This sounds like a drug dealer complaining about distribution problems. Since Australia's coal exports need to be halved within a few years the existing infrastructure is more than adequate. Every tonne of coal exported makes 2.4 tonnes (some say more) of CO2 which contributes to the global total way out of proportion to Australia's population. At some point people will ask whether coal exports are worth the cost in terms of water and food supply problems for Australia, for future generations if not the present.

My solution is pre-carbon tax coal exports. On a Pasha Bulker sized ship that might be over $1 million per load. Then the customer might think about finding alternatives to coal. In the long run both the customer and Australia will be better off.

There are indeed massive misincentives created by price signals set by silly regulation rather than by actual needs and costs.

In terms of infrastructure -- especially where coal is concerned -- the worst regulatory mispricings in Australia are electricity-related:

* Large industrial users receive massive subsidies on the price they pay for electricity
* These subsidies are hidden away in the accounts of the largest generating companies
* Retail tarriffs are capped, so retailers can only boost their bottom lines by promoting increased consumption,
* (while wholesale prices are permitted to go stratospheric during peak periods)
* The huge cost savings to be had from improved efficiency of energy use are divided amongst players who compete for scraps of the total electricity bill. No-one has an incentive to reduce the gross amount spent on energy
* Large incumbent generators are encouraged to extend the working life of inefficient and heavily-polluting equipment
* (while innovators must compete with some of the lowest-priced delivered electricity in the world)
* There is uncertainty surrounding expected changes to regulation, like the magic evaporating Mandatory Renewable Energy Target
* There is (in this country) no price signal whatsoever associated with carbon-dioxide emissions
* The Commonwealth government is talking up a domestic nuclear power industry, causing utilities to postpone investments in anticipation of massive new distorting subsidies

Taswegian, I do not understand the motivation for a tax on *exported* coal, nor the "necessity" for a reduction in Australian exports. In the absence of a multilateral agreement penalising *all* uses of coal (including consumption in the country of production), all this would do is hurt Australia's balance of payments, without addressing pollution here or anywhere. Meanwhile our good black coal might help improve Chinese energy efficiency and air quality, conceivably *reducing* their net CO2 emissions.

The only reason to curb coal consumption globally is to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions. The best way to achieve this is a multilateral agreement to enforce emissions reductions -- to penalise one industry would distort the market and prevent it from finding the quickest, cheapest means to the end.

X we could be looking at a failure of this years wheat export crop. If that's due to climate change I'd suggest what we make on the roundabouts we lose on the swings. That's nice if the Chinese use black coal instead of brown coal but even better would be using imported gas or massive productivity improvements in using their domestic coal.

I note the answers to the general knowledge quiz for prospective migrants didn't list coal among the major exports. Oversight or deliberate omission?

I agree with Taswegian.

The only reason we have any rainforest left in Queensland is that 19th century technology wasn't efficient enough to allow all the rainforests to be harvested back then and just as most of us today prefer that this was the case, I very much doubt if future generations would share in Mark Christensen's hopes that the efficiency of our coal exporting infrastructure be increased.

In case anyone is interested, I wrote my own thoughts about the privatisation of the Dalrymple Bay coal loader by Queensland's Beattie 'Labor' Government at http://www.citizensagainstsellingtelstra.com/content/4/dalrymple-bay.html

Some more of my thoughts about Australia's current endeavours to accelerate global warming through increased coal exports can be found at http://candobetter.org/about#coal