Whoever is in power the next 20 years is in for a rough ride. I was annoyed with Morrison claiming emissions had gone down 20% on his watch; it was almost all due to land use changes helped by La Nina and state government bans on land clearing. However that pales compared to the Albanese election promise of lower power bills and Australia becoming a 'renewable energy superpower'. People are cutting back on healthy food in order to pay the power bill.

I think SMRs are inevitable despite the FOAK NuScale plant being cancelled in the US. That means we'll have to keep some big coal stations like Eraring and Yallourn chugging away in the 2030s. Some ideas like mixing costly green hydrogen into natgas plants (eg Tallawarra B) are trendy but daft. I expect a national natgas reservation policy in the next few years. Like batteries for long duration energy storage it's just too expensive ($150 per MWh) to pile on more misery for consumers. If Albanese is re-elected I think the Libs will subsequently get in on rebound, deserved or not.

The Liberal Party's energy policies are the same as those of Labor - only just a little bit less extreme and loony.

Despite the economic/security killing, grand ideas, and straight out stupidity of the duopoly, we are going to need coal and gas for a long time yet; and the climate/co2 rubbish will still go down as the biggest con-job and mad thinking in history.

Disagree with the authors (pro-coal) biased take. I believe Dutton has read the room well and is on the money for a possible win next election.

He will lead an energy-based recovery and the killing of runaway inflation! The cost of living is a number one issue and all due to the current prohibitive cost energy.

Bring that cost down by the immediate deployment of SMRs will allow energy bills to come down as real competition changes the energy playing field.

And let's have more than a few deployed as publicly owned SMRs to ensure real competition for your energy dollar.

The next big issue is the electrification of the economy and more easily done without energy-based inflation f#cking it up!
Alan B.

Taswegian: Some new affordable solar powered hydrogen manufacturing plants have hit the market and make enough free gas to be economically viable.

Just add water and you can make more than enough fuel to power the family jalopy and create enough surplus to power the family home.

Buy two and you've enough fuel to power a long-haul bus or B-double!

There's little doubt hydrogen will be the fuel of the future and given this new solar power gas maker, the future is here already!
Alan B.

Alan B by my reckoning green hydrogen is a loser as an energy transfer or storage medium. It takes about 54 kWh of electricity to make 1 kg of hydrogen in a PEM electrolyser and another 2 kWh to compress it to 350 bar in horizontal tube tanks. Currently it needs to be mixed with a larger amount of methane/natgas to run in a turbine. That kg of H2 has 33 kWh of energy of which we can get back about 40% or 13 kWh. That is 56 units in, 13 out.

In contrast batteries and pumped hydro give back about 80% of the energy that went in. However they have high upfront cost and rapid depreciation of batteries but there seems to be an official blind spot about that. Given that world food supply depends on fertiliser I think we'll have to use green hydrogen cost be damned to make the ammonia precursor. There's no way it can get cheaper on our present course.

Down here in woke Canberra, it would be nice to think, that TTBN has overstepped the mark. But he hasn't.

When it comes to United Nations Net Zero Emissions, the so-called left is enthralled. The so-called right, lacks the cojones, to say anything different.