Over the last three or four years a number of blogs have been posted on the Kalbar mineral sands project near Lindenow. The blogs have mainly been about the carbon emissions of the project and some of Kalbar’s more outlandish renewable energy claims. The first was a general letter about the ‘greenwash’ spin of the company and relating to possible large greenhouse emissions of their proposed operations which was published in the Bairnsdale Advertiser (December 2017) and reposted to this blog.
This was followed by two further blogs which examined in more detail the company claims that the renewable energy revolution necessary to combat global warming could not proceed without the rare earths from the company’s mineral sands – claims that are clearly untrue (see here and here). The latter blog examines the myth that rare earths were essential to the renewables revolution and notes that Tesla electric vehicles do not use rare earths in their motors.
More recently there have been a number of submissions to the Environmental Effects Statement (EES) enquiry that are mainly concerned with climate aspects and carbon emissions of the project. The first was by Alistair Mailer, retired engineer of Newlands Arm, who examined the greenhouse emissions in detail and excerpts from his submission were posted as two blogs (see here and here). Alistair lists in detail the various Scope emissions of the project and, in particular, mentions the Scope 3 emissions which the company does not count. He concludes the company failed in its own EES.
The other EES submission of note was from Ursula Alquier, formerly an activist with ‘Lock the Gate’ and now with Farmers for Climate Action. Her long submission was on behalf of the latter organisation and extracts from it were published as 3 separate blogs (see here, here and here) and in particular on climate change, water availability and the company’s large water requirements. Ursula’s submission had input from local farmers.
With all the other objections (those on global warming and carbon emissions are but a few) and with the company’s propensity to ‘greenwash’ their environmental credentials, it is clear this project should not proceed.