Elon Musk’s Tesla big battery tweets put Australia on road to green energy, now he might derail it

Nearly eight years ago, a series of “billionaire tweets” – the social media exchange between Tesla boss Elon Musk and Australia’s Mike Cannon-Brookes on a platform then called Twitter – helped put Australia on the path to its green energy transition, and signalled the beginning of the end of fossil fuels.

The exchange led to the construction of the original Tesla big battery at Hornsdale in South Australia, and in so doing fundamentally transformed the discussion about how to manage the transition from coal and gas, and what to do with excess wind and solar: Stick it in a box, or a reservoir, and store it for later, for when the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t shine.

It is elegant, simple and obvious. As Climate 200 convenor and energy expert Simon Holmes à Court noted in his Manning Clark speech last year, and repeats in the latest episode of Renew Economy’s Energy Insiders podcast, a big mistake of those fighting for the energy transition since then has been to allow it to sound all too hard.

‬‭”We have talked about energy transition as if it’s going to be a great disruption. We’ve allowed the energy transition to be framed as optional, expensive and a‬ sacrifice,” Holmes à Court says. ‬”The reality is that for most Australians the energy transition will pass largely‬ unnoticed.”

‬And that is the way it should be. The Hornsdale battery was built at a scale that even the energy market operator had not imagined at the time. (New big batteries are being built 20 times the size, and will get bigger). And South Australia is now doing what critics and naysayers thought – and still think – is not possible.

The state is meeting more than 70 per cent of its local demand through wind and solar. It has a world-leading target of net 100 per cent renewables by 2027. It has huge ambitions for green steel, and batteries are being built all over the grid, installed in thousands of homes, and will soon be boosting reliability and security from millions of electric cars.

And while there may be intense debate among engineers and policy and regulatory wonks about how much storage is needed and how long, about frequency control, inertia, system strength and harmonics, consumers should barely notice. As Holmes à Court says, the most people should observe about the energy transition is that they will drive a better car.

That transition, however, is now at a fork in the road and, to mix a metaphor, could easily be derailed. The fossil fuel industry is marshalling its resources to make sure it is.

Labor has helped put the country on a path to 82 per cent renewables by 2030 and more than 90 per cent by 2035. The Greens and Teals want that transition to go faster, but the right wing Coalition wants to bring it all to a crashing halt, with its latest delaying tactic being a commitment to nuclear power.

Australia is now very much in election mode. Not officially, but a poll must be held by May and it might be set for April 12. We will know soon enough. And Musk seems once again destined to play a critical role in his capacity as owner and algorithm controller of the social media platform now known as X.

Holmes à Court describes this next poll as a “sliding doors” moment, and – in the context of what has happened in the US it is easy to why. “The narrative will be either that Australians completely repudiated Trumpism, or that we embraced it,” he tells Energy Insiders.

A recent report by Baringa Associates, grimly titled Trump 2.0. Is Paris Dead?, analyses the election results around the world in 2024, when half of the world’s population had the opportunity to vote.

“There were two clear shifts: incumbent parties did badly almost everywhere …. and climate sceptics made gains in some countries,” Baringa notes (see graph above).

“Our analysis … indicates that the recent political shifts, including those aligned with a more relaxed regulatory stance on energy and environmental policies, are already contributing to increased emissions.”

It says the US remains on a pathway to 2.5°C, with a growing gap to achieving the critical 2.0°C target. “Bridging this gap would require a 15-20% reduction in cumulative emissions over the same period – an increasingly improbable scenario given the current political and technological environment.”

A big factor in Trump’s election, of course, was Musk. He reportedly spent $A400 million on Trump’s campaign, and amplified his position on X, trading on a daily basis in conspiracy theories, fake videos, insults, and far right talking points.

Since the inauguration, Musk has led the attack on government institutions and agencies, along with the judiciary, the legacy media, and anyone who disagrees. And he has made some extraordinary interventions in the German election campaign, with his open support (amplified by vice president J.D. Vance) for the far right AfD.

It’s not yet known if Musk will choose to be involved in the Australian campaign, but he has associated freely with Australian billionaires such as Gina Rinehart and Richard Pratt, who share his dim views on government over-reach, red tape, and environmental restrictions.

The German election is to be held this Sunday, and the results – and whether the intervention of Musk and the Trump administration in favour of the AfD has had a benefit or a blowback against the far right – will be fascinating.

But it’s interesting to note that the biggest mover in the polls in the last few weeks has been the left wing Die Linke party, who have “come back from the dead” on a platform that is basically fighting fascism and taxing the rich. Musk’s interventions have reportedly served as a lightning rod for the surge in Die Linke’s support.

‭The Trump-Musk oligarchy in the US – some suggest it might better be framed as a “pathocracy” – has also had an impact on opinion in Canada, which is also heading to an election this year. The governing Liberals, given so little hope a month ago that prime minister Justin Trudeau was forced to step down, have rebounded in the polls.

Musk is now seen as a deeply polarising figure, even and particularly within his own Tesla EV community: The tech bros believe he can do no wrong, because he makes great cars and cool rockets. And hey, he is doing something about government waste, or so they think.

Others find his politics and priorities appalling and toxic. Many signed up for Tesla EVs because they like the cars, but they also thought they were part of a broader movement towards a greener planet. They were trying to do the right thing. Musk has now shown he has as much disregard for climate science as he does for democratic institutions.

Tesla EV sales plunged around the world in January – by more than 50 per cent in many European countries, and more than 75 per cent in Spain. In Australia they fell 33 per cent. Some deny this is a Musk blow-back from consumers and insist that people are just waiting for the new Model Y to start deliveries in a few months.

But this writer knows of dozens who have changed their minds about a Tesla purchase, or are even putting their Tesla EVs up for sale. This includes some prominent members of the Tesla Motor Club communities, echoing a similar shift in Europe and the US. It is simply too much for some.

Companies are also cutting their ties. According to this report in Wired, German energy company LichtBlick and drugstore giant Rossmann are ditching their Tesla company cars and replacing them with other EV brands, saying their corporate values are incompatible with Musk’s ideology.

Polestar, long a refuge for those who didn’t like Musk in the first place, is reporting a surge in inquiries, as are other EV makers. The Wired report is worth reading: Elon Musk’s Toxicity Could Spell Disaster For Tesla.

It’s too much, too, for some governments. The city of Toronto made a largely symbolic decision to exclude Tesla EVs from one of its driver support programs, while Ontario premier Doug Ford has threatened to rip up a $C100 million contract with Musk’s Starlink, saying the province will “not work with people hell bent on destroying our economy.”

In the EU, governments are pushing for regulatory reviews on Musk’s activities and algorithms on X, and there is fierce push back from left wing politicians, particularly now that he has joined Trump in siding with Russia over Ukraine.

So how will it play out in Australia? Trump’s climate, energy and EV policies – which were against everything that people once thought Musk stood for – has become the blueprint for the Coalition. Peter Dutton’s policy platform is basically “what he (Trump) said.”

In short, it is stuff the climate, to hell with green energy, let’s dig in for more coal and gas, and try to scare the living daylights out of voters on cost of living, immigration and blackouts. And let’s act tough.

Will Musk intervene in support of a political party that once said – and likely still believes – that EVs will ruin the weekend and batteries are as useful as the Big Banana? Or is mining billionaire Clive Palmer more to his taste, with his Make Australia Great Again pitch through his newly created “Trumpet of Patriots” party.

Holmes à Court notes, however, that compulsory voting in Australia means that so-called “double haters” – those who hated both Trump and Biden so much they stayed at home – do not have the same impact here. “In Australia, they go looking for minor parties and independents,” he says.

Whether or not Musk chooses to blow Clive’s Trumpet, or Dutton’s, in his global war on anything woke, Australia’s election outcome will, in the end, come down to messaging, including about the way that energy and climate are discussed.

“We’ve allowed so many in the media to have to spread this idea that we’re going to have unreliable power,” Holmes à Court says on Energy Insiders.

“It’s rubbish. We know that the costs are not going to be significantly higher, and I don’t think they’re going to be significantly lower than they are right now.

“The experts know how to do this. We’re moving at an incredible pace. 12 years ago, we were at 9% renewables, we’re now at about 40%, and by AEMO’s projections, in 12 years time, we’re going to be around about 95%. And if we do it right, no one’s going to notice.

“I want to have a cap that says, Make Electricity Boring Again. It should be boring and for most people, you don’t want to think about energy. You’ve got your kids, their schooling, your dinner, you don’t want to think about any of this stuff, and you don’t have to.”

A MEBA cap, then. It could turn out to be an all caps election campaign.

To support independent journalism and Renew Economy’s efforts to fight disinformation and misinformation about climate issues and green energy, please consider a one-off or monthly donation. Click here if you can. And you can sign up to our free daily newsletters here.

See also Renew Economy’s Big Battery Storage Map of Australia.

‭