I won't write too much here we have an energy thread.
I understand a large chunk of Australia's export is black coal used for coking not energy, and even when we transition to clean energy that won't change as the demand for coking coal as steel production will not diminish even though steel mills move to greener energy, the coking coal is part of a chemical process to make steel not part of the energy production.
Not sure we export much brown coal, it's is mostly used domestically for energy production.
The coal everybody wants to trade is the black stuff, it sells at a far higher price, so much so there is a lot of R&D going into techniques to turn brown to black. The higher the black coal quality the better the alloys you can make.
Interestingly Japan mostly buys black coal for it's high tech energy production, black coal burns cleaner so it's easier to deal with the waste, Japan's technologies eliminate about 80% of the waste emissions. Protestors will still rally against this but as a short term transitional solution that technology is as good as immediately shutting 80% of your coal fired power plants, actually for Australia it would be equivalent to shutting even more than 80% because the brown coal we burn for energy is not as clean. The only long term viable solution is still nuclear be it fission or fusion, several countries that historically closed nuclear are now reversing the decision, they have become woke to the lobbyist tactics.
Solar, wind and other renewable energy lobbyists tend to just lump coal(pun intended) all in the same basket.
PS; When Australia stops selling black coal or supply is limited, China and India do their best to get it from other sources like Borneo and the Amazon Basin! The lobbyists paint us as vandals, but the truth is far more complicated.
I understand a large chunk of Australia's export is black coal used for coking not energy, and even when we transition to clean energy that won't change as the demand for coking coal as steel production will not diminish even though steel mills move to greener energy, the coking coal is part of a chemical process to make steel not part of the energy production.
Not sure we export much brown coal, it's is mostly used domestically for energy production.
The coal everybody wants to trade is the black stuff, it sells at a far higher price, so much so there is a lot of R&D going into techniques to turn brown to black. The higher the black coal quality the better the alloys you can make.
Interestingly Japan mostly buys black coal for it's high tech energy production, black coal burns cleaner so it's easier to deal with the waste, Japan's technologies eliminate about 80% of the waste emissions. Protestors will still rally against this but as a short term transitional solution that technology is as good as immediately shutting 80% of your coal fired power plants, actually for Australia it would be equivalent to shutting even more than 80% because the brown coal we burn for energy is not as clean. The only long term viable solution is still nuclear be it fission or fusion, several countries that historically closed nuclear are now reversing the decision, they have become woke to the lobbyist tactics.
Solar, wind and other renewable energy lobbyists tend to just lump coal(pun intended) all in the same basket.
PS; When Australia stops selling black coal or supply is limited, China and India do their best to get it from other sources like Borneo and the Amazon Basin! The lobbyists paint us as vandals, but the truth is far more complicated.
"Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck ....... Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck"