Australia to Become an Energy Superpower

About ten years ago I lived in Australia, in a small mining town in the Northern Territory. The little town, named Nhulunbuy, was a great place, a population of about only 4000, and I loved the time I spent there. The area has a rich aluminum source, and I remember how this affected the quality and colour of the soil turning it a deep red.

In the 1970’s the town of Nhulunbuy was ‘established’, housing the workers and their families, who were employed by a Swiss Aluminum company. The mine was the ‘bread and butter’ of the rural town and provided a high percentage of the employment.

And now it seems Australia has uncovered another major natural resource within it’s terra firma: Gas!

They are in the process of tapping the massive undersea fields which will dramatically increase their exports of natural gas in the next few years. Gas was discovered off Australia’s northwest coast in the 1970s, but the mining and development of it seems to have always taken a back seat to iron ore and coal which have been easier to retrieve.

But the demand for gas is increasing as it’s recognized as a cleaner-burning alternative to coal in power generation, with a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions. I’m a great fan of Environmentally Friendly production, and I market organic household cleaner and car wash.

The gas-mining venture will drill fields about 130 kilometers offshore to tap into an estimated 40 trillion cubic feet of gas, and turn the Country into what the resources minister has called an “energy superpower”.

So they have all this gas and a great plan to get it, their only problem?

Not enough workers!

So if you’re looking for a job the Australian government has appointed a task force to find ways to fill an expected shortfall of 70 000 construction workers in the next decade, although it’s most likely they’ll source most of their employees from Asia and the Middle East.

written by Rory

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