Andy Champ wrote
Rod Speed wrote
harry wrote

Most of it [Australia] is desert or semi-arid.

Like hell it is. Have fun explaining where the wheat is grown, which
just happens to be one of the world's largest wheat exporters.

There is in fact a bigger area suitable for growing oil than in the whole of western europe.

You'll find if you dig around a little that

Dont need to do that, I live there.

- Most of the country is too dry for these crops

Thats just plain wrong.

- Most of the rest is already under agriculture

But like with any other agriculture, what is grown on that varys
with the weather predicted and the price of what is grown,
particularly with annual crops that dont need special machinery.

- Almost all the remainder is monsoon climate.

Where oil seed crops grow fine.

Or do have another explanation for all the expense of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_Mountains_Scheme

Thats both an irrigation system, and provides an immense pumped water
system that allows the coal fired power stations to run at peak efficiency.

And the bulk of the irrigation system was to provide security for the
sort of tree crops that its very undesirable to lose in a drought etc.

And that only provides irrigation water for a quite small part of even
just the agricultural land thats used to grow crops on anyway.

Very little wheat is irrigated wheat.

and the periodic wheat harvest failures due to drought?

That doesnt happen very often at all and since oil can be
grown around the bulk of the world, you get the same
averaging out effect you get with wheat world wide too.