Guy Pearse's July Comment and John Birmingham's essay, "In the Dark", are most informative, but fail to consider another possible option for power generation: natural gas. The long-term planning must be for a renewable source of energy, but in the interim gas is cleaner than coal.

Australia is fortunate to possess vast quantities of natural gas off the north-west and Kimberley coast. We ship millions, if not billions, of litres of gas and billions of tonnes of iron ore to Asia - and buy it back in the form of manufactured goods. I can hear Rex Connor saying from the grave, "I told you so." Despite boom exports of coal, gas and iron ore, Australia is still running a current-account deficit. The eventual reduction of commodity sales will increase the deficit.

Motor vehicles can also be operated on compressed natural gas, so why is the government paying a subsidy on LPG conversions instead of encouraging LNG conversions? Perhaps one of your contributors could enlighten us in a future issue.