Here’s an interesting question…are we really prepared for the possible energy crisis that is about to hit Australia? Do we even understand what that means?
Over the last three years the average household power bill has significantly increased, in some capital cities by over $1,000. And we haven’t even begun to pay for the masses of new renewable energy projects required for our ‘net zero’ targets.
For decades Australia has enjoyed cheap, reliable energy. But with the looming issues hitting us around Climate Change, the way we source our energy is about to change.
We are moving away from carbon polluting energy sources to green energy. Less coal and gas, and more wind and solar energy.
What does that even mean to us as individuals and importantly as a nation?
It could mean far less reliable energy, which will play havoc with our manufacturing industries. It will certainly mean a massive increase in cost, that will need to be paid for at some point.
So are we all prepared for less reliable, more expensive power?
Let me explain….
How Important Are Our Energy Sources?
3 Days from Chaos….
Some years ago, Vladimir Lenin posed the idea that society is always only 9 meals from anarchy. If you cut off a society’s food supply, everything will begin to crumble within 3 days.
So what is the greatest thing we rely on for our food supply in the western world? Our power sources. Turn off the power and our food supply is one of the first things to go.
It’s quite a sobering thought that in our modern society we are still so fragile.
If you shut down our energy supply, you can’t do most things we take for granted. No fresh water; not for drinking, washing or sanitation. No heating, or cooling.
And no fresh produce – in fact no food sources of any type. You can’t produce it, can’t transport it, and can’t keep it fresh and edible.
Yes I know how crazy all this sounds (no I’m not sitting here with my tin-foil hat on!). But imagine for a moment how bad things would be if our power supply was simply gone.
You can see why the power stations are the first thing targeted in any military attack. Shut down the power supply and your enemy is not only crippled, but they will turn on themselves to survive.
High Standards of Living Rely on Cheap Energy
Ok, let’s step back from our dystopian future and look at how we live now.
One of the things that creates and supports a higher standard of living in any country is access to cheap, consistent, reliable energy. It is the very thing that has created such a high standard of living in Australia.
While coal, oil and gas maybe dirty words (hah, see what I did there!), never underestimate the positive impact they have on our standard of living in Australia. Our vast coal and gas reserves have provided very cheap reliable energy for our homes and businesses, particularly as we grew as a nation.
And they have also provided an amazing source of income, selling it in large quantities to other countries. This has contributed to an amazing social system that allows many Australians to live a much higher standard of living than they can technically afford.
If we stop selling fossil fuels to other countries, in an attempt to save the planet, it will impact our standard of living in a very big way. Are we prepared for that?
If we stop using fossil fuels for our own energy usage, the price of energy will increase dramatically, at least in the short to medium term. How much can your power bills get to before it’s a problem? For many people it is already too high!
The Perfect Storm
Ok, so we can see why access to reliable energy to paramount, and access to cheap energy is super important to our living standards. So why am I banging on about it?
Right now I can’t help but feel we have a ‘perfect storm’ heading our way. We are miles away from renewables becoming the main supplier of energy across our grids. Renewables currently only make up around 10% of the total energy used in Australia.
While a nuclear option is being floated, that too is a long ways off, and probably will never happen. And both nuclear and renewables options are extremely expensive!
We have also been blindly working on the incorrect assumption that something will be there to replace the existing coal and gas electricity system. These now old facilities have not been upgraded or maintained in years, and there are signs they are already breaking down.
So we are faced with aging and failing energy infrastructure, with nothing even close to replacing it in the short to medium term. And as we try to replace them the cost will be astronomical.
Am I the only one that sees this as a major problem?
How Did Things Get so Bad?
We Have Blindly Outsourced the Problem
Let’s face it, we have all blindly decided that it’s ok to simply outsource this problem. So much so, that most of us don’t even know there is a problem at all.
We have collectively handed it to our government to fix. Unfortunately, that hasn’t worked and now leaves us in a very shitty situation.
Every three years here is Australia, we elect our federal government. How can they possibly focus on decisions for 10, 20 or more years in the future, when they are thinking about the next election?
What if one of the major issues you are working on is green energy – surely that will win votes! Oh no, has anyone actually seen how much this will cost, and how long it will take?
Are the voters prepared to accept the ugly truth of much higher energy prices and a possible decrease in the standard of living?
How do we tell the punters the truth and still get elected?
So they hide the truth and blindly push down a path that “looks” right from the outside….save the planet and we can all gather and sing kumbaya!
Where Are We At Now?
We all know that we need to reduce carbon emissions and turn off dirty power generation. We need to transition away from coal and gas power plants to cleaner power sources if we want to turn the tide on climate change.
If you are Labour leaning, this is 100% renewables – wind, solar etc.
If you are Liberal leaning, this is largely the nuclear power option.
Now we could debate the pros and cons of these forever, and perhaps that is a big part of the problem. While we debate the best course of action, the world is burning (literally!), or flooding, or both.
This is a reason why we can’t blindly outsource this stuff to the government.. they need to be held accountable, for the truth around costs, timing and what is really the best options!
Renewable Energy
Renewables on the surface sounds like the answer – 100% free energy from the sun and wind. Who doesn’t want that?
But this is a completely different set of energy generation than we are used to. It will take a lot of time and money to make it all work. And remember it has never been done at this scale anywhere in the world.
The countries that have the highest renewables in their electrical grids are those with natural geothermic advantages, like Norway and Iceland.
While Australia can tap into solar and wind, it also has it’s own unique issue to deal with, especially around physical size of our country and the low population density.
Western Australia, where I live, has the largest, stand-alone energy grid in the world. So no one else is working on the issues that we face.
Renewables, like solar and wind often need to be in a completely different location to the current power generations sites. So the whole delivery grid network needs to be shifted and rebuilt. Very expensive indeed!
Not The Full Story
I truly believe that we are not being told the full story when it comes to the financials around renewable energy. Don’t get me wrong, renewables have to be a part of our energy future. But are they the panacea that the Labour and Green Parties try to sell us?
Renewables, like solar and wind, have a limited life-span, requires a huge amount of resources to setup, including even more mining, and still creates significant volumes of waste. In the short term this option is actually ironically, the least green option.
We cannot on one hand demand that mining be scaled down, or block new mines coming online, when the very materials being mined are required to build the renewable energy grids.
The technology required to fully embrace renewable energy as a solid reliable energy source doesn’t exist yet. There are still gaps in the process that simply can’t be ignored.
Can we solve them? Absolutely. Have they been solved today? Nope, not yet.
So like I have said, we have not been told the full story on renewables. The Labour government has bet it all on black, hoping these issues get solved along the way. But what if they’re not solved in time?
Nuclear Energy
Now what about the nuclear option? Yes, there is a very real issue around nuclear waste, but its not as much as we think, with much of it now being recycled for future use as fuel.
What can’t be undersold is that you have clean, non-carbon producing energy on tap for decades!
All the engineering problems have largely been solved, with over 30 countries generating around 10% of the world’s electricity, with an additional 20 countries importing nuclear generated power. A further 10 countries are in the process of bringing nuclear energy into their electrical grids.
It is a very similar form of energy generation to what we already have, (mechanical turbines), so it slots neatly into the existing distribution infrastructure.
Unfortunately, the time to build nuclear into our energy grid was 5-10 years ago. We would now be turning off the coal and gas plants, and be so much closer to the magical net-zero.
To me the perfect solution would have been nuclear energy on tap now, to reduce emissions, while we work on the longer term renewables solutions.
So Where Does That Leave Us?
Now let’s circle back on the idea of cheap reliable energy, and its direct relationship with our standard of living.
Anything we do from here is almost certainly going to be very, very expensive! That will need to be paid for somehow. However those costs are covered (or hidden by an embarrassed government), a large chunk will need to be passed onto the consumer.
So our energy will no longer be ‘cheap’.
And if we can’t solve the issues with renewables, or move fast enough to build the next-gen power generation, then will be left with a very unreliable energy grid.
And if we do nothing then we are left with aging, unreliable, expensive to maintain, dirty power stations.
Again, I can’t be the only one waking up to the major problem coming at us.
What can we do?
I get that it is really easy to put all this in the too hard basket. After all, if you can’t rely on the government to provide something as fundamental as your power supply, who can you rely on?
But I really do think this is something that we can’t and shouldn’t ignore as individuals. We should all be taking the time to understand at least some of these issues, so we can make informed decisions around what our politicians are spruiking (or hiding!).
The following resources provide some insights;
- The Federal Government’s Energy Strategy
- Liberal Party Energy Plan
- Labour Party Energy Plan (page now removed…interesting!)
- The Australian Renewables Energy Agency
- Information on the Nuclear Energy option
- Here is how the Oil & Gas Industry proposes to address cleaner energy.
Probably one of the biggest impacts we can have individually and as a nation is to reduce our energy usage. What I haven’t had time to cover here is how as a nation our energy usage continues to grow at an alarming rate.
Sounds like a good topic for a whole new article…stay tuned…
At the very least we need to prepare ourselves for more expensive, less reliable energy – at least in the short term. It’s very hard to see how that is not going to be the case. And if cheap reliable energy is the back bone of high living standards, then our living standards too will be affected.
We need to be prepared for a very rocky road ahead.
Until next time….
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