Gas-To-Electric Transition

Another eat your words moment for Heather. Many times recently she vehemently stated the LNG terminal was not going to happen. Well, I do have to eat my words. I still don't love the idea of the LNG terminal. I never have, and I probably never will, but I think I am fast coming around to the idea that there is no solution to our energy problem that we're going to love. Our electric electricity system, our wider energy situation is so broken now that whatever we do to try to fix it, I think is going to have to be so drastic or so expensive, it's just going to hurt. For the L and G terminal, the problem is the cost for what is a really short, really just a short-term band-aid, isn't it? Because what's going on is we're running out of gas, and we're running out of gas fast. The entire country is. So what this actually means is if we're being honest with ourselves, we all need to get off gas. That's not going to happen overnight, though, is it? It's going to take years. So we'll probably run out before we've all switched to alternatives like electricity, hence the terminal. The terminal tides us over with imported gas until we're all managing to disconnect off the gas. A billion dollars, though, this is the problem. A billion they say a billion dollars is going to be more than that. That to get us through just a few years is very pricey. But they're not doing it. Losing the pan packs of this world. That is so much more pricey. That's a billion dollars year after year after year after year in lost revenue and income and tax. This terminal is going to help the pan packs stay here. That company, PanPack, is the last big pulp mill that hasn't upsticks already. Now, maybe they will do it in the end, but the LNG terminal, they reckon will keep them here for longer, and that's got to be a good thing. Now, yes, the LNG terminal decision has not gone well for the government, right? It is going to divide opinion, much more so than it already is the closer we get to the election. They already have to backtrack on the gas levy that they've spent weeks already defending. It is hardly going to look climate-friendly to the towny swing voters. But it is a tough call that probably does need to be made. And we've got a lot more of these tough calls coming because the LNG terminal is not going to completely fix our broken energy system. It is that broken. It's an expensive solution for a short-term fix, but at least it is a fix.