National Energy ‘Guarantee’: can our power ‘trilemma’ become a policy trifecta – or quinella?

Sure, any mix of national reliability and 'responsibility' targets is achievable, if we are prepared to pay the required cost.

What about affordability?

We can't deliver that as well without net new electricity investment for reliability and 'responsibility', and hope that, somehow, lowers prices.

How will such investment be delivered without increased costs? Please tell us. I think it's impossible with current technology.

If we end up with some sort of quinella solution to our electricity 'trilemma' problem, but miss the target on affordability, what then?

Households won't welcome more power bill shock (already high and possibly getting worse).

Business becomes even more uncompetitive as the cheap energy basis for our historical comparative advantage continues to disappear.

The NE'G' is still a national production-based scheme to reduce emissions, not a national consumption-based scheme. Competitiveness suffers.

Will 'responsibility' be delivered by slower economic growth – or worse – rather than lower emissions intensity? Is that really 'responsible'?

China wouldn't accept this option. Neither would India, or Indonesia, or many others.

Why should we?