Financially it is, at least in the short term. Australia has a lot of coal (no need to import raw material). Australia has coal mining companies (no need to i

Financially it is, at least in the short term. Australia has a lot of coal (no need to import raw material). Australia has coal mining companies (no need to import technology). CO2 is only a global problem, the coal which Australia burns won't make a big dent in the effects and the cost is shared globally. So, financially it totally makes sense to use up the local resources first. At least in the short term until these resources get scarce. In the long term, saving resources may be the wiser option. E.g. have coal plants on standby most of the time while solar and wind supply the grid. Then you can export some of the coal or save it for future generations.