Originally published by Stephen Anthony of The Australian Financial Review
06.05.2026
In Greek mythology, the Danaids were daughters condemned to spend eternity filling a bathtub with sieves, ensuring the water always leaks out. This futile, repetitive labour symbolises the absurdity and the inescapable consequences of challenging the natural order.
In Australia in the lead up to the 2026 federal budget, the Albanese government shares the Danaids’ punishment: disorder in almost all key policy areas – but especially so in relation to the net zero 2050 transition. Here they are tying all future energy supply to intermittent wind and solar farms which generate only when the wind blows, or the sun shines. Regrettably, the power supply is 24/7 and not a leaky bucket, nor Swiss cheese.
Many actual energy experts in engineering and physics say the switch to net zero will be very hard. Some argue that it’s not even possible in a reasonable time for an acceptable cost.
No other country has tried a 100 per cent renewables transition so quickly, without backup from regional neighbours. It has produced the highest price volatility in the world in electricity markets. Policy settings underpin uncertainty. Now, large institutional capital is only investing to guarantee regulated returns or to extract monopoly pricing.
The main problem is replacing “dispatchable” power – coal and gas plants that can run anytime – with wind and solar. Traditional plants give steady power. Wind and solar do not. To make up for gaps, we need extra equipment, which costs a lot. Governments have not given clear estimates of how much taxpayers and consumers will pay.
To understand this, think about how electricity works. Power comes from electrons moving through wires, driven by generators. In most big plants (coal, gas, nuclear, hydro), steam spins heavy turbines at 3000 rotations per minute (for Australia’s 50Hz grid). No spin means no power.
Wind turbines also spin rotors. But solar panels have no moving parts. They turn sunlight into direct current (DC) electricity using special materials. Devices called inverters change it to alternating current (AC) for the grid, for an efficiency loss.
A key benefit of spinning turbines is “inertia”. The heavy metal resists quick changes in grid frequency when supply or demand shifts suddenly – like when a plant fails or demand jumps. This gives operators seconds to fix things and avoid blackouts or damage. It’s a free service from old plants. These facilities also guard against times when demand is particularly high or supply from renewable energy is particularly low, such as cloudy, calm days in winter. These periods can extend for multiple days and even weeks.
Wind turbines give little inertia. Solar and batteries give none. New tech like “grid-forming” inverters or batteries can copy some of this, but it’s not as good as real spinning mass. Without it, the grid becomes fragile – like a nervous racehorse instead of a calm workhorse. Frequency must stay exactly at 50Hz, voltage steady, and supply must match demand every second. Otherwise, blackout.
Old coal plants were built near users, ran all day (high “capacity factor”), and provided inertia, strength and voltage control naturally. Australia’s east coast grid was designed for this reliability. Plants like Loy Yang were meant to last 80+ years. Closing them early wastes value and raises costs.
A wind/solar grid needs at least three-four times more nameplate capacity to provide (or approach) firming. The systems are land-intensive. They use areas (about 2 hectares per MW for solar, more overall), long power lines (with losses), and backup systems. These also include batteries, gas plants for peaks, pumped hydro, diesel and expensive “synchronous condensers” – big spinning machines that copy inertia. These help during still and cloudy days. All this adds big costs.
South Australia is often called a renewable success, with more than 70 per cent of its electricity from wind and solar. But it has Australia’s highest household prices. Their grid faces power shortages in bad weather and sudden changes. It needs hundreds of millions for synchronous condensers, costs passed to bills.
A paradox here: the more renewables generation is built, the more backup we seem to need, as does the risk of system failure. Why? System backup imposes massive redundancy and under-utilisation, in other words costs. This is without adequately firming the system against shocks (technical failures, storms and/or extended periods of unfavourable weather).
Latest estimates suggest Australia needs wind capacity to rise from about 14GW to 68GW, solar from 20GW to 66GW, and storage to increase seven times to 52GW. All to replace just 23GW of existing coal generation from the national grid.
Amazingly, no Australian government has ever sought to compare the costs of a fully renewable transition to the impost associated with just keeping/upgrading coal plants (with pollution controls) or heating those steam turbines with alternative technologies. This is a huge planning gap, literally a massive policy blunder.
Properly measured, the extra economic costs associated with the renewables transition could reach hundreds of billions – or even $1 trillion or $2 trillion in today’s money. That means lower living standards on average and fewer tax dollars to fund high-priority spending programs like schools and hospitals. It also implies the exit of heavy industry overseas, and that the poor and many elderly people will need subsidies to power their homes.
Energy turns labour and capital into useful work, and our GDP and living standards depend on it. Since renewables started replacing dispatchable plants in the mid-2010s, Australia’s energy productivity and GDP growth have lagged other countries.
Policymakers may not grasp physics and engineering limits, or perhaps ideology or vested interests motivate them more than facts. Whatever, ignoring practical realities hurts working people and those in need.
Another paradox is that renewables harm the physical environment. Renewables are land hogs. They “covet” the same wilderness habitats that endangered species do. But when once “green” activists would have chained themselves to bulldozers to protect pristine rainforests, now they laud renewable investment funds that clear fell using explosives to build transmission lines and or wind turbines next to pristine rainforests. Funny hey?
