His on-air photo op with a relic from the carboniferous period created an instant meme for a debate history suggests the Coalition is almost certain to lose.

Hailing coal, arguably the single largest contributor to man-made climate change, as the solution to our hot weather energy needs was so counter intuitive commentators and social media could not help drawing parallels with the "alternative facts" debate across the Pacific.

It was the most colourful moment in an ongoing anti-alternative energy push which has also drawn starring performances from Mr Turnbull and Barnaby Joyce.

Mr Joyce, whose electorate has one of the largest concentrations of coal deposits in the country, suggested because resources such as coal and oil were used in the manufacture of wind turbines the turbines were effectively no cleaner than coal powered generators.

Mr Turnbull is sticking to his mantra that Labor's push to raise the renewable energy target to 50 per cent by 2030 is "a mindless rush into renewables".

Following last week's less than credible attacks on renewables as the cause of recent black outs in South Australia, which has 40 per cent renewables in its generation mix, the emphasis is now shifting to electricity pricing.

This was raised as a hot button topic late last year following the release of chief scientist, Alan Finkel's, energy market security review.

That review found an "emissions intensity scheme" was "best integrated with the electricity market's pricing and and risk management framework, had the lowest economic costs and the lowest impact on electricity prices".

The EIS was quickly dispatched to the netherworld by a government pathologically opposed to anything that bore even a passing resemblance to a carbon tax.

Journalist Alan Kohler noted at the time: "The problem implicitly identified by the Finkel Review is that the Australian energy policy train is speeding towards a cliff as the Left and Right wrestle on the flat-bed railcar, which is why "strategic policy leadership" is urgent. Somebody has to steer, fast."

That observation is, if anything, even more pertinent now than it was then. Groups as diverse as the Australian Industry Group, The Australian Energy Council, the Climate Institute and the St Vincent de Paul Society united on a joint letter on Monday calling on both Labor and the Coalition to stop using national energy policy as a political football.

At about the same time data released by the Clean Energy Council showed despite the Coalition's best efforts more than 20 large scale renewable energy projects are already under way or will begin construction in 2017. They represent 3000 jobs and an investment of more than $5.2 billion.

By persevering with its current anti-renewables line the Coalition is placing itself on the wrong side of history.