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If there's one big criticism I'll make that shoots across the political and ideological spectrum, it's the failure to understand the nature of the problem.

There's a lot of people stuck in a mindset of seeing the problem as about peak demand when it's 40+ degrees outside or when it's freezing cold. They're seeing the problem as needing a short burst of power to deal with than and so they come up with ideas such as, among others, gas-fired plant relying on very limited gas storage, pumped hydro with 8 hours storage, batteries with 1 - 4 hours storage, there's even an existing diesel plant that has only 4.5 hours worth of fuel in the tank and that's when it's full which, of course, it usually isn't.

In practice the problem is about energy constraints far more than it's about power constraints and suffice to say it wouldn't be the first time someone who ought know better struggled to comprehend that it's a real thing not some hypothetical. And so much of the present planning and thinking is, to be blunt, rather useless in dealing with the actual problem.

To me, Kurri Kurri is and has always been a diesel-fired plant with the ability to burn some gas. That's what it is and will always be. With the added problem of the logistics of actually getting that much diesel to it since with both units at nominal capacity, consumption runs to about 3000 litres per minute, every minute. Pushed to the limit it's somewhat higher. That's a lot of road tankers.....

Now for the crux of the problem, that also applies to much of the rest albeit for varying reasons at the technical level. Batteries are far more limited than enthusiasts seem to grasp, because they address power but not bulk energy, and gas is also somewhat problematic in that role. With gas it's fixable with enough money thrown at it, with batteries it's impractical to overcome.

Where that goes is a reality that's not going to sit too well. Particularly in the south-east, so Victoria especially but also SA and NSW, the options to fill the major gaps in VRE output are basically:

1. Bulk fuel storage and transport infrastructure. That is, storing very large amounts of gas or diesel and having the transport infrastructure (pipelines in the case of gas, trucks in the case of diesel) to support that.

2. Large storage hydro. That means big dams storing weeks' worth of water at a minimum, it doesn't mean old quarries holding 8 hours' worth.

3. Nuclear (instead of VRE not to firm it).

4. Coal. As a means of firming VRE it's not great, but purpose built peak load coal plant has been designed, built and successfully operated in the past so it's proven possible, it can be done if there's no alternative.

Because it doesn't just need to run for a few hours, it needs to cope with a week or more of sustained low wind, and that's well beyond what batteries can do. It also requires serious amounts of fuel or water if using gas turbines or hydro - hence the bit about needing large dams or large scale gas supply not just filling an old quarry etc with water.

Trouble is, acknowledging that forces a realisation that there are no easy fixes for all this.

For the non-technical readers struggling to get your mind around all that, think of it this way:

The problem isn't how fast your car can go. The problem is that Perth is a long way from Sydney.

The problem isn't the daily cash withdrawal limit via an ATM. The problem is how much money you've actually got in the bank.

Etc. The problem isn't with the rate of delivery, the problem is being able to sustain it for an extended period. Because while short periods are fine for dealing with peak power demand at 6pm, they're not at all fine for dealing with 10 days of low wind.