There’s an old adage in politics: never waste a crisis. When severe storms caused a power blackout across South Australia last week, the Turnbull government bent mother nature to its will.

But there’s another adage that Malcolm Turnbull and his energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, should remember: don’t win the battle only to lose the war.

Last week Frydenberg showed what a shrewd politician he is. He won lots of battles. First, after the deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, blamed renewable energy for causing the blackout, Frydenberg appeared sensible as he assured Australians that he knew it really was the 80,000 lightning strikes and 140km/h winds that caused the power to go out.

Frydenberg then massaged Joyce’s unfounded renewable energy alarmism into an acceptable message about the challenges renewable energy might pose.

“There are real challenges and the priority for us as a Coalition government is energy security. You see, it’s OK to have more renewables, to reduce emissions, to meet our international targets but if people’s homes go dark, if businesses get shut down, if there’s huge economic loss and there’s a threat to safety.”

And who poses this “threat to safety” and the economy, according to Frydenberg? State governments that have set higher renewable energy targets than the federal government. Specifically, Labor state governments. And, for good measure, Frydenberg also fingered the federal Labor opposition’s 50% renewable energy target by 2030 for blame.

Then Frydenberg distracted everyone’s attention by creating a “problem” to be solved. All the energy minister had to do shift the nation’s focus is suggest that renewable energy targets across the nation should be “harmonised”.

Frydenberg didn’t have to explain why a different target in different jurisdictions is a problem. He didn’t have to explain why he’s never raised that issue in a serious manner before. (Case in point – the Coag energy council last met on 19 August 2016. That meeting’s communique made no mention of the need for a nationally harmonised renewable energy target.)

The minister deployed a trick as old as the Australian federation. Never forget, consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. When a federal government has nothing else to say, it reaches for national harmonisation: it sounds so insightful and sensible and self-evident. It’s not.

There are lots of good reasons to avoid harmonisation for its own sake. It stifles innovation. It disregards local solutions for local conditions. It reduces capacity to respond to changing circumstances. It creates red tape. It often adds cost.

Nonetheless federal governments usually win with propaganda on harmonisation (until it falls apart: think the VET Fee-Help scheme). On renewable target harmonisation, Frydenberg is winning so far.

But – pardon the awful pun – storm clouds are gathering on the government’s horizon.

Frydenberg has made himself and the Turnbull government responsible for delivering solutions they will struggle to achieve.

Start with Frydenberg’s decision to convene a meeting of the Coag energy council this Friday to force the states and territories to discuss harmonising renewable energy targets and achieving energy security.

Does anyone seriously think that state Labor governments are going to adopt the Turnbull government’s lower renewable energy target of 23% by 2020? No chance.

Even if Frydenberg redefines his harmonisation goal to getting the state and territories to slow down or stretch out their targets, he’s still got a problem.

The premiers and chief ministers won’t agree to a compromise without the prime minister giving something away too, like increasing the federal government’s target. Little chance Joyce and the anti-renewables brigade in the Coalition will applaud that.

Second, “energy security” appears to be Frydenberg’s shorthand way of saying that Australia needs to ensure that its infrastructure – poles and wires and baseload supply in our national energy market – is sufficient to withstand major weather events. Sounds benign, doesn’t it?

For example, a second interconnector in South Australia might have kept the lights on in part of the state during last week’s once-in-50-year storm. But at what cost? And who is going to pay for it?

Remember that much of that infrastructure in SA and around the country now sits in private ownership – thank you, Liberal state governments.

Either the Turnbull government stumps up the cash for these private sector companies (yeah, right) or it faces the wrath of voters when their electricity bills jump ever higher to pay for the upgrades the federal government requires.

So much for Tony Abbott’s efforts to save households all that money on their electricity bills by removing the carbon tax.

Third, it beggars belief that Frydenberg and Turnbull think the government’s continued drop in the polls can be arrested by allowing Malcolm to look tough on renewable energy targets.

Only six years ago, Turnbull was predicting Australia could be 100% reliable on renewable energy within a decade. A little over six days ago, he “saved”

the Australian Renewable Energy Agency from his own government’s cuts. But now Turnbull says renewable energy is a threat to our economy and safety?

Turnbull’s continued drop in the polls suggests voters are frustrated that the “real Malcolm” – who supported same-sex marriage, a republic and an emissions trading scheme – is not the prime minister. It’s hard to see how giving voters another example of Turnbull’s inauthenticity is going to help his – or his government’s – standing.

Nonetheless, the renewable energy battle is under way, and Josh Frydenberg is leading the charge. Add it to the list of battles the Turnbull government is fighting: business tax cuts, school funding, the ABCC legislation, the same-sex marriage plebiscite, media law reform, a childcare package, university deregulation, NDIS funding, Stuart Robert, the looming Myefo and the NBN, to name a few.

In hindsight, maybe Turnbull and Frydenberg should have just let mother nature take the blame for what happened in South Australia, and moved on. This might have been one crisis worth wasting.