The smart money is on clean energy – but Australia must play to win

When Donald Horne coined the phrase “the lucky country”, he did not mean it as a compliment to Australians. What he was saying was that we hadn’t created wealth like other countries – we exploited what was already here and borrowed from our ancestry. 

‘We are still so very, very lucky. But our continued prosperity hinges
on us being a bit smarter than we have been in the recent past.

And Australia has been lucky, because despite a sometimes unforgiving climate, our natural resources are formidable. Over the years we have done well by riding on our gold rush, our sheep and, more recently, through another resources boom.

Globally the next resources boom is already on. For all the noise about the Adani coalmine, the smart money is now in clean energy. And here Australia’s luck is in again. We have a lot of sunshine, along with extraordinary wind and water resources. In time we can genuinely run our economy on cheap, clean energy that will reduce power prices for everyone – renters, homeowners, small businesses, manufacturers and other big energy users.

Read the story from The Guardian by Kane Thornton - “The smart money is on clean energy – but Australia must play to win.”