Rio Tinto CEO Threatens Carbon Tax Efforts With Offshoring, Higher Prices

[hatrack]

CLEAN coal technologies designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions could drive up electricity prices for consumers. Preston Chiaro, chief executive for energy at global mining giant Rio Tinto, said miners would come under increasing pressure to keep power costs down as the industry and government ploughed billions of dollars into the development of clean coal technologies.

Coal, particularly brown coal used in places such as Victoria's Latrobe Valley, is one of the cheapest but dirtiest sources of energy. Its competitiveness could come under threat, given the potential cost of reducing emissions and calls for imposts on carbon producers, such as taxes and credit trading schemes.

"There may be cost increases but at the same time there will be pressure from our shareholders, customers and from society generally to push costs down," Mr Chiaro told The Australian outside the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate meeting in Sydney. "The question is, can we offset the increase that will be necessary to install these new technologies by cost reductions through mining smarter?" He said the real prices of commodities tended to fall over time as minerals were produced more efficiently.

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He warned that any moves to impose costs on carbon producers would need to be globally enforced or pollution would simply migrate to countries that did not put a cost on carbon. He said that imposing a carbon cost on Australia's aluminium industry, for example, would simply make Australia uncompetitive and force the industry offshore.

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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17808493%255E601,00.html

[phantom power]

1. Pay with our wallets, or pay with our flesh.

[Massacure]

2. Put an equal tax on 'dirty aluminum' from offshore.