Get it? We've been told by countless politicians and the commentariat that the whole South Australian energy system is a basket case. But now, along comes the world's highest-profile energy engineer and entrepreneur, who not only believes in South Australia's energy transformation but puts his money where his mouth is with a money-back guarantee! All this happens in a fortnight when:

And how funny I should say that. For just last week, the game in Australia shifted significantly when the real world equivalent of Marvel's Iron Man, Elon Musk, entered the frame, turning up in South Australia to sign a contract promising to build the world's biggest battery in 100 days or supply it free.

Physics dictates there is immense energy in the natural environment that enormous leaps forward in technology are releasing at ever-cheaper prices. The economics of that are moving at 21st-century speeds, dictating that costs for coal power megaprojects are going up while costs for renewable energy are plummeting. And while the politicians might try to advance or retard the process of change, depending on how visionary or backwards they are, economics runs the show regardless.

"After the laws of physics, which are immutable of course," he notes, "economics really runs the show. Politics, when effective, can influence the economics to a degree, but mostly it runs a distant third."

Volvo announces all of its cars will feature electric or hybrid motors within two years; France boasts it will be phasing out the sales of all internal combustion engines over the next two decades; the USA produced more energy from renewables than nuclear for the first time in 30 years; and India – where solar and wind energy are lifting millions out of poverty – cancels the equivalent of 14 large coal power station projects and one of its states signs a deal to build a massive solar farm that will produce power at just 5.0¢/kWh – cheaper than coal, and about a third lower than the cost assumed by chief scientist Alan Finkel's modelling.

Meanwhile, CoalSwarm's Global Coal Plant Tracker announced that so significant were the economic, environmental and political headwinds against coal that in China and India, "construction is now frozen at over 100 project sites. Worldwide, more construction is now frozen than entered construction in the past year." But hang on, what of the "clean coal" that our politicians so disingenuously waffle on about? Please.

The only carbon capture and storage power project in Europe, ROAD in the Netherlands, has just been cancelled. Meanwhile, the largest-ever CCS power project anywhere, the $10 billion Kemper Project in Mississippi, gave up on coal a fortnight ago. And just last week Bob Murray, a major US coal baron and member of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity 'fessed up and said it outright: "It is neither practical nor economic, carbon capture and sequestration. It is just cover for the politicians . . . that say, 'Look what I did for coal,' knowing all the time that it doesn't help coal at all."

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The game is changing before our very eyes, it is changing fast, and it is changing for the better. The federal politicians and the commentariat will no doubt give us more blah-blah-blah, but in the real world the technological advances and the economics are driving renewable energy forward. Smart and brave politicians like Premier Jay Weatherill have jumped out in front of it, and will reap the rewards. As will we all. Fire at will.