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Natimuk locals think they own the place 25-Jan-2005 At 12:53:37 PM Camos

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>I had similar thoughts in Europe this year!

Some of the European countries are pretty good though. Iceland is probably one of the world leaders in renewable energy generation (geothermal and hydro) and they are very advanced in terms of alternative transport fuels with numerous demonstration projects for hydrogen fuel-celled buses including the proposed (world first?) hydrogen re-fuelling station. Of course that country is particularly well endowed for hydro. Most Western European countries have also been pretty good about switching to gas instead of coal in electricity generation.

From what W is saying it sounds like those countries are a bit slack for recycling of consumption goods and wasting of associated products though.

Australia's energy situation is not a particulalry good one in clean and green terms. Whereas Iceland has an endowment of water in rivers to drive turbines, Australia has a very good advantage in cheap, high quality fossil fuels. Because the Aus continent is such a big one, fossil-fuelled transport is heavily relied upon in the production process and even day to day transport.

The abundance of cheap electricity and mineral resources has also fuelled the development of large resource-based and energy-intensive industries such as aluminium/alumina industry - that industry is the most energy-intensive in production of any in Australia. It's products are sent overseas and made into carabiners!