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Australia is a resource extraction export country, and a pretty damn good one at that. Though I think without agricultural exports, they would focus on manufacturing more as they did historically.

What shocks me the most is how a (very rich) country with iron and coal to spare produces virtually no steel. Why?

Rainfall Comparison, Australia vs US,1930s.

(Source: nla.gov.au)

Well, as far as I understood, no one is comparing the capacities of the US and Australia, which are obviously pretty different. Still, Australia can support a MUCH higher population. Just to illustrate, Australia is a continent as populous as the NY metropolitan area, roughly 8% of the American population.
 
What shocks me the most is how a (very rich) country with iron and coal to spare produces virtually no steel. Why?



Well, as far as I understood, no one is comparing the capacities of the US and Australia, which are obviously pretty different. Still, Australia can support a MUCH higher population. Just to illustrate, Australia is a continent as populous as the NY metropolitan area, roughly 8% of the American population.
No smelting capacity all of it goes overseas. Well it does show how bad the water situation is though
 

Zachariah

Banned
The Colorado River and the watersheds of Northern California are two pretty big differences that California has going for it.
Average discharge of the Murray River in Australia- 767 m3/s (27,086 cu ft/s)
Average discharge of the Colorado River in the USA- 22,500 cu ft/s (637 m3/s)
So is that something that California's got going for it, or going against it relative to Australia? The Colorado River accounts for 16.3M of California's total water reserves of roughly 78 million acre-feet (MAF), 20.1 km3 of California's total of 96.2 km3 per annum. Harping back to the Rajasthan analogy though, the total water resources of Rajasthan only amount to 15.86 MAF per annum, 19.56km3. In Rajasthan, with its population of over 68 million people, the total demand for water equated to 31.3 km3; breaking it down by sector, 26.72 km3 were required for agriculture, 0.435 km3 for industrial usage, 3.18 km3 for domestic, recreational and construction sectors, and roughly 1 km3 for livestock. Rajasthan produces a net total of roughly 17.5 million tonnes a year in food grains, and since these are mostly nutrient-rich, it equates to roughly 4,000 calories per kg. From this, we can see that, even if we look at cereals alone, Rajasthan's output can currently comfortably sustain a population of 70.98M people at an average calorie intake of 2,700 per person per day (still markedly higher than the RDA); or a population of 59.5M people at Australia's current food energy intake levels.

For comparison, the total water runoff of Australia in 2004–05 was estimated at 243 km3, and total groundwater recharge was estimated at 49 km3, giving a total net inflow to Australia’s water resources of 292 km3. For comparison, that's more than three times as much as California, and almost fifteen times as much as Rajasthan. But the total water use in Australia in 2004–05 was less than 80 km3, with roughly 75% of this water returned to the environment following in-stream uses such as hydroelectric power generation. Even excluding this though, and reducing the effective water use of Australia to 20 km3, Australians' water usage per capita was and still is the second highest in the world, second only to the USA with regards to how wasteful they are when it comes to water. Officially, the average Australian uses 493 liters of water every day, but the average water use/capita actually equates to 2,607 liters per person per day. Just by reducing Australia's water usage/person to levels comparable to those of the UK and India, even at its current water use levels, it could already comfortably sustain a population somewhere between three and fifteen times greater than its current population.

So, let's do the math, and use Rajasthan's agricultural productivity/water consumption figures to give ourselves a highest plausible estimate for Australia as a whole, if it utilized a similarly high percentage of its available water resources (80-90%, and subtracting the contribution of Rajasthan's water imports from other states). Australia could potentially sustainably utilize a maximum of 230-260 km3 of its water resources annually; and if it managed to achieve a food productivity/water consumption ratio on a par with that of Rajasthan, even at Australia's current food energy intake levels per capita, Australia could sustain a maximum population of 510-580M people. And with a lower average calorie intake of 2,700 per person per day, closer to the recommended consumption levels, Australia could sustain a maximum population of 610-690M people. "Oh, but that's at Indian levels of water consumption, so they'd be a piss-poor shit-hole of a third world country", I hear you saying. And true, since Rajasthan's rivers no longer reach the sea other than during floods due to overusage and evaporation, this development model for Australia would result in a considerable amount of environmental fallout.

Fine- let's look at California as an example instead. California's water system manages 49 km3 of water per year; 51% of its total water reserves. So, if Australia managed a similar portion of its own water reserves, then they'd be managing roughly 149 km3 per year; roughly three times as much as California, almost twice as much as Australia's current water usage, and roughly 7.5 times Australia's current effective water usage. With 39% of its water usage dedicated to agriculture, California manages to supply irrigation to roughly 23% of the irrigated agricultural land in the United States; and California's food output accounts for roughly 12.5% of U.S. agricultural output by value, and somewhere between 30 and 33% of the USA's agricultural output by calorific food energy value, along almost half of the USA's fruits, nuts, and other table foods. And even with the USA's astronomic food consumption per capita and wastage levels, the USA's agricultural output is sufficient to exceed its consumption by more than 30%.

At its current consumption/capita and wastage levels, the USA can support a maximum population of 425 million people. Meaning that California's food production already supports 141M US of Americans; and would be sufficient to support 164M Australians, at current Australian food consumption levels. If we do the math, and increase Australia's agricultural productivity/water consumption levels to Californian levels, by tapping into more of its available water reserves and improving the efficiency of its grossly inefficient and wasteful water management system to be on a par with that of California, then Australia would be capable of supporting a maximum population of roughly 500M Australians, even at their current food consumption per capita levels. Or to simplify matters, Australia's realistically just as capable of supporting a population of 140M as California's capable of supporting a population of 40M- which it currently does. So, yeah- it'd be easy peasy lemon squeezy. And California's hardly an impoverished, underdeveloped third-world region, is it now?
 
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