These projects are failing for the same reason the Rocky Point scheme in SEQ failed. The supply of feedstock is not year round and the resulting ash is an expensive burden to dispose of. The greens can thank themselves for their part in this failure. It was they who insisted on excluding harvest waste from native forests as feedstock. And this left the generating plant with large gaps in operating schedules and a mountain of ash with nowhere to go. A regular supply of harvest waste and thinnings would have enabled the back loading of ash back to the forests where it can be economically spread as very valuable fertiliser. CSIRO has found that trees grown in ash beds can grow up to 6 times faster than trees grown without it. This is yet another example of the way everything the greens touch turns to crap. They just can't help themselves.

Good government demands an injection of $10 million into this project over the next year. It's a cheaper option than job losses, which also leads to decline in rural areas. Sr. Ron Boswell is right the project must be saved and the technology needs to be further developed. All these opportunities will be lost unless the government do what they are asking us to do. ACT NOW!

It seems very exciting to go into new projects with great expectations and no locked in contracts seems to have undone Mr Connors again! Maybe these projects need to be led by great Managers with experience. It is also a grave shame that these primary producers have paid so much already for something that never worked and may never be profitable.

The most important lesson of all is, "never, ever, do business with spivs". The second most important lesson is that governments do not a market make. The climate cretins talk about market based solutions but real markets have their own momentum and their own supply and demand functions. They sometimes include a certain level of bull$hit but, generally, the key trades are in real products or real services. Renewable Energy Credits are all bull$hit which, when taken away leaves nothing left. Invest in them at your peril.