There’s a particularly delicious irony unfolding right now that would be funny if it wasn’t so utterly predictable. The same people who’ve spent years railing against renewable energy—telling us solar and wind are unreliable, that we need to stick with good old fossil fuels—are now the loudest voices complaining about fuel prices shooting through the roof.

You genuinely couldn’t write this stuff.

The whole situation has been brought into sharp focus with the current fuel crisis, and the responses I’ve been seeing online range from the darkly comedic to the genuinely infuriating. Someone pointed out that Barnaby Joyce was on ABC Insiders talking about building a new oil refinery. The same Barnaby Joyce whose government shut down six refineries when he was in power. The cognitive dissonance is absolutely staggering.

The latest breakthrough in water filtration technology using modified graphene oxide should be cause for celebration. Finally, a solution to remove those pesky forever chemicals from our water supply! But scrolling through various online discussions about this development left me with a familiar sinking feeling in my stomach.

Reading about this revolutionary filter immediately transported me back to the countless tech announcements I’ve witnessed over my decades in IT. The pattern is depressingly familiar: a groundbreaking solution emerges, promises are made, and then the reality of implementation hits - usually right in the wallet.