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Australia's reticence in embracing renewables has always seemed obviously corrupt to me given the abundant natural sunlight resources Australia is blessed with,

Australia's reticence in embracing renewables has always seemed obviously corrupt to me given the abundant natural sunlight resources Australia is blessed with, combined with the 100% reliance on importing of oil-based fossil fuels. Australia is self-sufficient in keeping the lights on, due to large coal reserves, but wouldn't be able to transport anything if petrol dried up (and I think Australia only has twelve days of petrol reserve storage). Just imagine the chaos... To the point I would think it would be a National Security priority to electrify transport and build whatever is needed to support that electrification.

Izikiel43 1y ago
> Just imagine the chaos. The oil shortage in australia in the 70s inspired Mad Max.
protocolture 1y ago
There was a Turnbull era report that suggested they could have energy security AND water security, long term, by building 70 - 120 pumped hydro dams. Pumped Hydro would give them heaps of energy storage, and the dams could be tapped in severe droughts. We got Snowy 2.0 out of that process, and a few state governments have some fast tracked private pumped hydro dams, but ultimately there isnt enough political spine in the whole country to tackle it. We cant really scale renewables without storage, and battery storage at scale would probably suck up the worlds supply of lithium. The big battery in SA is great for market arbitration, and smoothing out the frequency, but if it was tapped to supply baseload, would not give you very long. The demand for these batteries would be huge if its left to them. As it is we will move slowly in kinda the right direction, and probably get very lucky. Thats how Australia works usually, just a country of people gambling constantly on remaining relatively lucky.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  > Australia’s NEM will see a massive increase in grid-scale battery energy storage capacity in the next three years. There are 16.8 GW of battery projects that could come online in the National Electricity Market (NEM) by the end of 2027. This would result in a ninefold increase in battery energy storage capacity in just three years - with 2 GW operational today. https://modoenergy.com/research/australia-nem-big-battery-energy-storage-pipeline-report-2025 https://modoenergy.com/research/australia-nem-big-battery-en... https://reneweconomy.com.au/graph-of-the-day-the-stunning-rise-in-big-battery-activity-on-australias-main-grids/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/graph-of-the-day-the-stunning-ri... Compare to ~22.5GW of total coal generation capacity and ~30GW of utility scale solar in Australia. This does not include behind the meter solar and batteries. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/AU/72h/hourly https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/AU/72h/hourly
someNameIG 1y ago
We could do coal liquefaction if it came to it. But I'm unsure on how fast we could get it up and running, and how much fuel we could get. Might be just enough to allow for just enough transportation for food so no one starves.

Izikiel43 1y ago

> Just imagine the chaos. The oil shortage in australia in the 70s inspired Mad Max.

protocolture 1y ago

There was a Turnbull era report that suggested they could have energy security AND water security, long term, by building 70 - 120 pumped hydro dams. Pumped Hydro would give them heaps of energy storage, and the dams could be tapped in severe droughts. We got Snowy 2.0 out of that process, and a few state governments have some fast tracked private pumped hydro dams, but ultimately there isnt enough political spine in the whole country to tackle it. We cant really scale renewables without storage, and battery storage at scale would probably suck up the worlds supply of lithium. The big battery in SA is great for market arbitration, and smoothing out the frequency, but if it was tapped to supply baseload, would not give you very long. The demand for these batteries would be huge if its left to them. As it is we will move slowly in kinda the right direction, and probably get very lucky. Thats how Australia works usually, just a country of people gambling constantly on remaining relatively lucky.

toomuchtodo 1y ago
> Australia’s NEM will see a massive increase in grid-scale battery energy storage capacity in the next three years. There are 16.8 GW of battery projects that could come online in the National Electricity Market (NEM) by the end of 2027. This would result in a ninefold increase in battery energy storage capacity in just three years - with 2 GW operational today. https://modoenergy.com/research/australia-nem-big-battery-energy-storage-pipeline-report-2025 https://modoenergy.com/research/australia-nem-big-battery-en... https://reneweconomy.com.au/graph-of-the-day-the-stunning-rise-in-big-battery-activity-on-australias-main-grids/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/graph-of-the-day-the-stunning-ri... Compare to ~22.5GW of total coal generation capacity and ~30GW of utility scale solar in Australia. This does not include behind the meter solar and batteries. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/AU/72h/hourly https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/AU/72h/hourly

someNameIG 1y ago

We could do coal liquefaction if it came to it. But I'm unsure on how fast we could get it up and running, and how much fuel we could get. Might be just enough to allow for just enough transportation for food so no one starves.