South Australia, a rust belt state that's 60 percent desert, is staring into the abyss.
It is grappling with the highest unemployment in the country and a steady outflow of people to other states. And in 2017, General Motors Co. will close its Holden factory, ending more than 50 years of automaking in the Adelaide suburb of Elizabeth, where 1 in 3 are already without work.
Options for state Premier Jay Weatherill to stem the decline are dwindling and he's looking at all of them, even the possibility of using the state as a dump for the world's nuclear waste.