Australia's energy transition, fully costed.
Solar and wind are cheap per megawatt-hour and growing — that part is real, and we'll say so plainly. But the true bill is being hidden: the dollars, the materials, the replacement cycles, and the supply-chain dependence the headline number leaves out. This is the part nobody counts.
Sourced by an 8-category research sweep (ABS National Accounts for rooftop, AEMO/TNSP for the grid, IRENA & Clean Energy Council for wind, solar & batteries). It counts physical assets built, gross of subsidy. To avoid double-counting, the ~A$45bn of build subsidy (STCs, LGCs, ARENA, state rebates) sits within the capex and is never added on top. And AEMO's grid plan adds A$122bn moreto 2050 that isn't counted here. Nominal dollars.
And it still hasn't bought cheap power: on top of the build, taxpayers spent another ~A$10bn (2023–25) just to shield households from the price shock. (In fairness: that relief offset the 2022 global gas/coal spike, not the renewable build directly — green-scheme costs are ~6% of a power bill and have fallen. We count it separately, not in the headline.)
…and what it's made of
The chokehold is refining, not mining. The China chokehold is MIDSTREAM — refining and manufacturing, not ore in the ground. Australia mines lithium, silica and rare earths; the vulnerability is the refinery and the factory. These tonnes are not one-and-done: panels are re-procured ~every 25 yr, inverters ~15 yr, blades ~20 yr — and Australia landfills most end-of-life panels and nearly all blades, so replacement is fresh mining, not a closed loop. Grid storage is overwhelmingly LFP, so it is a lithium + graphite story — negligible nickel and cobalt, unlike EV batteries. We don't inflate those.
The honest baseline
The trackers
Grid Mix Reality
liveWho actually generates with what — coal, gas, nuclear, wind, solar — and how much is firm vs variable, by country.
Open tracker →The Real Cost
liveWhat the A$173bn and ~20 Mt of material could have bought instead: the nuclear counterfactual, the firming bill, lifecycle carbon and waste — both sides.
Open tracker →The Simulator
liveSize a clean-energy build and compare the two ways to deliver it — cost, material, China-dependence, firmness, carbon and waste, live as you drag.
Open tracker →The Nuclear Case
liveThe dispatchable, materials-light, low-China, low-carbon, long-lived option Australia bans by law — while crewing AUKUS submarine reactors. Why the ban is incoherent.
Open tracker →China's Footprint
liveThe 80–95% midstream supply-chain chokehold — coal-made panels, refined-in-China minerals — the sovereignty cost, material by material.
Open tracker →The Hidden Costs of LCOE
liveWhy the cheap-per-MWh headline is the most misleading figure in energy policy: firming, transmission, overbuild, replacement, system strength.
Open tracker →Why GenCost Gets Nuclear Wrong
liveThe report used to call nuclear too dear — recalculated. Move the four assumptions CSIRO chose conservatively (discount rate, asset life, capacity factor, FOAK) and watch the answer move. Honest both ways.
Open tracker →Materials & the Replacement Clock
liveTonnes per TWh (the fair comparison) and the repowering wave — inverters ~15yr, batteries ~15yr, panels ~25–30yr — the mining that never stops.
Open tracker →How to read this site
Yes — solar and wind are cheap per megawatt-hour. That number is also the most misleading figure in energy policy, because it leaves out the bill that actually lands: the firming, the transmission, the materials, the replacement cycles, and the handover of the entire supply chain to Beijing. We count what the headline doesn't — and every figure is sourced, so you can check it. That full cost is what Australia is unprepared for.
The numbers, as they move
A short, sourced brief when the figures shift — a transmission blow-out, a supply-chain move, a milestone. No spam, no hype, just the receipts.