<
https://reneweconomy.com.au/hormuz-is-a-warning-australias-oil-problem-is-its-electrification-gap/>
"The Strait of Hormuz is far from Australia, but in every energy crisis there
is a reminder that energy security is not currently measured by how much sun a
country has falling on rooftops. It is measured by what keeps moving when oil
markets seize up, shipping insurance rates spike, or refined fuel cargoes get
repriced in a week.
Australia likes to describe itself as a renewable energy superpower in waiting,
and on electricity supply potential that is fair enough. But the country still
runs a large share of its economy, and especially its mobility, on imported
liquid fuels exposed to global chokepoints.
The lesson from Hormuz is not that Australia needs a new panic plan for the
Gulf. It is that the country needs to get serious about electrifying the parts
of its economy that remain tied to traded oil.
Richard Rumelt’s kernel of good strategy is useful here because it forces
discipline. Diagnosis comes first. Then guiding policy. Then coherent actions.
Australia has spent years discussing electrification, vehicle charging,
bidirectional charging, rooftop solar, batteries, tariffs, and standards as if
they were all equivalent pieces of a buffet. They are not.
The diagnosis is that Australia is behind on economy-wide electrification. The
guiding policy should be to accelerate electrification where it is commercially
ready and strategically important. The coherent actions should start with the
measures Australia can control directly, rather than the technologies it can
only encourage from a distance.
On the diagnosis, the numbers are plain. The Department of Climate Change,
Energy, the Environment and Water’s
Australian Energy Flows for 2023-24 shows
final energy consumption of about 1,121 TWh, of which only about 241 TWh was
electricity.
That means Australia is only about 21.5% electrified on a final energy basis.
The rest is still mostly oil, gas, and smaller amounts of coal and other fuels.
Oil alone accounted for about 654 TWh of final consumption.
This is the reality hidden behind the solar success story. Australia has done a
great deal on renewable electricity generation, but it has not yet done nearly
enough on replacing combustion across end uses. The country is not failing to
build electrons. It is lagging on using them to displace molecules."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
