australia's vast untapped coal reserves

Much of the talk about there being a shortage of coal reserves is generally over exaggerated.
North South Australia has coal reserves that could power all of Australia for over 1,000 years.
White Energy has developed a process to raise calorific value of sub-bituminous and bituminous coal. Their Phillipson reserves have about 5 billion tonnes easily accessible due to sand cover.
CNOOC, Altona Resources, Linc Energy and Western Plains Resources have over 11 billion tonnes of sub-bituminous coal in the Arckaringa and Penhryn areas.
Upgrading coal in Indonesia and later India is the name of the game here.
Don't forget China does not need to import thermal coal normally as it has sufficient reserves of their own.