Multitasking, I was writing something, not this, on Tuesday night, drinking red wine, and intermittently watching TV. Out went the power in my local area.  It is a shock for us city slickers.  My desktop computer (incidentally the hard drive of which I later found had been ruined by the incident) sits in my enclosed balcony, the floor of which is raised above the main floor. This forms a handy resting place for my wine while watching TV on my couch.

I inched forward in the darkness and felt my foot hit the glass of wine. It turned out that I had wedged the glass still upright against the side of the couch. Wine intact and no mess to clean up. And they say miracles don’t happen.

I gradually felt my way to my bedroom where I keep a torch. Then, where are the candles? Eventually found them in a kitchen cupboard and ‘cleverly’ fitted three of them inside assorted glass bottles. Memo to me: must buy candlestick holders and perhaps some lanterns of some description, for they will surely be needed.

I had my phone which of course still worked, but that provides me with little entertainment, not being a social media junkie. I thought I would continue working by candlelight on the blog I was writing. Alas, laptop computer says no. My Microsoft Word program is now in the sky and only works when connected to the internet, which of course is as dependent on power, as with all modern conveniences. Without power we are as neophyte cave dwellers. Most of us would die out in a short space of time.

An Ausgrid text informed me that the problem was complex and would take some hours to fix. It was now about 11 pm. I simply went to bed.

We have all experienced blackouts and know how disconcerting they are. I mention my recent experience simply drive home the point that we will need to get used to them and prepare for them.

Windmills and solar panels work only intermittently, power is required continuously. Never the twain shall meet. Chis Bowen will deliver soaring prices and blackouts; not to mention deindustrialisation. Nothing is more certain. Dutton and his merry band of Liberal wets offer some reprieve, if they were to miraculously get over the line, but not nearly enough. They seem determined to be stuck at net zero.

Windmills and solar panels are being installed as we speak. The more they permeate the system the less reliable it becomes. Coal and gas can fill the breach when renewables are relatively minor in the scheme of things, but as they metastasise and drive out coal and gas, particularly coal, their intermittency is fatal. Imagine the effect of a wind drought when wind generation makes up on average only 10 percent of the system. Now imagine what happens when it makes up 50 percent.

Australia’s rich estate is being run down. Unreliable and expensive power is driving out industry, while ever more borrowed money goes to climate-scam boondoggles and to social welfare programs, and so little to national defence. Don’t want to be a doomster, but I don’t think that this will necessarily end well. Will it?