AUSTRALIA’S ENERGY FUTURE: OUR EMPEROR-HAS-NO-CLOTHES MOMENT – CRISTINA TALACKO

Where is Australia’s energy policy headed? Evidence suggests Australia will not meet all of its Net Zero targets with delays in the investment in renewables. Cristina Talacko is an Australian business leader and energy-policy commentator. She is the founder of the Coalition for Conservation, a centre-right organisation promoting pragmatic climate and energy policy and has represented Australia in international forums and writes frequently on geopolitics, decarbonisation and industrial strategy. On Wednesday 21 January 2026, Cristina Talacko addressed The Sydney Institute to explain who a “100 per cent” renewables energy policy is inefficient, unreliable and expensive.

AUSTRALIA’S ENERGY FUTURE: OUR EMPEROR-HAS-NO-CLOTHES MOMENT

CRISTINA TALACKO

Thank you for having me.

Australia has reached an emperor-has-no-clothes moment in energy. The cracks are visible. But the course doesn’t change. Not because the evidence is unclear. But because ideology has become a blindfold.

Tonight, I’ll do four things. First, I’ll show you how we got here. Second, I’ll tell you how my own thinking has changed. Then, I’ll show you why the idea of “100 per cent renewables” breaks down in the real world. And finally, I’ll look outward, to places I’ve personally visited, to show what happens when systems are designed for reality, rather than identity.

I’m not here to prosecute a case or defend a tribe. I’m here to talk about system design. And what happens when ideology replaces physics.

So how did we get here? For many years, Australia has told itself a reassuring story about energy. Coal would go down. Renewables would go up. Emissions would fall. Costs would fall. Reliability would be maintained.It was a nice story. But energy systems don’t run on stories. They run on physics. Engineering. Materials. Land. Weather. And time.

What Australia effectively did was set a target, an endpoint, before designing the system to reach it. We chose a destination: “100 per cent renewables”, and assumed the system would adapt. That transmission would appear. Storage would scale. Communities would consent. Costs would fall. And reliability would take care of itself.

But over time, the gap between narrative and reality got bigger. To the point that Australians now face some of the highest electricity prices in the OECD, despite living in one of the most energy‑rich countries in the world. The Australian Energy Market Operator – AEMO – has to intervene more frequently than ever, because weather‑dependent generation creates volatility in the grid that must be actively managed. Coal plants scheduled to close are being kept online because we haven’t solved what replaces it at scale. And the same politicians who promised that electricity would be cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable now rarely say all three together.

That silence tells you something. That’s what I mean by an emperor‑has‑no‑clothes moment. Not a scandal. Not a sudden collapse. But a slow, uncomfortable recognition that we are relying more on hope than physics and engineering.
Let me tell you about a moment that crystallised this for me. It’s a story from overseas, because distance sharpens perspective. It was a winter evening in the North Sea. January. Cold and dark. Off the coast is Dogger Bank – the largest offshore wind project ever built. Hundreds of turbines. Billions invested. The wind is strong. The turbines are producing enormous amounts of clean electricity. On paper, everything is working beautifully. But hundreds of kilometres south, the grid can’t move the power fast enough. So, the wind farms are paid to shut down. At the same time, gas-fired power stations are paid to turn on, clean energy is paid not to produce. And fossil fuel is paid to step in. This is called curtailment.

At this point, I want to explain why this matters personally to me. I was a strong advocate of renewable energy. Then I started seeing things like this that didn’t add up. I woke up to the cost of everything required to make intermittent power usable: transmission lines, grid stabilisation, storage. Then, the scale of what we needed to build. Not just wind and solar. But batteries, interconnectors, peaking plants and duplicate capacity.

Then the footprint. Thousands of square kilometres of land. Cutting through pristine landscapes. I realised that no matter how much we built, we needed to build more. Weather dependency means the system can never be complete.I saw projects announced with excitement, then quietly abandoned. Transmission lagged generation. Communities pushed back because of land use, cost, and fairness. Curtailment became routine.

And here’s the paradox. Australia is installing renewables faster per capita than almost any country on Earth. Yet bills are rising, reliability is falling, and we need more coal and gas than the plan promised.

I began to notice a gap between what was being said publicly and what engineers, grid operators, insurers and investors were saying privately. That was my own emperor-has-no-clothes moment. So, I did what any serious person should do. Due diligence. I tested the system.

I went around the world attending international energy conferences, technical briefings, policy forums. I’ve been to many COPs. And met with regulators, industry, and utilities across Europe, North America and the Middle East. And everywhere, the same thing came up – firm power. The engineers understood it. The grid operators planned around it. The insurers priced risk through it. The investors demanded it. But the political conversation back home avoided it.

I now live in France, and I experience every day what a firm, low-carbon system looks like. It’s boring. Predictable. Reliable. Clean. That’s where my conclusions changed. The evidence forced me to.That brings me to the Real Constraint – the 100% renewable pathway because Australia’s problem isn’t renewables. It’s treating “100 per cent renewables” as a system endpoint, rather than a component. Once you look closely, this approach presents four structural constraints that appear again and again.

First: The True System Cost. Renewables are often described as cheap. And on one narrow metric, they are. That metric is the Levelised Cost of Energy — LCOE. It measures the cost of producing electricity at the generator. But LCOE excludes the costs that make intermittent power usable: transmission, grid stabilisation and inertia.

Then there is storage. Gas plants are kept online as insurance. Curtailment payments are made when power arrives at the wrong time. When you include them, renewables stop being cheap. They become capital-intensive and subsidy-dependent. That’s why Australia can install record renewable capacity
while household bills continue to rise.

AEMO estimates the full system cost of the transition to be between $300 to $500 billion by 2050. What Australians are paying for is not electrons. We are paying for the complexity of making intermittent energy behave like infrastructure.

The second constraint is Social Licence and land. Renewables are often described as green and light touch. In reality, they are spatially intensive. To meet our targets, we need tens of gigawatts of additional wind, solar and batteries and around 10,000 kilometres of new transmission lines.

That footprint lands on real communities. And they’re pushing back. Not because they deny climate change. But because they’re being asked to carry the cost of a system designed elsewhere. In parts of Northern Queensland, some of the oldest and most ecologically valuable rainforests on Earth are being cleared to make way for renewable energy projects and transmission corridors. Complex, ancient ecosystems which are irreplaceable. This is environmental damage that would trigger anger in any other context and is waved through because it carries the right label.

If decarbonisation requires us to sacrifice our ecosystems, we’re not solving an environmental problem. We’re relocating it.

The third constraint is Intermittency and Curtailment. On mild spring days in South Australia, solar generation can exceed total demand around midday. The excess must be curtailed, exported, or stored. But the transmission capacity is limited. Storage remains expensive and limited in duration. So, curtailment becomes routine.Generators are compensated for being switched off. The more weather‑dependent generation you add, the more often supply and demand misalign. Curtailment does not disappear as systems mature. It intensifies.

The fourth constraint is Abundance Versus Adequacy. We need to ask a serious question: Do we want an energy system designed for adequacy, or designed for abundance? A single data centre can consume as much power as a city of 50,000 people. AI, advanced manufacturing, mining and desalination all require continuous, firm, predictable power at scale. That is where “100 per cent renewables” stops being ambitious and starts becoming a constraint.

South Australia is a good example. It has the highest renewable penetration in the country. Along with some of the highest electricity prices in the National Electricity Market. This is not despite renewables but because of what it takes to make them work. High renewable penetration does not eliminate the need for firm power. It amplifies it.

Now let’s look outward. Let me show you what happens when countries choose differently. First, France where I live now, and where energy is a boring infrastructure. France generates around 70 per cent of its electricity from nuclear. I’ve visited Tricastin, in the Rhône Valley. Tricastin is not just the host of nuclear reactors. It’s also the host of the fuel cycle. It is home to Orano’s conversion and enrichment facilities — turning raw uranium into nuclear fuel. That matters. Because France doesn’t just generate electricity. It controls critical parts of the supply chain.Energy in France is treated as infrastructure, not ideology. The result is low prices and low emissions. Stable supply. Electricity prices are roughly half those of Germany. France made this choice after the 1970s oil shocks, for energy security.

The climate benefits followed. And they’re doubling down. Building new reactors. Modernising and extending fuel capability.

The UAE also changed its course. Despite building lots of solar and having no nuclear power history, they built the Barakah Nuclear Plant. It is four large reactors. All four were built on time and on budget. I visited Barakah two years ago. The thing that stood out was the intentionality. The workforce was trained years in advance. Supply chains were secured deliberately. Today, Barakah provides about 25 per cent of UAE electricity. Firm, predictable, zero-carbon.

I remember asking their COO why they built nuclear if they had abundant sunshine. He said, “It is our insurance, because it runs during sandstorms, heatwaves, and calm nights.” This is what energy security and abundance look like.Then there’s Ontario. Ontario faced exactly what Australia faces now. How to phase out coal while keeping the lights on. I’ve visited Ontario Power Generation. It’s the publicly owned utility responsible for most of the nuclear and hydro generation. In 2003, coal provided about 25 per cent of Ontario’s generation. By 2014, coal was phased out entirely, by pairing renewables with nuclear and hydro. Emissions fell. Reliability held.

Today, nuclear provides about 60 per cent of Ontario’s electricity. And, crucially, Ontario didn’t have to de-industrialise. I believe Ontario is the model we should study. It is the success case. A system with a public entity accountable for core assets, responsible for system integrity.

Now the rest of the world is also changing course. Sweden reversed its nuclear phase-out. Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, South Korea, and Japan are all building more nuclear or restarting it. Why? Because they’ve seen what happens when you try renewables-only at scale. Reality is forcing correction.

Now let’s talk about places like Australia, which are “target-driven” and” technology-restricted”, like California and Germany. Both set aggressive renewable targets. Both banned nuclear. Both are struggling. California experienced rolling blackouts in August 2020 for the first time in two decades. The grid couldn’t balance supply and demand as the sun set and solar generation dropped. It’s called the “duck curve.” California closed its nuclear plants and added massive solar and wind. But hasn’t added enough storage or firm capacity for the evening ramp.

California has since reversed course on its nuclear power station, Diablo Canyon, extending its operation. But damage was already done. Too little, too late. Electricity prices there are roughly double the national average.

Germany too shut its nuclear plants, in the middle of an energy crisis. Since then, emissions reductions stalled. Electricity prices are now among the highest in Europe. The manufacturing industry is suffering. And despite one of the world’s largest renewable build-outs, Germany remains dependent on electricity imports from France a system anchored in nuclear power. Physics doesn’t negotiate.

At this point, I’d like to bring up the Nuclear Prohibition, which to me is an ideology frozen into law. Australia is one of only two OECD countries with a legislative ban on nuclear power. Nuclear generation here is explicitly prohibited. Not regulated. Prohibited. We are the world’s third largest uranium exporter. We mine it. We sell it. Other countries use our uranium to generate clean, reliable power. We do not.

The prohibition dates back to the 1990s. Back then, nuclear was associated with weapons, waste, and Cold War anxiety. Today, nuclear technology has advanced dramatically. Yet the ban remains.

So, Why Can’t We Change Course? Because politics is brutal. This is where the emperor-has-no-clothes analogy becomes literal. Everyone can see the problem.  But no one wants to be the first to say it out loud. First, it’s electoral suicide. No politician wants to stand up and say, “We got this wrong.” The billions are already committed. The contracts were signed. The promises were made. Admitting that the current path isn’t working means admitting error. And that’s electoral death.Second, is tribal ownership. Renewables have become a progressive identity. Labor and the Greens own this issue. Nuclear has been coded as conservative. Coalition territory. Crossing that line means betraying your base.

Third, is the money. Once you create a subsidy-dependent industry, it lobbies hard to protect itself. Renewable developers. Consultancies. Advocacy groups funded by the transition. All have a stake in maintaining the current path.

Fourth is the narrative lock. For decades, environmental groups defined themselves by opposing nuclear. Greenpeace. WWF, ACF. Conservation groups. They can’t reverse without losing credibility without admitting they were wrong.

And finally, there is the media frame. In most newsrooms, questioning renewables equals climate denial. Nuclear scepticism is seen as a progressive credential.The result? A system is locked in place. Not by physics but by politics. We’ve legislated ourselves into a corner. We are making the transition harder, more expensive, and more land-intensive than it needs to be. Yes, nuclear takes a decade to build. Yes, it has high upfront costs. But we’re spending hundreds of billions on a system that isn’t working. We have time to do this properly.

Nuclear has a lot to offer in the long term: energy density, minimal land for enormous firm power. It offer reliability as it runs around the clock, unaffected by the weather. It offers longevity with its plants operating for 60 to 80 years. Solar panels degrade. Wind turbines wear out. Nuclear lasts. Then there is sovereignty and energy security.

Uranium is already mined here. We could control our supply chain. We could have energy abundance to enable an electricity-intensive economy. Australia could lead. But we lack political courage.To conclude, I didn’t change my values. I changed my conclusions when the system stopped behaving as promised. I support renewables. But I’m no longer a supporter of renewables-only. The evidence is clear. Systems combining renewables with firm power outperform those that do not. Australia has every advantage – engineering expertise and stable institutions alongside wealth and space.

What we lack is the intellectual honesty to admit the emperor has no clothes. We need to accept that a diverse system is better, one that includes renewables, gas, hydro, geothermal, batteries, CCS and nuclear. We need to lift the prohibition. We need to commission a serious analysis. And we need to keep all options open. Design for abundance, not just adequacy.

I know this is uncomfortable. At the moment, the response is predictable: (i) Question the target— and you’re a climate denier; (ii) Suggest nuclear — and you’re a fossil fuel supporter; (iii) Point out we need gas and storage — and you’re told to trust the technology. This is groupthink masquerading as moral clarity.

The government sees the problems. Their response? Double down. More renewables. Faster deployment. Bigger subsidies. Questioning it is politically toxic. The emperor’s clothes are gone. What matters now is whether we choose competence. Or continue pretending not to notice.

The government sees the problems. Their response? Double down. More renewables. Faster deployment. Bigger subsidies. Questioning it is politically toxic. The emperor’s clothes are gone. What matters now is whether we choose competence. Or continue pretending not to notice.