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Rising gas costs are “the single biggest factor in the current rise in electricity prices”.

What is most noteworthy about this statement is not the fact that it is true, but that it was made by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, many of whose party colleagues remain convinced that renewable energy is the real bogeyman.

Read more: Big gas shortage looming, but government stays hand on export controls

Turnbull’s comments were made in response to a report released this week by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), which yet again warns of impending gas shortages.

I argue below that renewables are a solution to the problem, rather than its cause. But first, is there actually a gas crisis?

A gas crisis?

Although AEMO has predicted a potential gas shortfall for the east coast, there is no shortage of gas. Unprecedented amounts are being produced and exported as liquified natural gas (LNG) from terminals in Queensland, while at the same time the domestic market is being starved, driving prices sky-high.

Read more: Memo to COAG: Australia is already awash with gas

Without government action there could indeed be a domestic shortfall next year, but the government has already set in place a system of export restrictions to ensure domestic supply. These restrictions have not yet been invoked, but the crisis for the government is that they may have to be, and the decision must be made before November 30.

Emergency export restrictions are an intervention of last resort for a governing party built on free-market principles. They are necessary because the government has failed to champion a longer-term and less interventionist strategy, such as the reservation of a certain percentage of gas produced from new gas fields for domestic use. Western Australia has had a policy of 15% reservation for many years and other states are following suit.

Read more: Our power grid is crying out for capacity, but should we open the gas valves?

Not only is there plenty of gas being produced, but it would be relatively painless to divert some of it to the domestic market. AEMO notes several times in its report that producers have some flexibility in where they send their gas. In particular, a significant proportion of the exported gas is not under long-term contract but is destined for the overseas spot market, where surplus energy is traded for immediate delivery. This gas could easily be diverted to the east coast market.

On current projections, 63.4 petajoules of gas is destined for the spot market in 2018. To put this in context, the projected shortfall is 54PJ in 2018 and 48PJ in 2019. In other words, the uncontracted gas destined for the spot market is more than enough to make up the expected shortfall.

Turnbull is also arguing that the potential shortage is due to state bans on gas exploration and production. However, the production costs associated with as-yet-untapped reserves and resources in those states are much higher than for Queensland. Thus, even in the absence of bans it would still make sense to target untapped Queensland resources first.

Moving the gas south

The extra gas released in Queensland for domestic use would need to be transported to the southern states by pipelines that are already close to capacity. This is a potential problem. However, it could be resolved by means of “gas swaps”.

Gas produced in the southern states that has been contracted for sale through the Queensland terminals could be swapped for gas released by Queensland producers for distribution to the southern states. This would avoid bottlenecks and gas transportation costs.

In the longer term, the problem could be solved by AGL’s proposal to establish a liquid natural gas (LNG) import terminal (a regasification plant) at Western Port in Victoria.

This facility could process LNG either from Queensland or from further afield. The terminal would have the potential to provide all of Victoria’s household and business customer gas needs. If all goes to plan, AGL will begin construction in 2019 and bring the terminal into operation by 2020–21.

Our free-market government is now firmly in interventionist mode, with gas export restrictions and plans to fund a Snowy pumped hydro scheme. There is even a proposal to subsidise the continued operation of the AGL’s Liddell coal-fired power station beyond its scheduled closure in 2022.

Read more: Baffled by baseload? Dumbfounded by dispatchables? Here’s a glossary of the energy debate

But rather than continuing to badger AGL about keeping Liddell open, the government would be wiser to press the firm to bring its regasification plant online as soon as possible. Not only does it make economic sense, but it is greatly preferable from an environmental point of view.

The renewables solution

Another way to deal with the predicted gas shortfall is to reduce demand. According to AEMO figures, gas-powered electricity generation in 2018 is expected to require 176PJ of gas, dropping to 135PJ in 2019. The lower demand in 2019 is due to increased renewable energy generation, as well as increased consumer energy efficiency.

Recalling that the shortfall in gas for 2018 is 48PJ, it is apparent that this shortfall would be wiped out by a 30% reduction in gas used for gas-fired power generation. Based on 2016 figures, that would require an increase of roughly 30% in power generation from renewables.

Given the relatively short time it now takes to build new renewable generators, this is a very promising path. Coupled with battery storage or pumped hydro, these new generators would provide dispatchable power exactly as gas does. All that is required is for the government to implement the right policy settings.

Finally, state government policies may already be taking us in this direction. The Queensland government recently announced a major program of incentives for solar power. This will significantly increase renewable power generation and dampen the demand for gas-fired power. AEMO notes this development but states explicitly that this has not been taken into account in its projections.

For whatever reason, AEMO’s final conclusion is not as gloomy as its analysis might suggest. It states that the gas situation in eastern and south eastern Australia “is expected to remain tight”. Rather than calling for action, it considers that the situation “warrants continued close attention and monitoring”. Amid all the talk of impending crisis, what we need is steady pressure on the steering wheel, rather than a sharp swerve.

Andrew Hopkins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Conservationist and 1,461 other scientists release statement describing Australia’s oceans as a ‘global asset’ that must be protected

Growing global momentum to protect the world’s oceans from overfishing could be undermined by Australia, warns renowned conservationist David Suzuki and more than 1,461 other scientists.

Australia is currently considering the world’s biggest downgrading of a protected area with a reduction in the size of its network of marine reserves.

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The solar farm will generate enough electricity for about 2,500 homes, its backers said.

The pub chain’s decision to do away with straws is expected to stop 70m of them ending up in landfill or the sea every year. Here are some other plastics we perhaps could do without

Drinkers heading to Wetherspoon’s for a tipple will have to do without plastic straws from the end of this year as the cheap (and occasionally cheerful) high-street pub chain does its bit to tackle the problem of global plastic pollution.

Following on the heels of companies such as Tesco, which last month announced it would stop selling its 5p single-use plastic bags, Wetherspoon’s senses the tide is turning against unnecessary plastics and claims that the move will stop 70m plastic straws finding their way into landfill or the world’s oceans every year.

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Campaigners welcome U-turn on Renca reserve but threat still exists as Brazil president has close ties to mining industry

Amazon conservation groups have hailed a victory as the Brazilian government announced a U-turn on plans to open up swaths of the the world’s biggest forest to mining corporations.

President Michel Temer had sparked outrage in August when he announced a decree to abolish the Renca reserve, an area of 17,800 square miles – roughly the size of Switzerland – that is an important carbon sink and home to some of the world’s richest biodiversity.

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As pub chain Wetherspoons phases out plastic straws for waste reasons, is it time we scrapped them?

• Trump administration reversed ban in August despite environmental protest
• Activists say plastic is biggest threat to environment after climate change

A ban on bottled water in 23 national parks prevented up to 2m plastic bottles from being used and discarded every year, a US national park service study found. That is equivalent to up to 326 barrels of oil worth of emissions, 419 cubic yards of landfill space and 111,743lb of plastic, according to the May study.

Despite that, the Trump administration reversed the bottled water ban just three months later, a decision that horrified conservationists and pleased the bottled water industry.

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Neglected by most conservation groups, the Burmese python has a champion in Shariar Caesar Rahman.

Here’s a fact that illuminates many of the realities of global conservation: we know more about Burmese pythons in Florida – where they are a destructive invader – than about their lives in their natural range in Southeast Asia, where their numbers are plummeting and their very long-term survival may be up in the air.

Armed with a shoestring budget and a love for mega-snakes, Shariar Caesar Rahman is trying to rectify this incongruent reality by doing something no one has done in Bangladesh before. He’s attaching radio transmitters to snakes – really, really big snakes.

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The world's botanic gardens contain a third of all known plants and help protect 40% of endangered ones.

Sonnen offers "free energy" for households using approved installers, and says it has 2,000 battery sales so far in 2017 and keen to play FCAS market.

ABB today announced the acquisition of GE Industrial Solutions, GE’s global electrification solutions business.

Plant and animal species that are the foundation of our food supplies are as endangered as wildlife but get almost no attention, a new report reveals

• Comment: Chips, chocolate and coffee – our food crops face mass extinction too
  

The sixth mass extinction of global wildlife already under way is seriously threatening the world’s food supplies, according to experts.

“Huge proportions of the plant and animal species that form the foundation of our food supply are just as endangered [as wildlife] and are getting almost no attention,” said Ann Tutwiler, director general of Bioversity International, a research group that published a new report on Tuesday.

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It’s not just animals, many seed crops are also endangered. So why is agrobiodiversity so overlooked? This valuable source of affordable, nutritious food could disappear if we don’t act

• Read more: Sixth mass extinction of wildlife also threatens global food supplies

A “sixth mass extinction” is already under way, scientists are now warning us. Species such as the Bengal tiger and blue whale are vanishing at an alarming rate, and mournful eulogies are being written on how those born in 20 years’ time may never see an African elephant. But who is writing the eulogy for our food? Huge proportions of the plant and animal species that form the foundation of our food supply – known as agrobiodiversity ­– are just as endangered and are getting almost no attention.

Take some consumer favourites: chips, chocolate and coffee. Up to 22% of wild potato species are predicted to become extinct by 2055 due to climate change. In Ghana and Ivory Coast, where the raw ingredient for 70% of our chocolate is grown, cacao trees will not be able to survive as temperatures rise by two degrees over the next 40 years. Coffee yields in Tanzania have dropped 50% since 1960.

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The global energy industry is experiencing two major tipping points for wind and solar that mean that coal will never be great again, no matter how much Conservative politicians and columnists may wish it to be so.

Sandy, Bedfordshire Once full of lambs, today the field is a thigh-high forest of vegetation and saplings rise above the jungle

Down by the river is a place that five springs ago was a field full of lambs. I had spent a couple of years there acting as “lookerer” (or volunteer shepherd) for a flock of Southdown sheep, and on one blossom-filled morning of cuckoo flowers and lesser celandines, I helped the shepherd with a difficult birth.

Related: Country diary: Sandy, Bedfordshire: The best midwife in his field – a shepherd gets to grips with lambing

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Australia is to be the third launch partner on the UK's innovative new small radar satellite, NovaSAR.

Elon Musk prepares to unveil Tesla's next big thing - the all electric truck. Analysts expect it to be the biggest thing in the trucking industry for decades, and will slash transport costs.

There is no easy answer to Australia's gas shortfall and high prices - and certainly not Turnbull's Venezuala-style solution. The best bets might be gas imports, and to build more renewables ...

WestWind Energy submits plans for $1.7bn, 231 turbine Golden Plains Wind Farm – also potentially largest in the Southern Hemisphere.

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A recent Monash University study of TV weather presenters has found a strong interest from free-to-air presenters in including climate change information in their bulletins.

The strongest trends in the survey, which had a 46% response rate, included:

• 97% of respondents thought climate change is happening;

• 97% of respondents believed viewers had either “strong trust” or “moderate trust” in them as a reliable source of weather information;

• 91% of respondents were comfortable with presenting local historical climate statistics, and just under 70% were comfortable with future local climate projections; and

• 97% of respondents thought their audiences would be interested in learning about the impacts of climate change.

According to several analyses of where Australians get their news, in the age of ubiquitous social media TV is still the single largest news source.

And when one considers that social media and now apps are increasingly used as the interface for sharing professional content from news organisations – which includes TV news – the reach of TV content is not about to be challenged anytime soon.

The combined audience for primetime free-to-air TV in the five capital city markets alone is a weekly average of nearly 3 million viewers. This does not include those using catch-up on portable devices, and those watching the same news within the pay TV audience. And there are those who are getting many of the same news highlights and clips through their Facebook feeds and app-based push media.

Yet the ever-more oligopolistic TV industry in Australia is very small. And professional weather presenters are a rather exclusive group: there are only 75 such presenters in Australia.

It is because of this, rather than in spite of it, that weather presenters are able to command quite a large following. And they are highly promoted by the networks themselves – on freeway billboards and station advertising. This promotion makes weather presenters among the most trusted media personalities, while simultaneously presenting information that is regarded as apolitical.

At the same time, Australians have a keen interest in talking about weather. It tends to unite us.

These three factors – trust, the impartial nature of weather, and Australian’s enthusiasm for the weather – puts TV presenters in an ideal position to present climate information. Such has been the experience in the US, where the Centre for Climate Change Communication together with Climate Matters have partnered with more than 350 TV weathercasters to present simple, easy-to-process factual climate information.

In the US it is about mainstreaming climate information as factual content delivered by trusted sources. The Climate Matters program found TV audiences value climate information the more locally based it was.

Monash’s Climate Change Communication Research Hub is conducting research as a precondition to establishing such a program in Australia. The next step is to survey the audiences of the free-to-air TV markets in the capital city markets to evaluate Australians’ appetite for creating a short climate segment alongside the weather on at least a weekly basis.

As in the US, TV audiences are noticing more and more extreme weather and want to understand what is causing it, and what to expect in the future.

The Climate Change Communication Research Hub is also involved in creating “climate communications packages” that can be tested with audiences. These are largely based on calendar and anniversary dates, and show long-term trends using these dates as datapoints.

The calendar dates could be sporting dates, or how climate can be understood in relation to a collection of years based on a specific date, or the start of a season for fire or cyclones. There has been so much extreme weather in recent years that there are plenty of anniversaries.

Let’s take November 21, 2016 – the most severe thunderstorm asthma event ever to impact Melbourne. It saw 8,500 presentations to hospital emergency departments and nine tragic deaths.

There is no reason why this event can’t be covered this year in the context of climate as a community service message. As explained in the US program, just a small increase in higher average spring temperatures leads to the production of a higher count of more potent pollen. Also, as more energy is fed into the destructive power of storm systems, the prospect of breaking up pollen and distributing it efficiently throughout population centres is heightened.

The need to be better prepared for thunderstorms in spring is thus greater, even for those who have never had asthma before.

For its data, the Climate Change Communication Research Hub will be relying on the information from the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO, but will call on the assistance of a wide range of organisations such as the SES, state fire services, and health authorities in conducting its research.

In February 2018, the hub will hold a workshop with TV weather presenters as part of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society conference. At the conference the planning for the project will be introduced, with a pilot to be conducted on one media market to be rolled out to multiple markets in the second year.

The program is not intended to raise the level of concern about climate change, but public understanding of it. As survey after survey shows, Australians are already concerned about climate change. But more information is needed about local and regional impacts that will help people make informed choices about mitigation, adaptation and how to plan their lives – beyond tomorrow’s weather.

Disclosure

David Holmes received funding from Monash University to conduct research for the project described in this article.