Unfortunately, Australia’s energy modeling virtually ignores rejected energy, but it does make it clear why Australia’s Net Zero scenarios are so oddly skewed. See that big gray bar at the very top of the equivalent energy diagram? Yes, Australia’s energy exports are four times their domestic consumption of energy. That’s why for close to a decade, the party in power was the party of coal, with PM Scott Morrison once bringing a lump of stuff into Parliament to tout its virtues.
And so, hopium ensues. As Paul Martin defines it, it’s the drug that is made out of our own hope to overcome our faculties and divert government money to things which aren’t useful. Hydrogen and hydrogen derivative energy exports from sunny and windy countries that are currently selling a lot of climate change problems are classic hopium.
In this world of local generation of high-exergy electricity, low rejected energy, and no fossil fuels to speak of, will people be buying lots of hydrogen and derivatives to burn in local generation the way that they do coal, oil, and gas today? No, no they won’t. They’ll be vastly more efficient, energy imports will be miniscule by comparison, and countries which export massive amounts of fossil fuels today will not be exporting anywhere near the same amount of energy by then.