I heard Albanese talking during the week about pulling Badgery’s Creek. I’ve long thought that the best option for a second Sydney airport would be a floating airport perhaps placed just off the actual airport in Botany Bay someplace, or alternatively just off the Sydney Heads.

The advantages of a floating airport — really a VLFS (Very large floating structure) include:

No land needed — so lower cost
Less complex EIS required
Can be extended to meet surge in demand so less overbuild
Potential to be towed someplace else
Can be isolated from traffic and thus more easily secured. Easier emergency management.
Approaches by jets could be from over the ocean rather than over residential areas, so improvements in relative amenity for those under flight paths.

Placing it in or proximate to Sydney Harbour saves you the cost of extra infrastructure such as rail links. You could use ferries to shuttle passengers to Circular Quay.

I can’t understand why they aren’t looking at this. Essentially, you could build it like a giant floating oil rig. I’ve written to Albanese a couple of times pitching it.

If you look at the targets for Iranian crude oil exports these are in order (rough percentages added)

Japan 21.2%
China 16.7%
India 15.2%
South Korea 10.4%
Italy 8%
Misc. 7%
France 5.8%
South Africa 5.2%

Right now, putting the competition for this lot into the oil market would be devastating to prices. During the 1973 embargo prices quadrupled on a 5% cut in supply. Iran has 10% of current supply. I’m doubting China or Japan or India will be taking steps like this. India is also negotiating a major deal on natural gas. I don’t see them putting that at risk either.

Not only that but big companies like Total, BP and Reliance are actively involved in helping Iran meet its refining needs. I don’t see the US acting against them.

Side bar … much of Italy’s local stationary power generation is from oil-fired generators (they got rid of most coal fired power in 2005 and don’t do nuclear, though they do import some from a spot in Slovenia, 60 miles across the border), so any volatility in oil prices is going the hurt them big time.

This legislation would erect a maze of tripwires whose individual effects would be quite unpredictable but whose aggregate effect is to increase the danger of serious conflict.

If, as I expect, this legislation made China less amenable to US bellicosity towards Iran via Security Council resolutions, then perhaps contrary to the wishes of Netanyahu, this may make the US less likely to go to war.

My reasoning is that Obama is less likely than Bush to favour a unilateralist path. And at present there are no UNSC resolutions against Iran that can be tricked up like those that were used by Bush and Blair to concoct a casus belli against Iraq way back in 2003.

But there are so many other roads opened to war by this legislation…

This legislation would ban from doing business in the United States any foreign entity that sells refined petroleum to Iran, enhances Iran’s ability to import refined petroleum such as financing, brokering, underwriting, or providing ships. Sanctions would also apply to any entity that provides goods or services that enhance Iran’s ability to maintain or expand its domestic production of refined petroleum.

Of most importance is the fact that various Chinese entities are now heavily involved in developing Iran’s petroleum industry.

If the embargo were applied to these Chinese entities, US and Chinese commercial and geopolitical interests will be in collision. Such legislation also makes it more likely that the Chinese will refuse to co-operate with the US in extending UN sponsored sanctions against Iran. Therefore any US action against Iran is more likely to be unilateral.

Given that these Chinese companies involved in Iran are state-owned enterprises and given that most major Chinese companies, especially its banks are also state-owned enterprises, it is uncertain how this embargo will apply to Chinese enterprises. For example, will it be deemed illegal for the Federal Reserve to sell US government paper to state-owned Chinese banks? If so, then world credit markets would possibly cease to operate.

Allegedly, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu asked for this legislation and the US House has obliged.

Oddly, this legislation is similar to the bans imposed on Japan leading up to Pearl Harbor. In that case, of course, Japan had no domestic supplies of petroleum, whereas Iran floats on an ocean of oil.

…….if Daisy was betrothed to marry an Aboriginal man, it would have been in her interest to be removed.

Because……?

Windy’s b/s has also been called into question by Daisy’s descendants who are far more credible than he is.

Sorry, had to get that of my chest….. cough… he is a bit like phlegm that needs to be cleared out of the air passages and discarded in to the appropriate sputum receptacle.

The question is, what does he hope to achieve from his dishonesty?

I don’t believe that Windy is driven by monetary greed. History books don’t make millionaires.

He may be driven by a desire to be in the limelight, like a small boy who waves his willie about in public, and/or he may be driven by a desire to be seen as a hero of the Culture Wars.

(Being a Culture Wars hero WHILE waving his willie about in public may indeed be Windy’s wet dream.)