After visiting my son and his family in Melbourne over Christmas, it has become clear to me that, due an excessive number of trucks and cars on the M1 motorway and the Hume freeway, driving on both of these roads is not for the faint-hearted.
On both roads, I noticed and experienced delays due to crashes. One involved a truck.
Not that there is anything new about this. Traffic reports from the media often tell of serious delays on the M1 motorway due to crashes involving cars or broken-down trucks.
Some delays are due to repairs to the road. I've noticed the left lanes on both the M1 motorway and the Hume freeway are breaking up in places. I put this down to an excessive number of trucks.
Someone told me recently that both roads were not built for the level of traffic they are now carrying. This is one of the reasons why I think more freight needs to go by rail. While governments, both federal and state, say they are aware of this, little, if anything, seems to be changing.
It has been said that the freight transport task is only going to rise and road transport won't cope with the demand. So why are we not seeing more being done to get long-distance freight onto rail?
More freight moving by rail would also reduce fuel consumption, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions, so why are the environmentalists ignoring this issue? It would be interesting to know.
Peter Sansom, Kahibah
Short-cut use a hazard
Apparently Denis Hainsworth ("Save our precious parkland", Letters, 30/12) is not aware of the earlier letter I wrote regarding the inappropriate traffic choosing to use Little King Street as a shortcut to King Street heading east ("The real rat run", Short Takes, 11/12). Mobile cranes, ready-mixed concrete trucks, and school buses also frequently use this shortcut.
As a resident of Long Tan Village on Little King Street, which incorporates a nursing home with regular aged pedestrian traffic, I consider that this section of street should be limited to residential vehicles and associated service vehicles only.
There appears to be no apparent problem with traffic flow at the corner of King Street and Stewart Avenue.
John Pearson, Newcastle West
Swedish method not for us
Sweden's "recycling" is not a good fit for Australia.
Minimising, processing and recycling waste are more sensible than burning waste. Sweden is not the best recycling model for Australia. A better model would be Slovenia's capital, Ljubljana. Using high-tech processes, Ljubljana now recycles 70 per cent of its landfill waste. This is expected to rise to 100 per cent by 2035 ("Don't waste perfectly good incinerator site", Letters, 30/12).
It is true that Sweden minimises landfill and "recycles" refuse into energy by burning waste in its 34 incinerator/power stations. Sweden even imports other countries' waste to be burnt in its high-tech incinerators. But it is doubtful whether Liddell, or any other of Australia's coal-fired power stations, could be repurposed to incinerate waste with minimal noxious residues without considerable expense. Anyway, most of Australia's coal fired power stations have passed their use-by dates.
Also, Sweden is using technology that would not suit Australia. Ninety per cent of Sweden's incinerator/power stations' revenue comes from sales to householders of super-heated steam to warm their homes during Sweden's long, cold winter.
Swedes are paid to separate plastics in their household waste. Sweden's dirty little secret is that only one third of plastics are recycled. Two thirds of plastic waste is burnt, producing large amounts of CO2. This is certainly not the "near zero" pollution that your writer describes.
Your writer also suggests burning methane gas mined from existing landfill sites. Converting methane into electricity and CO2 makes sense environmentally, since methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. But mining the small amount of methane coming from landfill sites would be expensive and impractical.
Geoff Black, Caves Beach
Get started on nuclear
How long did it take to make the first generation of cars? The first electric lights? Or the first efficient solar panels? You won't create the first nuclear power station if you don't even start.
We need baseload power and we have many former coal-powered sites ideally situated to enter the existing grid.
The idea that we shouldn't even start is ridiculous beyond measure. Nuclear is an efficient generator of power across the world, and I am sure people at the COP-28 were laughing behind our Energy Minister's back at his pronouncements.
Garry Robinson, Mannering Park
SHORT TAKES
Chaotic parking scene near Nobbys
Who is in charge of the overflow parking at Fort Scratchley? At this time of the year the Nobbys area is chaotic with family groups trying to access the beach, baths, breakwater and foreshore. The overflow area of the fort is conspicuously empty with gates closed. Yet it was open to the public during the bump-in bump-out for Supercars. Come on government bureaucrats, actually do something for community service.
Brian Heaton, Merewether
Windfall for crooks
Illegal tobacco importers must have thought all their Christmases had come at once when the big taxes on legal products were imposed. Criminal organisations are now raking in millions. "Chop-chop" is available anywhere now. How can they stop vape imports when they can't stop chop-chop or drug imports?
John Bonnyman, Fern Bay
Weighing up reactors' merits
Bob Watson ("Dutton shown to be Labor's best asset", Letters 27/12) asks why no nuclear plants were built by the previous government. Nuclear has been banned since 1999, but now that nuclear submarines are on their way, it seems only sensible that adult conversations take place about the relative merits, or otherwise, of small nuclear reactors. Let the market decide if they're feasible. In the meantime, we are beholden to Blackout Bowen and his crazy green dream of 82 per cent renewables by 2030.
Greg Hunt, Newcastle West
How to do it properly
Instead of sending a handful of troops to the Middle East and not a war ship to help solve the Red Sea issues, I reckon the federal Labor government should send the mob who prevented boats entering Newcastle harbour to show the Houthis how to really interrupt sea traffic and inconvenience everyone, but, in the end, achieve nothing.
John Cooper, Charlestown
Smoke not a cracker
When a climate summit is called it is attended by world leaders who are supposedly given a time-frame to reduce carbon emissions. Hence the climate activists using the waterways and rail corridors to protest against the emissions caused by the burning of coal. Yet, on New Year's Eve, while billions of dollars of fireworks belched tons of toxic smoke into the world's atmosphere, there were no reports of protests. Maybe their canoes aren't rigged for night paddling?
