By John McRobert
Into the valley of debt rode the encumbered. Kamala-nomics is already being practised in the land Down-Under. ‘What can be, unburdened by what has been’ can only explain the news that Snowy 2.0 has ordered another tunnelling machine, at a probable cost of over $100m – for delivery hopefully next year – hopefully in time to help the struggling boring machine, Florence reach the fault zone. Who knows what will happen then? The price has already escalated from $2b to $12b, and no one mentions another $10b or so for transmission lines. Shareholders of a private company faced with such an appalling record of expenditure with no guarantee the project can be completed without more calls for funds, would have pulled the plug long ago.
If and when it is completed, if some water is available during drought, if there is surplus power from unreliable energy sources, and if enough water has been pumped to the top of the hill, there will be sufficient hydro-power for three million homes – for a week. Then the battery runs flat. Forget the needs of industry. Forget living standards. Or spend the money maintaining and upgrading our coal-fired power stations. The climate won’t even notice.
Another Florence?
Construction of the Sandy Hollow-Maryvale rail line was well advanced when stopped for the war. It resumed after the war, but was abandoned in about 1950, when it appeared to be almost complete. THere was only one major job to complete, the Bylong tunnel, tunnel #3. At a touch under 2 km it was to be the longest tunnel in service in NSW.
When I moved to Bylong in 1970, the old hands used to talk about the railway and that tunnel. They had worked on them with horses and drays, and later with war surplus trucks.
They talked of all the trouble they had with that tunnel. Every third day they had to take up the skip rails and dig out the floor.
In the 1980s White Industries bought the Ulan coal mine and did a deal with the government to complete that railway and develop the mine.
Whites contracted tunnelling specialists to complete that tunnel, and they had heaps of trouble. No records had been kept of the problems. WE saw huge quantities of steel being carted to the tunnel, such as would surely break the job if it continued, and it did.
Whites then brought in ordinary coal mining equipment and instead of using formwork for the concrete lining they bolted reinforcing mesh and shotcreted it. They then monitored that lining for safety as they worked ahead, and then came back and completed the lining, I think again using the shotcrete method.
I wonder has Snowy II considered anything like that, or are they having too much fun with the blank chequebook?
Snowy 2 is a dog that should be put down before any more money is poured into it. They are spending another $100 m to buy an extra tunnelling machine to help get Florence TO the fault zone by some target date. Then what?? Shotcrete takes time to harden and I cannot conceive how this concreting technique would be helpful in progressively shielding a tunnel as it progresses through a fault zone. I would like to have the services of the salesman who sold that new tunnelling machine to the project operators, and whoever sold it to the government (ergo the Australian taxpayer) – they are of the legendary ilk of one who could sell refrigerators to Eskimos. The commission trail would be interesting.