Digging up a lucky country

Press, 23 February 1980, Page 17

Digging up a lucky country

Minerals and Energy in Australia. By Donald W. Barnett. Cassell (Australia), 1979. 327 pp. Index. $10.95 (paperback). (Reviewed by Naylor Hillary) Dr Barnelt, a geologist with a special interest in the economics of energy production, lectures in mineral economics at Macquarie University, Sydney. He wrote this survey of a wealthy and fortunate continent before the boom in gold prices, and in prices for other minerals such as aluminium, copper, and silver, sent mining shares sky-high in Australia late last year. He also wrote shortly before several of Australia’s biggest mining companies announced plans for expansion. Thus on matters of detail parts of his book have been overtaken by events. But the events generally confirm his predictions and reinforce his conviction that Australian mineral industries have a gleaming future. “Minerals and Energy” argues that mining and the export of minerals will continue to be increasingly important in the Australian economy, and that much more investment is needed. Early this year, since Dr Barnett wrote, the Australian Federal Government reported that companies in Australia have announced intentions to invest about SIO,OOO million in mineral projects, including new plants to increase production of aluminium, iron ore, coal, oii and gas, and

uranium. That figure looks enormous, but Dr Barnett remarks that by 1955 Australian mineral exports are expected to be worth $9OOO million a year.

The wealth which Australians find for the taking, in the ground and under 'their coastal seabed, can only awaken awe and envy among New Zealanders. Australia’s mineral wealth is made even more important by the country’s small population. A very high proportion of the minerals extracted can be exported. For instance, the country sells abroad 96 per cent of the alumina it produces, 99 per cent of the tungsten, 95 per cent of the nickel, and 89 per cent of the iron ore. Australia is a leading world producer of only a handful of minerals, however, and of these only alumina is of particular importance. All that could change fairly quickly. New discoveries are still being made frequently enough to make speculation in Australian mining shares an exciting, and even a rewarding hobby. In the last three months, for instance, Conzinc Riotinto of Australia has reported significant finds of diamonds in the Kimberley Ranges in the north of Western Australia. Dr Barnett has written a book which manages to combine a brief history of exploration and exploitation of Australian minerals along with some account of the extraction processes, and a careful assessment of what is likely to happen in the next 20 years or so.

He is an optimist who believes that recycling and new discoveries will make nonsense of those who predict • the exhaustion of supplies of raw materials and unacceptable damage to the environment. He is optimistic, too,

that technology will make economic the development of mineral deposits which have so far been ignored. Experiments by firms such as B.H.P. in the extraction of gold and copper from ores which only a few years ago were regarded as quite uneconomic give point to his remarks. He is a pessimist, however, on the promise of alternative energy sources, and of solar energy in particular. Readers might hope that he is proved wrong, but he argues convincingly that the hope of the future for energy lies in uranium, not sunlight.