It might help to note that in 2009, Australia imported 900,000 tonnes of urea. Gonna take a long time before they meet that demand.
Australia's an energy importer, big time. Sure, bargeloads of coal go out to places like Saudi Arabia, but tankerloads of oil and LNG come in.
If you want to export your energy cheaply, look at Aluminum (sorry Aussies, Aluminium to you) instead. It's safe, made from local ingredients, and stable. That's why gulf petrostates are putting huge aluminum smelters in- much cheaper to make the aluminum with their natural gas than compress and store the stuff.
I live 20min from the largest aluminium smelter in Oz. :) It's the largest energy consumer in the state and every time there's fears about electricity blackouts they make the news because of the worry about their potlines getting killed.
We're also a bit LNG exporter... so I'm curious, as what you're saying they're doing in the gulf should apply here too. When they use LNG for smelting, are they using it to generate electricity or burning it direct for heating?
What I never understood was why they didn't tap into Portland's geothermals for a ready source of steam to run a local electricity generating turbine.
These days they would have to be worried about a bushfire hitting Loy Yang. It was a close call in 2009 when they could have lost the mine and plant.
There's a gas powerstation at Mortlake and talks of building another for Alcoa as it could feed straight off the Otway Basin gas fields.
I see a few wind farms have popped up, no doubt due to the areas reputation for being constantly windy.
Australia's an energy importer, big time. Sure, bargeloads of coal go out to places like Saudi Arabia, but tankerloads of oil and LNG come in.
If you want to export your energy cheaply, look at Aluminum (sorry Aussies, Aluminium to you) instead. It's safe, made from local ingredients, and stable. That's why gulf petrostates are putting huge aluminum smelters in- much cheaper to make the aluminum with their natural gas than compress and store the stuff.