Alan Finkel, former Chief Scientist of Australia, and Aidan Morrison Director of Energy at the Centre for Independent Studies discuss the energy transition, tackling the question of whether the current efforts should be redoubled, or whether a rethink is required.
Australia stands at a fork in the road. The current plan to transition to a system dominated by wind and solar is encountering headwinds, with infrastructure investments facing unexpected social, economic, and environmental challenges. Are we still on the optimal path to net-zero? Are we on a viable one?
As Alan said, “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to convince an audience that climate change is real” so it is clear we are making progress in public discourse. However, with climate change is happening faster than we even expected it to, we urgently need a solution. But of the four options for clean energy we have handicapped ourselves by only accepting wind and solar. No one is talking about hydro and nuclear has been banned in Australia.
If we are to effectively tackle climate change, we need to have very good reason to take any clean energy source off the table and out of the conversation.