The Death of Net Zero: Finally, Reality Bites Back — Celebrate the Collapse of the Great Green Delusion! By Brian Simpson
Historians will mark it clearly: the monomaniacal cult of Net Zero began its long, painful death between Vladimir Putin's tanks rolling into Ukraine in February 2022 and April 9, 2026 — the day Australia's last functional oil refinery drama forced even the Albanese government to confront cold, hard reality. Nick Cater nails it in his latest Substack piece. The romance of decarbonisation died in Europe when Russian gas supplies were cut off and millions faced the brutal choice between heating their homes and virtue-signalling about the climate. In Australia, the final nail was hammered home when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Energy Minister Chris Bowen made a rare pilgrimage to the Lytton refinery in Brisbane — the country's sole remaining operational oil refinery after the Geelong inferno. It was the first such prime ministerial visit to a refinery in years, a quiet admission that fossil fuels aren't the enemy we can just wish away. This isn't a minor policy tweak. It's the slow-motion collapse of one of the most expensive, delusional experiments in modern governance: the idea that a resource-rich nation like Australia could shutter its refineries, demonise coal and gas, plaster the countryside with unreliable wind and solar, and still keep the lights on, the economy humming, and families warm — all while hitting arbitrary "net zero by 2050" targets.
Why Net Zero was Always Doomed. The pursuit was never about pragmatic emissions reductions. It was a quasi-religious crusade — monomaniacal, as Cater says — that ignored engineering reality, economic logic, and human nature. Renewables advocates promised cheap, clean power 24/7. Instead, we got: Skyrocketing electricity prices that punish the working class while billionaires virtue-signal with their solar farms and battery dreams. Grid instability and blackouts risks, because wind doesn't blow and sun doesn't shine on demand. Deindustrialisation: manufacturers fleeing to places with sensible energy policy, taking jobs with them. Energy insecurity: Australia, sitting on vast coal, gas, and uranium reserves, reduced to importing more and more fuel while its last refineries teeter. The Ukraine war exposed the fragility first. Europe rediscovered that energy security isn't a slogan — it's the difference between prosperity and freezing in the dark. Now Australia's own refinery "accidents" and closures are doing the same. With Geelong crippled and Lytton suddenly worthy of a prime ministerial photo-op, the message is unmistakable: you can't run a modern economy on fairy dust and intermittent power. Even big business, which once cheered along for the subsidies and PR, is starting to count the cost. The Safeguard Mechanism, renewable targets, and endless regulations are biting hard. Polling shows most Australians prioritise affordable, reliable power over ideological net-zero targets. The Nationals have already walked away. The Liberals are under pressure to follow. And the public is waking up: 79% want energy policy focused on bills and reliability, not emissions theatre.
Time to Celebrate — and Rebuild The death of Net Zero isn't a tragedy. It's a long-overdue victory for sanity. It means we can stop pretending that Australia — with its abundant natural resources — must beggar itself to "save the planet" while China and India build coal plants at record pace. It means prioritising what actually works: baseload power from coal, gas, nuclear (yes, nuclear — the clean, dense option the Greens fear most), and yes, sensible renewables where they make engineering sense, not where subsidies distort the market. It means rejecting the guilt trip that every bushfire, flood, or hot day is proof of "climate emergency" requiring more sacrifice. Weather has always been extreme in Australia. The real emergency was policy that made us poorer and more vulnerable. Cater's timeline is spot on. From the energy shock of 2022 to the refinery reality check of 2026, the spell is breaking. The great Green delusion — that we could decarbonise without trade-offs — lies in ruins. Billions wasted. Industries damaged. Households strained. All for targets that were never credible without massive hidden costs or magical technological breakthroughs that never arrived on schedule. Now the real work begins: rebuilding a sovereign energy system that puts Australian families, workers, and security first.
Cheap, reliable power isn't a luxury — it's the foundation of everything. Mining, manufacturing, agriculture, transport, heating, cooling — none of it runs on wishful thinking. The cultists will scream "denier" and cling to their models. Let them. Reality has spoken louder than any IPCC report or Albanese speech. Net Zero is dead. Good riddance. Australia has a chance to lead again — not as a self-flagellating "renewable superpower" exporting expensive intermittent power dreams, but as a pragmatic energy giant that actually delivers for its people. Pour a coldie for the failed ideology. Then roll up the sleeves and get back to what works. The era of energy realism is dawning. And it's about time. What a glorious day for common sense. The truck of ideological cargo just drove off a cliff — and we're better for it. https://nickcater.substack.com/p/the-death-of-net-zero
