Australia on hold until energy mess is sorted out

A new coal power plant would take five to 10 years to go from idea to production. Apart from questions around emissions intensity, flexibility and bankability, we don't have that long to wait. But the technology should get its chance in the marketplace.

The cost and performance of renewables and energy storage are improving fast, but right now there are limits on how high wind and solar use can go without costs escalating and stability declining.

As a result, gas power is by far the most available option at scale for stabilising the grid. Those challenges can be solved, but they are simply ignored by feel-good state renewables targets. The states should drop their targets and work with the commonwealth on a ­national energy policy and national greenhouse gas emissions reduction strategy.

Meanwhile, further amending the commonwealth's 2020 renewable energy target would wreck the only bipartisan certainty business has in energy and provoke more state action.

The time for a reality check is now. When South Australia's industry and the shipbuilding program have to install expensive, dirty and typically idle diesel generators just to keep their doors open, you know we have a problem, if not a crisis.

When Hazelwood closes in six weeks, South Australia will become perilously dependent on supply conditions in NSW and Queensland, not just Victoria. As an Ai Group member told me, that's a very long extension cord.

We now have a national economic security problem. If global boardrooms turn their back on Australia over energy or businesses are forced offshore, it will represent the biggest collective policy failure in decades.

Delivering the much-vaunted trifecta of energy reliability, ­affordability and sustainability needs bipartisan and national co-operation. Fixing the debacle is a massive test of our political leadership and our federal system.