[justinclift]

> Australia’s a perfect trading partner in a lot of ways but it’s just too far away in a world that cares about reducing carbon footprints.

On one hand, yeah. But on the other hand, an article floating around in the last few weeks pointed out that modern container shipping is really cost effective these days.

Apparently container ships have also been looking at modern/environment friendly approaches for a while now too (including big wind kites(?) I think). So, that's somewhat likely to further improve over time as well.

[CraigJPerry]

Whatever the technology it’s going to be even more effective if you can find a cluster of 27 relativey rich countries nearer to sell to.

[justinclift]

Yeah, good point. :)