It’s time to back team WA when it comes to gas - The West Australian

Western Australia's government is signalling support for continued gas development and export, framed as essential to the state's economy and energy security. The article argues that backing gas, rather than opposing it, aligns with WA's interests as a major gas producer and exporter.

Where this fits

This is a reliability and firming story dressed as a resource-export story. Australia's renewable transition depends on gas plants to fill the gaps when wind and solar cannot supply the grid. WA's gas reserves are a domestic firming asset, yet the logic of renewable-only policy is to phase them out. If gas is treated as a sunset fuel rather than a necessary bridge and backup source, grid operators will have fewer firm options when weather is poor. The sovereignty dimension is also live: importing liquefied natural gas or relying on interstate supply chains creates dependence. Keeping domestic gas in the mix preserves optionality and buffers against price shocks.

What it means

A grid built on wind and solar alone needs something to run when neither is available. That something, in practice, is gas. Decommissioning domestic gas capacity or capping new development doesn't eliminate demand for firming; it shifts the risk to either interstate pipeline congestion, LNG imports at volatile world prices, or overbuilding of batteries and transmission at hidden whole-system cost. WA's gas is a domestic energy security asset. Treating it as merely a legacy fuel to be managed down, rather than as a necessary grid service that must run alongside renewables, inverts the security logic. The grid does not become more reliable by removing firm supply; it becomes more vulnerable.