Throughout history, interactions of supply and demand have driven ‘transitions’ – think horses to cars and trains; whale oil to paraffin; transistors, resistors, capacitors to microchips. Uniquely, the much-flaunted energy transition from coal, oil, and gas to wind and solar and perhaps to green hydrogen is politically propelled, resting on a supposed link of climate change from burning hydrocarbons.

In Australia, as in the US with its so-called Inflation Reduction Act and the EU with its European Green Plan, expelling hydrocarbons from the energy supply has become the central dimension of politics itself.

Ostensibly, this is curious since environmental concerns are not prominent according...