It [Australia] is the world’s biggest coal exporter, with almost a third of the global trade. In the past two years coal export earnings jumped 130 per cent. The Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics forecasts coal exports in 2006-07 at almost $32 billion.
Far out. I’m not a huge number person and I’m not the greatest at remembering them (that’s why I sucked at that history class component), but those are quite extraordinary. In July alone this year Australia will be exporting almost 32 billion dollars worth of coal alone.
Overall, the nation will earn $45 billion from energy exports this year - more than three times that for meat, grains and wool combined.
Australia has already jumped off the sheep’s back and onto the coal truck, and this shift will only accelerate.
And you can guess why the demand is suddenly going up. Oh, it’s not because the US is producing more jobs and they need more resources for production - quite the opposite. US jobs are exported overseas so much that the US not longer produces all of the food it consumes. The developing world is beginning to awaken.
Nepoleon famously once admonished Europe to “let China sleep, for when she awakes she will shake the world.” It seems like the fellow was right - what a prediction. Then of course comes India still with over 1.1 billion people.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says industrial energy demand alone will double in just over 40 years. The bulk will come from the emerging economic giants of the developing world, especially China - which will surpass the Japanese economy by 2030 - and India. China is already the largest consumer of oil after the US. In 2004 it had 10 million vehicles: by 2020, it is expected to have 120 million, increasing demand for oil or its alternatives.
No wonder the US is trying to get into the middle east. As of 2005, Syria alone holds possession of 25% of the worlds proven oil reserves (the world’s largest oil reserves) and has the world’s fourth largest natural gas reserves[1].
With the entire economy built on oil, which includes your military (fighter jets need fuel too…) either you work hard to move to an alternative or you get more of the black stuff, and sadly the US is adopting a policy of acquiring what they want by force.
You can check out the full article on a resources fueled ‘superpower’ Australia on the Sydney Morning Herald site, here. Interesting read.