For a commodity selling typically for $US70 to $US80 a tonne for the past 20 years or so, the current prices for thermal coal are unarguably extraordinary.

They are now within a whisker of the absolute all-time record, set during a brief spike in July 2008

Prices have cycled up and down twice since then.

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This is the third and biggest spike, and while few in the coal industry will make sure predictions more than a few months in advance, there is a growing belief the prices will continue for at least a year, if not more.

When coal began to take off from September last year, the general explanation was that China's move to punish Australia by banning its coal exports had backfired.

That ban continues, but whatever is happening in global energy markets goes well beyond the relatively small amount of coal that Australia was selling to China.

Indeed, it goes well beyond coal, because gas prices have also risen dramatically since late last year. And the northern hemisphere is also experiencing petrol and diesel shortages.

Global natural gas prices are a major concern in Europe especially, where various nations are experiencing an energy squeeze as the northern hemisphere heads into winter.

The wholesale gas price has more than tripled since September, from about $US1.75 a million metric British Thermal Units (MMBTu) to about $US6 a MMBTu

As with thermal coal, gas prices are at their highest levels since 2008.

But the similarities end there.

Coal was uniformly cheap for the decade or so before then, but gas was in a boom/bust cycle, rising as high as $US20 a MMBTu - three times the present price - before Australia cranked up its offshore and coal-seam gas production, and the United States kick-started its shale gas industry.

On the transport front, reports from the UK say service stations are running out of petrol, with panic buying and the government stepping in to try to restore confidence.

An "explainer" article this week in the financial wire service Reuters said there was no common cause of all of the various energy shortages, beyond an economic rebound after COVID, supply restrictions by the OPEC oil cartel and global export transport bottlenecks.

But another major factor, that is recognised in at least some relevant reporting, is the closures of coal-fired power stations in the global push to decarbonise the global economy in the name of combating climate change.

An article last month in the New Scientist magazine, headlined "Blame fossil fuels, not renewables, for the UK's winter energy crisis", said: "It [the energy shortage] didn't have to be this way.

"Energy crises like these are a cyclical feature of being at the mercy of the volatile nature of fossil fuel prices, subject to global and geopolitical factors beyond the control of any one country.

"Countries that have prioritised domestic low-carbon energy are much more insulated to such shocks."

In my opinion, that's a tenuous thesis.

If fossil fuels bring "volatile" price cycles, renewable energy puts the economy "at the mercy" of intrinsically intermittent energy sources which, in the case of solar, can only run when the sun is shining.

And having the IPCC and the United Nations dictating a country's energy policies is surely the definition of those "global and geopolitical factors" beyond the reach of individual nations.

In a Wall Street Journal article this week, Europe's "severe energy shortage and surging energy prices" were blamed on a "green industrial revolution" that has seen the UK and the Continent shut down so many hundreds of coal-fired power stations that "Britain has only two remaining".

"Carbon chastity", as the WSJ called it, has unwittingly or not destined Europe to some cold and expensive winters.

Renewable energy is a wonderful aspiration, and it will work to everyone's economic and environmental benefit - rather than for the better-off affording rooftop solar at the moment - once an electricity market can confidently generate two-to-three times its daily needs.

This will enable sufficient reserves to be stored in batteries, super-capacitors or pumped hydro for the seven nights a week, and the still or cloudy weather, when the renewable tap will run dry.

Until then we are going to need fossil fuel.

Or nuclear.

It's only a slight exaggeration to say I have lost count of the confident predictions I have read over the years about the imminent "death of coal".

Hardened bank attitudes to coal and "net zero by 2050" policies are all the rage right now, but it's fantasy to think Europe and North America will allow themselves to freeze or run short of power without resorting to coal again if they need to.

Until electricity storage is sorted, they'll have little other option.

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