The ideal type of person to be energy minister is someone with a calm, practical nature. Able to understand detailed advice from engineers and economists, the energy minister should be focused on securing reliable and affordable energy when and where it is needed.

Then there is Chris Bowen, more commonly known to Speccie readers as B1. B1 is a zealot on a mission. He doesn’t do engineering or economics. To his mind, they are so yesterday. It is not by accident that he is the Climate Change and Energy Minister, in that order. Climate change is his thing; climate change is his priority.

(To be fair, the powers of the federal energy minister are limited, with the states having control over the electricity grid as well as the scope for the exploration and exploitation of fossil fuels within their territories.  This was a real problem for the Coalition government. It’s not a real problem for B1, however. He is effectively joined at the hip with Lily D’Ambrosio, the appalling Energy Minister in Victoria, for instance.)

B1 is now the President of Negotiations for the forthcoming UN Cop 31 climate meeting to be held at the end of the year in Turkey or what name that country now goes by. He will spend the year flitting around the world telling political leaders – or junior ministers, more likely – that the world must phase down, preferably phase out, the use of fossil fuels.

World leaders won’t take any notice, particularly given the likely development of world events this year. But B1 will try to big-note himself that Australia is making a difference, guiding the world in the inevitable decarbonisation transition.

He might even be able to hang out with some old farts like Al Gore and John Kerry who have made highly profitable careers out of trying to scare the pants off ordinary folk. Indeed, it could easily be part of B1’s post-political career plan to emulate these types of self-regarding men.

But one of the problems for a climate fanatic like B1 is that he doesn’t handle immediate, real world problems at all well. And this is precisely what has happened with the disruption to the world oil market associated with events in the Middle East, particularly those affecting the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

At the beginning of last week, B1 wasn’t even prepared to admit the possibility of any problem. Indeed, the increase in the price experienced at the bowser for both petrol and diesel was essentially our fault because we had panicked, unnecessarily. It was demand, not supply.

Of course, a more sensible minister would have realised that telling people not to panic would quickly induce them to do just that, racing to the local servo with a jerrycan in the boot. And when B1 tried to make the point that the increase in fuel prices demonstrated the value of renewable energy, the mob wasn’t impressed.

When farmers are trying to get their foodstuff to market, when workers living in the outer suburbs need to get to work, when the kids must be dropped off at school, earnest messaging about the need for action on climate change goes down like a lead balloon. The fact that B1 didn’t seem to understand the difference between petrol and diesel also didn’t help.

So B1 decided to flip the switch.  He went from there’s no problem to it’s a crisis. He started conversations about the fuel reserves we have in place and how long our supplies of petrol, diesel and aviation fuel will last.  To many concerned citizens, figures around the 30-day mark seemed alarmingly low.

The voting public suddenly became aware that there are only two oil refineries left in Australia – one in Geelong, the other in Brisbane – with six having closed in the past decade or so. And these two refineries are only limping on because the government is handing out subsidies to encourage them to continue to operate.

There are several reasons for the closure of the refineries that were owned by large multinational oil companies. They include their age, the fact that they were sub-scale, the appalling and expensive industrial relations arrangements and creeping regulatory impositions. They simply couldn’t compete with brand-new, large-scale and highly efficient plants located in Asia.

The implications for fuel security – indeed national security – were given scant regard by both the federal and state governments at the time, with the case for globalisation being the dominant paradigm. It was only when it looked as if Australia would have no oil refineries that the Coalition federal government acted to effectively save the Geelong and Brisbane refineries.

Hilariously, B1 acted the hero last week by relaxing the sulphur-content rules applying to the refineries, the imposition of which he had accelerated. It turns out that there is quite a lot of sulphur-rich fuel held in Brisbane that was due to be exported for further refining because it no longer complies with Bowen’s new rules.

In fact, the refinery in Brisbane is due to be completely shut down in the middle of the year for refurbishment to deal with the new rules. My guess is that this plan will be quietly shelved for a while, with the encouragement of B1.

Of course, the bigger point is the sovereign hostility towards exploration for oil and gas means that there has been a long-run decline in local production of oil, in particular. Where there is gas, there is often oil.

But with B1’s preoccupation with renewable energy and opposition to fossil fuels, it’s hardly surprising that oil companies aren’t beating down the doors to do business in Australia. The fact that Australians consume twice as much liquid fuel as they do electricity is an inconvenient fact for B1. At this point in time, there are no effective substitutes for diesel, in particular. EV trucks are proving to be completely impractical.

(You have to laugh: there was B1 singing the praises of Ford’s proposed monster electric-only ute, the F-150 Lightning. With a range of over 500 kilometres and a price point of a mere $170,000, it was an obvious purchase for climate-concerned tradies and farmers. That was until Ford decided to kill the project as the company rapidly walks back from its expansion into electric vehicles, taking a massive financial hit in the process.)

(Talking about having a laugh, I heard Rod Sims, another climate evangelist, tell ABC Radio listeners that the obvious solution to the current dilemma is hydrogen-fueled vehicles. Given what has happened to the green hydrogen industry in Australia – it’s a complete bust – he was surely joking.  I nearly ran off the road.)

It will be a case of watch this space carefully. B1’s future may well depend on what happens in the petrol/diesel/aviation fuel space. Were rationing to be put in place, for instance, it’s hard to see how Albo could keep him on.

Of course, there is the possibility that Donald Trump’s targeted policies will free up the Strait of Hormuz and the world oil market will calm down. In this case, B1 will be able to reinstate his busy international travel itinerary and go about his Cop 31 duties. The one benefit for Australia is that he will be out of the country more. It could be a win-win.