Mark Twain grumbled that everyone talked about the weather, but nobody did anything about it. Today energy supply would more likely be the subject of his despondency.
Rising electricity prices and climate change inaction are unsettling many, but a satisfying public discussion is being hampered by an inability to cut through the complexity of the issues, the tendency to discuss climate change policy in isolation from energy security, and a failure to expose the contradictions that characterise many positions being advocated.
An informed public discussion on long-term energy security is overdue.
NSW will need about 60 per cent more electricity in 2030 than it does today. In carbon intensity, NSW's electricity supply is second only to brown coal-powered Victoria, and it has the highest rate of sulphur dioxide emissions because about 90 per cent of NSW electricity is sourced from coal.
If this is to change, the most difficult first step will be to publicly acknowledge that shifting to a cleaner energy mix that is also affordable and reliable will be more challenging than the spruikers of easy solutions suggest.
How will NSW keep the lights on in the decades ahead?
Our economy and lifestyles have evolved thanks to enormous and cheap supplies of coal. But some no longer consider this acceptable, and demand a move to less carbon-intensive sources of energy but without, presumably, wanting to pay significantly more for it. This cost consideration immediately rules out the widespread use of wind, solar and possibly even nuclear, despite Australia possessing the world's largest reserves of uranium.
Last week the NSW government wound back its solar power subsidy, partly because it was apparently costing as much as $640 to reduce each tonne of carbon dioxide, about 27 times more than the emissions trading scheme shelved by the federal government.
Other renewable energy sources also have their opponents. One of the country's most promising geothermal projects near Geelong, which received $12 million in state and federal government support, has faced local opposition. This week the Australian Environment Foundation publicly noted community opposition to several Victorian wind farms because of high energy cost, health fears and their paltry contribution to greenhouse emission reductions.
The NSW gas industry faces similar issues. Though gas-fired power stations emit up to 70 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions than existing coal-fired plants, the industry's expansion is stridently and paradoxically opposed by the Greens and other environmentalists.
In Queensland, a decade of policies encouraging gas use has unearthed a massive coal seam gas endowment, which could be replicated in NSW. Coal seam gas supplies 90 per cent of Queensland's gas and this week British Gas committed $US15 billion to the world's first LNG export plant using coal seam gas as feedstock.
Yet in NSW gas delivers about 3 per cent of electricity. NSW only produces 4 per cent of the gas it uses. Clearly there is room for NSW to draw on its massive natural gas resources to diversify its energy mix and, in doing so, start to move to substantially de-carbonise its energy base.
The Greens have described climate change as "the greatest threat to our world in human history [which] requires urgent local, national and global action". Yet their political response is to oppose, at every turn, the development of Australia's gas industry.
In the next 20 years, if natural gas, together with 20 per cent renewable energy (the federal target), were used to replace coal-fired generation as it is phased out, greenhouse gas emissions would fall 20 per cent while electricity production doubled.
NSW needs more energy - and it needs cleaner, affordable energy. Outright opposition to viable and sensible energy options is not only a vote for the status quo, it impedes the thoughtful and intelligent energy debate that we need to have.
Voltaire said perfect is the enemy of good. We can continue to hold out for ''perfect'' - affordable, no-emission energy - but if we do, we will be sacrificing good - cleaner, affordable energy - and accepting that future energy policy is simply more of the same.
Belinda Robinson is chief executive of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association.
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