As Australia’s immediate fuel crunch eases after successful efforts to diversify supply, policymakers are turning their attention to dealing with the next energy security crisis.

The question is, what would actually work?

The Coalition this week announced a policy to double onshore reserves of liquid fuels to 60 days’ supply, or around 1 billion litres of petrol, diesel and aviation fuel. For its part, the Labor government is expected to announce new energy security measures ahead of the budget.

Last week, the government canvassed options to refine more fuels in Australia, whether by expanding capacity for the nation’s two remaining fuel refineries following a fire that damaged Viva’s Geelong refinery earlier this month, reopening closed refineries, or even building a new one.

Of these options, modestly boosting fuel storage is the only sensible one. The level would need careful calibration. But it cannot stand alone. The Coalition’s plan focuses only on getting back to “normal” – meaning dependent on overseas shipments of fossil fuels – and not on reducing demand through electrification and biofuels.

Normal doesn’t exist any more. This year’s energy crisis is the second major disruption in the past five years and looks to be far worse than the 2022 crisis.

Does Australia need more storage?

Much coverage to date has focused on the gap between Australia’s domestic requirements, known as Minimum Stockholding Obligations, for roughly 30 days of onshore stored fuel and 90 days of net oil imports required by the International Energy Agency through an agreement.

This misses the point.

At the turn of the century, domestic oil wells were........

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