising extraction to maximise your long-term rate of return.

Not sure about that. It's what the resource *owner* thinks. Doesn't matter to the mining companies, as the more valuable the material becomes, the more royalties they'll have to…

For some minerals (like iron) that's possibly true – the world could actually get along with no new iron ore just by recycling (gold and silver are a special case because of the huge…

This is exactly the kind of diversification we ought to be considering if NZ is to grow to the point where young New Zealanders decide they can build a future here.

I hate to break it to her, but "in the future, you can grow up to be....miners!" is hardly…

Regardless of the truth in any of the claims, the mining debate so far has been couched entirely in terms defined by the government: i.e. the economic…

The figure that I/S cited was of the value of "economically utilised" resources – minerals with mine shafts already sticking out of them.

Not quite. "Economically utilised" means "someone in NZ is digging it up". The actual value is based on the lifetime of the resource, i.e. total stocks. For…

Blogger Keith Ng last night looked at the Government's numbers on the Public Address website saying wages for miners weren't as lucrative as they appeared.

Ng said the median income for wage and salary earners in mining during 2008 was actually $57,660, a long way…

From t'other thread, I/S noted a relevant regional economic impact paper (PDF 1.9MB), which ex-Conservation Minister Chris Carter has raised on Red Alert.

Excellent prompt for me to recommend Idiot/Savant's brief piece on the actual mining economics from Statistics NZ.

The figure that I/S cited was of the value of "economically utilised" resources – minerals with mine shafts already sticking out of them. Brownlee's figure was how much do we expect in the…

Yeah right. Because the first law of thermodynamics is just a piece of socialist red tape.

well i guess the connection was rough...

was chatting to a client in US about this yesterday. Not much info out on this particular crowd at present. However one idea is as a possible…

the key of this research was that it can reproduce some fuel from CO2, which is the waste byproduct of burning fuel.

Yeah right. Because the first law of thermodynamics is just a piece of socialist red tape.

re-route SH1 so that it winds through every single town in the country

You mean it doesn't already?

That only works for oil (at least according to curent wacky right-wing dogma)

Sorta like this?

even if we take the maximum values for each, we're still looking at $6.5 billion – around 20 times lower than the government suggests.

Together with Keith's work, let's prompt better informed conversations…

That only works for oil (at least according to curent wacky right-wing dogma)

Not quite seeding, and sort of off-topic, but maybe the idea's not as dumb as it sounds

The coal link in the article is a bit of a side issue, the key of this research was that…

Sustainable as long as we reseed the ground with gold every few years so that more gold can grow? Um, yeah...

That only works for oil (at least according to curent wacky right-wing dogma)

http://www.greens.org.nz/conservation/mining

Was I mistaken when I heard someone from the government on Morning Report this morning describe mining as "sustainable"? If so, it's a pretty radical redefinition.

I had the same facepalm moment. We still have mines, so mining must be sustainable, right? Arrgh!

I take it he's never been to…

We're no Australia and our future has to lie somewhere else rather than drilling into high grade conservation land for God's sake.

Ernie Rutherford will be redlining in his grave. "We've got no money, so we've got to think."

Was I mistaken when I heard someone from the government on Morning Report this morning describe mining as "sustainable"? If so, it's a pretty radical redefinition.

You're not wrong. He was saying not that the environment around mining was sustainable, but that the mining itself was! A big wtf here…

Was I mistaken when I heard someone from the government on Morning Report this morning describe mining as "sustainable"? If so, it's a pretty radical redefinition.

wtf?

from the online dictionary:

sustainable [səˈsteɪnəbəl]
adj

1. (Economics) capable of being sustained
2. (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Environmental Science) (of economic…

Mr Brownlee said the Government's books were in a parlous state and it needed money, which mining could help generate, to help families under pressure.

Thank goodness someone's thinking of the children. The ones whose parents the Nats must give tax cuts too. Got to pay for them somehow, so…

This is where the further problems with the maths kick in. Within the discussion document, the estimated value of the main ingredients of the mineral wealth of New Zealand are said to amount to $194 billion. Yet, as Brownlee has said, the allegedly surgical exploitation (the access roading…

Copy Australia day?

Nice one :-)

I vote that instead of mining we start our own car manufacturing industry, and force all the locals to drive them with huge tariffs. This could potentially employ hundreds of thousands of people. Perhaps we could make our own international racing event, around some…

Was enthralling to see the politicians and the mining advocates evade and…

Jeebus — is John Banks worried about Len Brown's polling or what?

Heh. Yes. Yes he is. I wonder if he realises just how obvious that was.

Could have been one of those outsourced work-experience subeds, to be fair...

Or the outsourced subbing sausage factory had closed down for the evening. Her reference to the Green Party co-leader "Norman Russell" is still there too.

His high-pressure anti-mining stream of consciousness on Nine to Noon just now was quite something.

it seems that Fran really wrote that!

Could have been one of those outsourced work-experience subeds, to be fair...

Republic of Nauru, anybody?

Let's stripmine the Republic of Brownlee,
he's full of **it...
Open cast or tunnelling – either way it
looks like we're getting shafted...

Accessing even 10 per cent of that would give the NZ economy a fillup in coming years

Sacha: I thought that you'd made a typo with "fillup", but it seems that Fran really wrote that! Actually, conflating a "fillip" with "filling up" the economy is a pretty classic eggcorn.

I suggest that to boost revenue in small towns like this the Government re-route SH1 so that…

turns out that the mine was reopened, but he promised jobs simply weren't there. modern methods meant only…

New Zealand – just like Australia – has the potential to be a lucky country.

Wish these idiots would stop" banging on" like this.
Australia isnt lucky, so stop looking in that window with a mindset that we're beggars on a street and all we need to…

Some $80 billion of the NZ's estimated $194 billion estimated onshore…

So what the hell is this?

Copy Australia day?

For Waihi, having a gold mine on the doorstep has not proved a path to riches, with welfare dependency higher than in neighbouring towns.

Republic of Nauru, anybody?

In his now-infamous speech, Brownlee talked up natural resources as playing a big role in improving economic growth and raising living standards. He didn't mention that the industry rates the odds of a new mineral prospect proving economic at 1000 to one.

...

[Forest & Bird's…

So what the hell is this?

I'd say that our dear leaders think Kath & Kim is a training manual. The sort of stuff David Harris and Germaine Greer have previously warned about.