The Great Admission: Reality Finally Hits the Energy Debate
I never thought I’d see the day, but here we are: Labor is effectively admitting that coal-fired power is what keeps Australian electricity prices low.
In their latest draft national platform, the much-vaunted 82% renewables target has gone missing. At the same time, they are blaming price spikes on coal-fired power stations "breaking down."
Let’s look at what they are actually saying by omission and redirection:
1️⃣ The Target is Untenable: By scrubbing the 82% renewable target from the platform, they are quietly backing away from a goal that was never achievable without destroying our grid and our economy.
2️⃣ The "Coal Paradox": You can’t blame high prices on "coal outages" without simultaneously admitting that when coal is running, prices are lower. If renewables were the cheap, reliable savior we were promised, a coal plant going offline wouldn't send the market into a frenzy.
3️⃣ Manufacturing is the Victim: We’ve watched our manufacturing sector hollowed out by skyrocketing input costs. This shift in rhetoric is a silent acknowledgement that the "renewables transition" has driven prices up, not down.
It’s a "Policy by Silence" moment. They won't say it out loud at a press conference, but the documents tell the story: The transition is failing, the targets are a fantasy, and baseload coal is the only thing standing between us and total economic un-competitiveness.
The era of energy ideology is hitting the brick wall of engineering and economics. About time.
Imagine if we hadn't wasted 20 years patting ourselves on the back for destroying our competitive advantage and just backed our Coal industry?
