National energy security policy & legislation is long over due imo.
Energy outcomes are currently a state based issue and witness some of the recent state based lunacy that has adverse national impact, for example:
- Qld has an internationally competitive CSG to LNG industry at Gladstone. There has been no proven or signifiant environmental damage in over a decade of fracked CSG production. Qld will derive revenues from this operation for decades
- Across the border in NSW a limp NSW government has effectively locked up all the state's CSG with fracking bans and moritoriums to appease radical environmentalists. Shutting down coal is their next focus. NSW is only able to import interstate gas via existing pipelines and is critically exposed to rising gas prices
- SA now meets its own electricity needs one day a year when sufficient wind and sunshine occurs completely in sync with energy demand over a 24 hour period. The other 364 days a year SA imports fossil fuel derived electricity at the mercy of market based super peak rates. But hey, SA is sooooo green, having recently proudly closed their last coal fired powergen plant.
- Tas recently ran out of water for hydro electricity, it's Basslink undersea power cable failed and they had to import and fuel massive fields of diesel generators
- Vic proudly closed a big coal powergen plant, without considering any replacement capacity, nor considering the plight of SA needing to import large but inconsistent amounts of electricity
It's a woeful, implausible but true tale. And there is no current or imminent remedy.
There is no panacea for national energy security, other than powergen by varied source and location. A mix of renewables and fossil fuelled powergen. Wind, solar (preferably together for less than reliable baseload), coal for reliable baseload, hydro and gas for peaking. Oil for fuelling what renewables cannot, namely planes, trucks, ships and heavy equipment, oil and gas for nitrogen based fertiliser, plastics, fabrics, your typical Nike runners, pharmaceuticals and so on. Realise that as renewables displace fossil fuelled productive capacity, market forces will ensures the unit cost of fossil fuelled powergen will morph from baseload rates to peaking rates (as experienced by SA).
Out of all this, I still firmly believe renewables can only be ignored to our future peril.
Dex
