IN round terms, coal-fired power stations supply about three-quarters of Australia's electricity, while emitting about a third of Australia's domestic greenhouse gases.
Agriculture, transport, industry and the fugitive emissions from mining and minerals processing are major sources of the other two-thirds.
Regardless, coal-fired power stations have borne the brunt of Australia's emission-reduction efforts, which are in turn aimed at meeting our obligations under various international climate change agreements.
There are good reasons for concentrating on coal-fired power stations, not least being the promise of a "clean energy" future held out by the rapidly developing renewables sector.
But promise and reality are different things.
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It's generally held that innovation comes from the private sector rather than from government.
Leaving aside the often unacknowledged role that government-funded military research and development plays in technological progress, it's a fair enough assertion.
No telco, for example, was ever going to invent the iPhone.
But infrastructure as complex as the electricity grid needs to be driven by more than the profit demands of individual energy companies and their investors.
As things stand, no one individual or organisation is "in charge" of the grid.
Realising this, and with power shortages predicted if Liddell closes as scheduled in 2023, the Morrison government formed a Liddell Task Force in August 2019.
The task force reported last April, and Canberra announced in September it would give the private sector until this April to financially commit to building 1000 megawatts of new "dispatchable" (meaning coal or gas) generating capacity.
If not, the taxpayer-owned Snowy Hydro would build a gas-fired station at Kurri Kurri to plug whatever gap the government believes exists.
Environmentalists are aghast at another fossil-fuel "dinosaur", saying we do not need gas as a transitional fuel on the way to a green grid.
"Free market" advocates are angry at a Liberal-led Coalition government resorting to "Soviet-style" centralist planning.
Canberra is well aware of these sentiments - and its international climate change obligations - but keeping the lights on has to come first.
Expect plenty of fireworks in the lead-up to the April decision, which ever way it goes.
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