Want an economic tonic, Mr Morrison? Use that stimulus money to turbocharge renewables

The chaos of COVID-19 has now hit global energy markets, creating an outcome unheard of in industrial history: negative oil prices. With the world’s largest economies largely in lockdown, demand for oil has stagnated. 

Prime Minister Scott Morrison with Angus Taylor,
right, who wants Australia to buy surplus oil.

Essentially, the negative prices mean oil producers are willing to pay for the oil to be taken off their hands because soon, they will have nowhere to store it.

Federal energy minister Angus Taylor has proposed a partial solution: Australia will spend A$94 million buying up oil, to bolster domestic supplies and help stabilise global prices. 

That strategy is a fool’s path to energy security. Right now, the best way to shore up Australia’s future energy supplies is to invest economic stimulus money in renewables – essentially to manufacture our own energy security. 

Read the story from The Conversation - “Want an economic tonic, Mr Morrison? Use that stimulus money to turbocharge renewables.”