Great article today by Paul Kelly at the Australia on this:The...

Great article today by Paul Kelly at the Australia on this:

The scientific foundation of Morrison’s strategy came from Chief Scientist Alan Finkel on the ABC’s Q&A program last May when he said dependence on gas arose because battery storage technology was still decades away from sustaining a majority renewables grid. This is the technological key to Morrison’s policy.

“The quickest way to develop our renewable energy system is to support it with gas,” Finkel said. “Gas has much more scale than batteries. Gas is effectively the perfect complement to solar and wind. We can build a lot of solar and a lot of wind and use gas for the times when we don’t have the sun shining and the wind blowing to deliver the energy we need. The reality is we’re going to have to rely on it (gas) for 10 to 20, perhaps 30 years, up to three decades.”

Labor is now under serious pressure on energy. Its 2019 election agony is being accentuated — when Bill Shorten ran with an ambitious 45 per cent emissions reduction policy at 2030 but was trapped with an economic backlash from the regions, Queensland and the west. Morrison, in political terms, is substituting gas for coal. He is going to recruit manufacturing — bosses and workers — in fertilisers, chemicals, brickworks, cement, food processing and beverage manufacturing among others; enlist them and turn them against Labor.

Anthony Albanese faces a critical question: does he believe in gas as a dynamic transition fuel? His supporters are split. But the progressive movement has decided. The Greens and the environmental lobby have declared all-out political war on Morrison’s new policy. Meanwhile, opposition resources spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon, who believes in gas, wants Labor to assist Morrison.