Farmers are questioning how the transition to renewables is being managed as electricity prices go through the roof.
This is also the question Matthew Warren asks in his book Blackout: How is energy-rich Australia running out of electricity?
Governments have stuffed up as we have copious amounts of coal and gas which is now running short while we are paying international prices for Australian-owned commodities.
Science told us carbon emissions must be reduced to curb climate change and fossil fuels are the main culprit, so all Australian governments signed up to international agreements to cut the amount of carbon going into the air.
Regardless of your belief in climate change, successive governments are signatories to decreasing our carbon emissions, meaning the phasing out of coal and gas.
At the start of the 21st-century politicians had to manage the impact of a large and scientific risk (climate change) on a large and complex industrial machine.
What could possibly go wrong?
Could we have the worst possible group of people to fix the problem?
Warren sums it up very accurately when he says politics is the antithesis of science.
Science is rationale, incrementalist and passive. Politics is irrational, absolutist and emotive.
Politics by necessity prioritises populism over evidence, the short-term over the long-term, symbolism over substance.
Electricity systems are very complex but need to be durable and adaptable to find power at the oddest times - if on a stinking hot day with air conditioners going flat or at 3am in the morning when demand is low.
This is where renewables are a challenge, as they produce only when wind and solar are available, leaving a gap in the middle.
So we know two things are important in the power system to meet peak demand and make sure the quality is satisfactory to endure safety.
Demand and prices for coal are close to the highest in history, yet 10 coal stations have closed since 2012, and another 15 will in a few years.
Coal and gas produce about 70 per cent of our power.
So the big looming problem is how we fill the gap between renewables and coal and gas.
Pumped hydro will fill a bit, but batteries of sufficient scale are not in place, and the cost looks horrendous.
Experts assure us that with renewables across the country, there are not many periods when power is not produced, but you only need an hour without power to be unconvinced with that story.
We need a clear costing plan about how the gap will be filled.
Vague rhetoric about batteries is irrelevant without costing.
Hydrogen still appears to be a concept with no real proposals ready to go.
Will pumped hydro be more politician hot air?
Australia was built on cheap, plentiful electricity, we cannot allow our advantage to be lost because of political incompetence.
