Australia, which has been blessed with an abundant supply of energy resources - sun, wind, gas, coal, and uranium - ironically finds itself struggling to provide sufficient cheap energy to power the nation's homes and industries into the future.
In 2024, Australia is in an energy policy quagmire due to short-sighted political decisions stretching back over half a century.
A farsighted government energy policy, beginning in 1970, could have nipped the Australian climate wars of the past 15 years in the bud, and resolved our country's current energy needs.
The first policy misstep was taken in 1970, when incoming prime minister Billy McMahon cancelled the nuclear power station construction, which had already begun on commonwealth land near Jervis Bay in NSW and was started by his predecessor John Gorton.
This was not done for ideological reasons, but as an anti-inflation budget cost-cutting measure. Construction was put on hold in 1971 but never resumed.
Prime ministers John Howard (2007) and Tony Abbott (2015) tried to revive nuclear power technology, but it was anathema to the ALP and the powerful green lobby.
But imagine if the Jervis Bay station construction had continued in the 1970s, followed by other nuclear power plants in several Australian states? We would not have needed to build as many coal-fired power stations between the 1970s and 1990s, and we would have been able to easily reach our greenhouse targets by 2050 and be on par with France.
In the 1950s, French president Charles de Gaul was a visionary leader whose energy policies left France with a 70 per cent nuclear power legacy. Reaching their 2050 greenhouse gas targets will be easy because emissions are already low in France. This has been achieved with mainly old nuclear technology over the past 70 years without accidents.
Meanwhile, Australia has struggled with the wrong energy policy, which has been dominated by coal-fired power stations built in the last century.
The path forward in the 2020s is mired in uncertainty and a lack of agreement across the political spectrum on which energy sources Australia should develop to replace coal-fired power.
The Albanese government seems determined to pursue renewable energy provision only, which is questionable, as none of the other 20 OECD countries are planning to do this. Some European countries started down the total renewable path in the past decade before concluding it was mission impossible.
Our current government has also vowed to oppose any nuclear power energy provision. Again, this makes Australia the odd one out, with all other OECD countries having nuclear power as part of their energy mix.
That being the case, why does the federal government keep claiming, incorrectly, that such technology is not feasible in Australia in the 2020s, when it was obviously feasible at Jervis Bay in the 1970s?
The path forward should contain a range of Australia's abundant energy sources: wind, solar, and hydro, backed up by evolving battery technology and firmed by both gas and nuclear. If wise heads prevail, I think this is the path forward for our energy future.
The most urgent step to realising this vision is for Australia to begin building large-scale nuclear power plants in each state at the sites of shut-down coal-fired stations. Backing the renewables rollout with gas and nuclear-firming technology is Australia's only credible path to net zero by 2050.
However, I fear, given Australia's meandering energy and climate policy track record, this may not happen.
Will our energy decision-makers have the sustained focus and courage to achieve net zero in time and keep the lights on at a reasonable cost?
Unfortunately, it appears the 2020s are shaping up like the 1970s, with the alarming possibility of missed opportunities in energy policy, due this time to a one-track renewables only obsession.
