Our fossil-fuelled world

If there’s one message out of our current oil crisis, it is that we still live in a fossil-fuelled world.

Despite years of climate targets, we burn oil, coal and gas for two-thirds of Australia’s electricity generation and 90 per cent of our total energy consumption.

The debacle in the Straits of Hormuz shows that without fossil fuels not only can’t farmers plough, sow, and harvest, but they can’t fertilise either. Hydrocarbons give us plastics, pharmaceuticals, and explosives. They’re the tyres on every electric vehicle. Without them, there is no modern life and no energy transition.

Some of us are lucky enough to live in Queensland where the Crisafulli government has put energy security and reliability up front and centre, almost alone amongst governments in Australia.

First, they announced that they wouldn’t be putting reliability and cost front and centre for electricity and wouldn’t retain coal-fired power stations for as long as needed.

Their latest move is to accelerate development of the Taroom Trough, an oil region with the potential to significantly enhance Australia’s fuel security and self-sufficiency.

This doesn’t just bring energy security but adds to financial security as well.

Queensland’s ability to respond to a crisis has been hamstrung by wasteful decisions made by the previous Labor administrations which saw Queensland’s debt since 2015, Labor’s first year, explode from $74 billion to $147 billion now.

This debt mountain will need to be cleared sometime and revenue from natural resources must be a significant contributor.

But politicians everywhere else appear to have missed the memo. The Commonwealth Grants Commission penalised Queensland $5 billion for raising record sums from coal.

And the Greens, along with some Teals and Labor allies, are fighting to shut down the hydrocarbon industries.

The latest gambit in this war is the ‘Senate Select Committee on Taxation of Gas Resources’.