I have yet to see any refutation by nuclear power advocates of the arguments put forward by David Fleming in The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy (http://www.theleaneconomyconnection.net/nuclear/index.html).

All these arguments seem to be predicated on the idea that we will continue to use power in the same way as we currently are doing. Energy depletion will oblige us to live more simply (yes, candles may become de rigueur)and alter our whole manufacturing and agricultural practices.

Spain is at present running at 20% of renewable (solar thermal & PV & wind) and they are a backward foreign country?
Germany has announced that its aim is to be 100% renewable and they have a good chance of achieving this.
The elephant in the room is peak oil. It is here and it will affect all our BAU plans.
I hope that eventually we get a government that will see that the only way to save a vestige of our present life style, is to take draconian steps and nationalize the oils and gas industry, stop or cut back drastically the export of gas, build gas receiver plants in the major coastal cities to take gas shipped around by sea in ships running on gas.
This will enable the truck fleet to convert to gas when diesel gets too expensive to import and also be used as standby power in gas turbines sets as backup to the solar thermal plants with molten salt storage we will depend on for our base load power.
Of course I assume that reason will prevail and the nonsense of exporting the gigantic amounts of coal and using it for generation here will cease.
Go greens. I just hope that they do get the balance of power in the senate and stop the excesses of funneling huge amounts of money to the big polluters will be stopped.

As any reasonable person now knows, global warming is a myth.

That being the case, why are people still considering changing from coal generation of electricity?

Why are people still worried about CO2?

Have the greenies got that myth of CO2 causing some damage, even though we know this is not so? It almost seems that even some of those who know global warming is rubbish still agree with a reduction in coal use. Why?

How on earth could any thinking person even consider power generation from straw?

We tried a power house using the waste biomass from sugar cane. Not only is this a much more dense form of biomass, requiring much less transport, from much smaller areas, it has all ready had it's transport costs of collection paid for by the extraction of it's sugar content.

This project failed, spectacularly, even with these advantages.

The greenies must believe that persistence will win the day for them. Wouldn't it be great if they would just talk sense?

@Malthus "I have yet to see any refutation...of the arguments put forward...in The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy", I don't think you can have looked too hard. One place these arguments (which seem to mainly boil down to uranium scarcity and greenhouse gas emissions incurred in nuclear power production) have been comprehensively shown to be false is here: http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/06/25/take-real-cc-action-p2/#q15

@Sarnian, ever heard of the basket-case PIIGS economies? Guess what the 'S' stands for...The trick is to get past 20-30% renewable without the 70-80% backup from more reliable sources, as the Danish example also demonstrates.

"Germany has announced that its aim is to be 100% renewable and they have a good chance of achieving this." And that's why they're planning dozens more coal-fired power stations, is it? http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,472786,00.html

There are a number of untruths often foisted upon us by the Energy Communists.

One is that people waste energy. Do you know anyone who just simply wastes energy for the heck of it?! I don't. People in Australia rarely waste heating,cooling, petrol or water these days especially considering the cost. This is why putting a price on carbon to decrease energy usage will not decrease energy usage. As a society we can be more efficient but we do not,in general,just 'waste' energy.

The second myth is we require less energy. We will continue to need MORE energy to keep our current lifestyle and health standards simply due to population growth alone.

We need more energy from a reliable source; Lets go Nuclear. Wind and solar are expensive, inefficient and unreliable to be base energy at least for now.

Martin, having read your analysis I think it is quite simplistic. The 'huddling around candles in the dark' claim is simply not true, they are supplying 40% more electricity than we use today, probably even more if necessary. Australia is a needlessly inefficient economy.
Your excessive cost estimates fly in the face of the industrial economy. As a construction engineer, I agree that the economies of scale they are talking about from rolling out large multiple solar thermal towers would definitely lead to cost efficiencies of the order discussed. Your costs seem to assume that they would only build towers of 10-15 MW, whilst the company SolarReserve is already building baseload solar projects of 50, 75MW etc.
I used to think nuclear power would be the lesser of two evils, but I can't see how it is a scaleable solution to meet the world's energy needs. There is not enough uranium, and the Gen IV reactors that proponents talk about are as always 20 years away. A big risk to take when we already have baseload solar.