'Man-made' climate change: the world's multi-trillion dollar moral panic

Australia produces only 1.3 per cent of the world's greenhouse gases. It is the world's biggest coal exporter, and until a decade ago had amongst the cheapest electricity (predominantly produced from cheap coal). The Victorian Government closed the Hazelwood power station early despite it being amongst our lowest cost sources of power, and no new coal-fired generators are being built. Australian residential customers have ended up paying the highest electricity prices in the world- two to three times more than American households, while South Australia takes the crown for reportedly having the highest electricity prices of all.

Currently an absurd situation exists whereby countries like China, Japan, and India use Australian coal to fire key parts of their electricity network. At the same time, Australia, which can site its coal powered stations on or near major coalfields (at almost zero transport costs), is itself closing them down, and our most energy intensive industries are being forced overseas. Our domestic suppliers of coal effectively are being sacrificed to benefit Chinese suppliers of solar panels and Spanish manufacturers of wind power hardware.

What Australia needs to do in terms of energy policy is a "no-brainer".

We should minimise the cost of electricity by getting rid of all subsidies for renewables, and letting market forces determine future forms of new electricity generation capacity. The most likely outcome (governments permitting) would be a power system gradually switching mainly to new high-efficiency low-emissions (HELE) coal-fired plants.

The problem is that this will not happen anytime soon. The Morrison coalition government is hopelessly divided on energy policy and is expected to lose office. Bill Shorten has also said that Labor will use any mechanism, either one of its own or one it inherits, to drive 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030.

The likelihood is therefore that there will be a continuing orgy of spending on renewables, fuelled by ongoing massive government subsidies and further increases in electricity prices. Without matching big spending on energy storage, the electricity grid will also become increasingly instable.

We are thus guaranteed expensive electricity for decades. Eventually voters will rebel and turn on the "progressives" and Liberal "moderates" responsible for the mess, but that is unlikely before about 2025.