In terms of reserves of coal and gas per capita, Australia is actually in a much stronger position than the US is, especially in natural gas where Australia's recent global ranking of fifteenth is set to with another round of North West Shelf gas discoveries.
Not surprisingly, the synthetic fuels industry in Australia is virtually non existent. The only effort of significance at this time is Linc Energy's joint program in Queensland, conducted with US synthetic fuels technology house Syntroleum, to trial synthetic crude manufacture from feedstock gas produced using Linc's underground coal to gas conversion process. This malaise is despite Australia's good track record in research, including the successful trials at Monash University many years ago.
Given that energy supply is an issue in the current public debate, it is astonishing that synthetic fuels remain in a policy vacuum, both in the civil and defence sectors. It is not in the national interest for this policy vacuum to persist. This nation has much to gain economically and strategically from self sufficiency in critical liquid fuels.
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