Powerlines by Chris Uhlmann

As Australians head toward a federal election, former Senate president and High Commissioner to Canada Scott Ryan offers a measured but clear-eyed assessment: the old certainties in Australian politics are breaking down — and the international order that once underpinned them may not return. In a wide-ranging interview, Ryan provided a granular, state-by-state breakdown of the electoral battlegrou...

At Thursday’s National Press Club energy debate, I asked Energy Minister Chris Bowen a simple question: “Have electricity prices risen on your watch?” Once again, he refused to concede it, saying only that prices were higher than the government would like. On that, we can all agree. But here’s the point. In December 2021, Bowen released modelling that claimed Labor’s energy plan would reduce house...

Ever stopped to think where your lifestyle comes from? How the modern world is made? How it runs? Most of us don’t. Least of all the small group of activists that gathers outside Australia’s federal parliament on sitting days, surrounded by hydrocarbon-rich signs, demanding an immediate end to all fossil fuels. One of their number identifies as a marsupial, kitted out in an ill-fitting polyester s...

“We're supposed to go along with shutting down our energy sector, shutting down our natural resources.” In February, I sat down with former Canadian Conservative leader Candice Bergen, who detailed the absurdity at the heart of Canada’s politics: a government scorning the very resources that made the nation wealthy. It’s a story that should resonate in Australia, because we’re following the same s...

In 1998, fossil fuels made up 85% of the world’s primary energy. In 2023, they made up 81.5% — a drop of just 3.5 percentage points in 25 years. And we’re told we can cut the remaining 81% to near-zero in the next 25. That’s not a transition — it’s a delusion. This short clip from our documentary The Real Cost of Net Zero looks at the sobering facts and ends with a telling insight from Meg O’Neill...

When The Skeptical Environmentalist was published in 2001, it landed like a meteor in the middle of the environmental debate. Its author, Danish political scientist Bjørn Lomborg, dared to ask uncomfortable questions and insisted on evidence-based answers. Almost a quater of a century on, his central thesis remains the same: the world faces real environmental challenges, but we’re misallocating re...

Thanks for reading Powerlines Media! This post is public so feel free to share it. Before the last election in 2022, I interviewed then-shadow energy minister Chris Bowen on the Today Show . He was selling a simple idea: more renewables mean lower electricity prices. The logic was that wind and solar are the cheapest forms of generation, so flooding the market with them would drive prices down. La...

Robert Bryce is a veteran energy journalist with over three decades of experience. Growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, an oil-industry hub, Bryce was exposed to energy issues early on. His career began in Texas, where he wrote for the Austin Chronicle for twelve years before contributing to major outlets like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Bryce's mother, a teacher, instilled in him a...