Re: Sydney's second airport where?

[chris@transdata.co.nz ("chris 'fufas' grace")]

cowboy@ram.net.au wrote in message <6s2f22$s9d$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...

>One of the major considerations must be the provision of fuel and in large
>quantities. We cannot saddle the infrastructure and population with train
>loads from Kurnell (which isn't on a train line) or pipelines from port
>wollongong. Jervis bay may be an option but the 'tree huggers' would tie
that
>up in court with eis requirements until the cows were too old to come home.
>
>The only alternative to me is the establishment of an oil refinery complex
in
>the general area. Perhaps down towards yass (not at Yass)to give that area
a
>kick along. Environmentally sited and with the infrastructure that again is
>environmentally developed the area could become a new economic engine to
drive
>this state and a show case to the world.

This doesn't make much sense. Oil refineries are in coastal areas to allow
delivery of crude from supertankers. You say that you don't want pipelines
from  Woolongong (or, I presunme, anywhere else), but if you don't want
pipelines, how are you going to get the crude oil to the refinery in the
first place?

Either you have a refinery on the coast and a finished product pipeline, or
you have the refinery inland and have a crude pipeline from the coast. I
reckon a fractured crude oil pipeline would be a worse ecological disaster
than a fractured petrol/kerosene pipeline. OK, the petrol/kerosene would
burn/explode, but it wouldn't leave as much residue as crude oil would.

>The refinery could be fed from the north west shelf condensates by
pipeline.
>At the moment a large part of that production is exported directly to
Japan.
>This would be a boost to the economy particular to BHP. Refinery products,
>economies of scale, reduced distribution costs would make decentralisation
>more viable for a lot of city based business that serve that region.

So you would need two pipelines, one for import/one for export. Where's the
advantage?
>

Maybe my Aussie geography is off - in fact it most certainly is, but from
previous figures Coolangatta seems to get quite a bit of traffic. How much
international tourist traffic is for that area? Is it a port of entry? Would
expanding it take the load off Sydney? What are rail services from there to
Sydney like?