How even the possibility of gas shortages inevitably feeds into Australia’s energy fracas

Cold weather and an unplanned outage at Victoria’s Longford plant prompted the Australian Energy Market Operator to warn of gas shortages. Photograph: Dazman/Getty Images/iStockphoto

On Thursday afternoon, about 100 people representing big energy users and suppliers leapt on an urgent call.

The Australian Energy Market Operator was explaining why it had issued a “threat notice” that warned gas could be disrupted if supplies ran low.