This. Along with the privatisation of the industry and the miss aligned incentives. Gold plated delivery of electricity, but no guarantees of getting it.
I find it insane that a country with as much natural resources, plus unlimited sunshine and space for wind farms has such high energy prices.
It’s also why I’m not sold on electric cars. I’d hate to suddenly be unable to charge it. If someone is really serious about CO2 emissions we need to transform the economy to be reliant on electricity not oil, and the only way to do that is drive the price down close to zero.
Especially worrying for me is the push to get everything on electricity. Only to then do rolling blackouts, or turn things off selectively so energy providers can fleece end users with price hikes.
Alas everyone is only interested in the next 4 years so there is little vision.
The higher the cost of electricity the more lucrative new renewable energy sources are. Markets will do their thing.
The short term concerns you bring up are valid but at the same time to expect to shift from an oil based world to an electricity based world seamlessly is asking a lot.
That's not going to work until the market mechanisms are adjusted to pay for reliability. Renewable energy is not reliable, unless it's accompanied by storage. And storage is tremendously expensive.
> It’s also why I’m not sold on electric cars. I’d hate to suddenly be unable to charge it.
Have you ever wondered why they're called pumps when you go to the gas station?
They're electric pumps. All the diesel or petroleum you're imagining you can use instead because you were "not sold on electric cars" isn't going anywhere if the electricity is off.
I understand your point but you have totally missed mine. One of the main reason to have an electric car is the ability to charge from home using your solar. With the way islanding laws work in Australia should rolling blackouts happen you cannot do this.
Admittedly they could change the laws around this. I would love to be able to use a car as my battery as well when I need power overnight.
there's enough gas in those tanks to run a small genny during outages and easily pump more out. You'd need a cup and a rope (but likely there are hand pumps) to get er started.
Australia is exactly the same.
In 10 years there were 7 different Prime Minsters.
The leaders spend all their time bickering about who is in charge instead of actually doing anything.
In Australia they're calling it an "Energy Crisis", which is a complete lie.
Australia has a leadership crisis that has resulted in a crisis of basically everything else.