A prominent national journalist recently published an opinion piece about the crazy state of the Australian energy market. In it he referred to the small number of individuals that are trying to use political power to enrich themselves as “rich energy hobbyist carpetbaggers”.

What a wonderful description. These people want to use Government regulation to force the increased used of wind, solar, hydropower and prevent the use of gas, coal and oil in our energy mix. They are positioning themselves via investment to profit handsomely from such state coercion. They attempt to use political power because they must know that left to a competitive market their schemes will fail.

The term carpetbagger originated in the post civil war United States when people from the Union moved to southern states and attempted to exploit the defeated south in whatever way they could, regardless of what southerners wanted.

When it comes to energy production the problem is that the real world is governed by physics. As a statement of the obvious, the physical world ignores government regulation.

It must be hard being a carpetbagger and watching the inability of renewable power sources to make any progress despite massive increases in potential supply through wind farms and solar panels. That’s going backwards. Meanwhile, the recent serious proposals from the opposition to introduce nuclear power generation must be driving them batty.