The town of Alpha in Queensland, Australia, has only 400 residents, including one part-time ambulance driver and a lone policeman, according to Mark Imber of Waratah Coal, an exploration firm. But over the next few years it should quintuple in size, thanks to an A$7.5 billion ($7.3 billion) investment by his company and the Metallurgical Corporation of China, a state-owned firm that serves China's mining and metals industry. This will build Australia's biggest coal mine, as well as a 490km (300-mile) railway to carry the black stuff to the coast, and thence to China's ravenous industrial maw.
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