{"id":234145,"date":"2025-10-23T04:28:23","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T04:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/234145\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T04:28:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T04:28:23","slug":"australia-is-the-dumbest-developed-nation-on-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/234145\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia is the dumbest developed nation on Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was interesting reading an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2025\/08\/16\/nx-s1-5502671\/electricity-bill-high-inflation-ai\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">article<\/a> from the US news site NPR lamenting the rise in electricity costs, which are growing at twice the rate of inflation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAcross the country, electricity prices have jumped more than twice as fast as the overall cost of living in the last year\u201d, NPR reported.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cElectricity prices have been rising rapidly across the country\u2014thanks to a combination of factors tied to both demand and supply\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>NPR cites the growth of data centres and natural gas exports as key factors behind the rise in electricity costs.<\/p>\n<p>In states like California, which has ramped up wind and solar generation, electricity costs have risen significantly faster:<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/California-energy-bills.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Alex Joiner, chief economist at IFM Investors, posted the following chart on Twitter (X) comparing US electricity prices with Australia\u2019s and the UK\u2019s, which are both rapidly deploying wind and solar to replace fossil fuel generation:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Electricity-prices.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"532\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Australia versus US versus UK\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>As you can see, the rise in electricity costs in Australia and the UK dwarfs the US, even with Australian bill rebates included.<\/p>\n<p>It is extraordinary that Australia\u2014one of the most energy-rich nations on earth\u2014has experienced such rapid energy cost inflation.<\/p>\n<p>Australia is the world\u2019s largest coal exporter, the second largest exporter of natural gas, and has 30% of the world\u2019s uranium deposits. Reliable and affordable energy should be Australia\u2019s number one competitive advantage.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/East-Coast-gas-supply.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"578\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Gas exports\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Yet, we have chosen to make energy expensive by failing to reserve gas for domestic use on the East Coast and placed roadblocks on further gas exploration and harvesting.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Australia-versus-China-coal.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"330\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Coal production\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>We have also committed to closing down coal-fired generation, while two of the nations that we export coal to\u2014China and India\u2014continue to expand coal production and consumption.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Share-of-electricity-production-from-coal.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"396\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Electricity production from coal\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Finally, we have outlawed the cleanest and most environmentally friendly source of power\u2014nuclear\u2014from being developed despite having the world\u2019s largest uranium deposits.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The end result is that Australia is becoming less competitive as high energy costs add inflation throughout the supply chain, resulting in rapid deindustrialisation and the exportation of jobs and industry to China and elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Manufacturing-share.png\" width=\"652\" height=\"411\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Manufacturing share\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Australia\u2019s self-sacrifice at the altar of net zero surely makes us the dumbest developed nation on Earth.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Fossil-Fuel-consumption.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"396\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Fissol fuel consumption\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was interesting reading an article from the US news site NPR lamenting the rise in electricity costs,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-234145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}