joining the dots, page-61

"Perhaps the length of time in getting some sort of Smelter in Tasmania is because the company (probably Wacker) building the smelter want to use timber (possibly from Gunns) as the charcoal source. The greenies wouldn't be too happy about that timber part."
You might be surprised about that. In Tassie every autumn there is a burn off of massive piles of forestry left overs. The big forestry operations have involved clear felling, I think using a couple of huge bulldozers joined at the hips by a big chain. Drag that through a forest and flatten the lot. This usually happens just out of sight of any main roads or highways. I head off the beaten track occasionally and have seen this devastation many times.
Next they take the nice big straight logs and the rest is pushed up into piles about the size of half a footy field. These piles are only a couple of hundred meters apart. So on a large forestry site there are many of these massive piles of unwanted timber taking up valuable space. A year or two later they are set alight and burned. They try to do this during certain weather conditions but occasionally get it wrong. I'v seen calm conditions where Bridport and a lot of the North East corner have been blanketed in smoke for two days. You don't have to be a greenie to find the whole thing a bit on the nose.
I believe these mountains of waist are the proposed source of the charcoal required.
The problem due to these sorts of practices is that most people have been pissed of over the years by the waist, the horizon dotted with massive clouds of smoke and the general arrogance by those involved. Research on the company Toll mentioned will show that they are going to great lengths to distance themselves from recent past practices. They bought up most of the saw mills in the state and are now closing them down.
The question now will be whether or not this same source of very cheap timber will be available in the future. Near all of the past clear felled areas are now nice clean, straight plantation timbers with little waist. So plenty of timber but not so cheap any more.
And speaking of greenies, they are very protective of the West Coast and I would expect some interesting times if a silica mine is proposed at this site.

Cheers
H

Cheers
H