Australia as energy superpower

The cost of such a large piece of infrastructure is affordable. Based on European and Australian pricing, a backbone highway would probably require an investment of around A$8-10 billion - a fraction of what we will pay for the National Broadband Network, or to replace our ageing coal-fired power stations.

Like any motorway, the traffic on an energy superhighway will expand to fill the available capacity and demand. It will open up new energy markets, both in Asia – and across the heart of Australia, making it economic to operate power-hungry industry like minerals processing, manufacturing or internet server farms and to properly develop the interior of the continent. It can carry other services, like broadband or gas (methane or hydrogen), in the same trench.

The Australian Energy Superhighway is a big idea, as significant in its way as the Sydney Harbour Bridge or Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme in how they linked the nation and caused it to grow. We seem only to manage one of these ideas every half-century or so: maybe it's time for another.

It plays to Australia's strengths in engineering and our diversity of competing energy resources. It makes possible a smooth and profitable transition from existing energy systems to clean power, and it positions us for a key role in the Asian Century – as regional powerhouse, exporting electrons instead of pollution, in a cable instead of ships.

If we are going to tax carbon, maybe we should invest the proceeds into something useful, like assuring our own energy supply and national income for the next few centuries.

Finally, an energy superhighway means anyone, large or small, can travel on it. While the Aussie family is at work or gathered round the barbecue, their solar home can be quietly earning export dollars, by keeping the industrial mills of Asia spinning.