The demand for electricity in Australia to 2020

Pursuing a secure, reliable electricity supply, therefore, is easily explained as a high national priority here as elsewhere and the cost of doing so in the next 12-20 years will be measured in billions of dollars - according to ESAA calculations, some $30 billion by 2012 and probably more than $40 billion by 2020, not including the billions likely to be needed to ensure an adequate supply of natural gas to generators. In any scenario that makes sense to ESAA, natural gas, black coal and brown coal will dominate as fuels for electricity generation. Obviously, renewable energy, driven by government subsidy through a program that mandates retailer purchases, will grow in use, but at 2020 it is not remotely likely that fossil fuels will have less than 80 percent of the generation mix. A brief word here about the prospect for nuclear power use in Australia in this time frame. ESAA simply cannot see a nuclear development being pursued - for political reasons if for no other