a luxury "they" don't have

By "they" read the Queensland Labor Government, the Federal Labor Government, state and federal Greens, environmental and community action groups.

For quite some some, Queensland has been a net exporter of electricity to the national grid, that is, the state and corporate entities earn significant revenue from selling electricity interstate.

From the table in the latest Cougar presentation, in 2010, more than 50% of electricity generated in Queensland was available to be exported interstate.

The projected surplus is in such decline that from 2014/2015 onwards Queensland will need to be a net importer of electicity (from where I cannot even begin to imagine, because NSW and Vic are already net importers themselves).

By 2018/2019, Queensland will need to import a whopping 40% of it electricity needs (again, from where?) to avoid service interuptions and capacity constraints to development.

Is that going to be painful ... or what!!!

Surely, Queensland planners, politicians of all persuasion, government ministers, premiers, environmental groups and community action groups are fiddling whilst Rome is burning?

There will be absolutely no problem at all if everyone is going to be happy with electricty supply 60% of the time at current pricing (ie no power 4 days out of 10 0r 4 hours out of 10). Or is the price of electricity so inelastic that people will pay whatever the price to secure it??

It is going to be interesting watching all those stakeholders reflecting back on these times.

Dex