Wind is just one form of solar power! All air movement is caused by the heat emanating from our solar furnace. Other things, which are also available is wave power. Wave power is a product of wind. Most of our southern shores are home to some of the most consistent and constant wave power, which if intelligently harnessed; can provide peak power for considerably less than current coal-fired power.
Similarly, we have some of the highest tidal surges in the world occur to our north and north west; and potentially, endlessly reliable twice daily hydro power?
Even coal-fired power can be completely cleaned up and made much more profitable, with the intelligent introduction of co-existent algae farms and endless sustainable bio-fuel production.
Algae absorb twice their body weigh in Co2; and under optimised conditions, as would exist almost naturally in any coal -fired power station's immediate vicinity, literally double that body weight every 24 hours. Some algae are up to 60% oil; and apparently the U.S, wants ours?
We need to decentralise power provision; as the 50% grid transmission losses; effectively doubles the carbon emission.
Local schemes that include turning locally produced biological waste into power, are already in service elsewhere; and if rolled out here, with ceramic fuel cells converting the methane produced into electricity and free domestic hot water; for around one third of the current cost of converting coal to electrical energy?
We need to ask our so-called leaders who'se interests are they actually serving?
If there is money for alternatives; then it could be far better spent than in the provision of intermittent and notoriously unreliable wind power, which is a visual blight on the landscape? Rhrosty.

Rhrosty

Wow! Now I don't mean this unkindly but you've been through every green dream booklet there is.. I won't go through all of that but lets look at wave power.. what you say about wave power is quite true as far as it goes. It is far more reliable than wind and the energy is more concentrated..

So why have no wave power generators made it out of pilot stage in Australia, particularly given our extensive coast line? The answer is that they are an order of magnitute or so more expensive than wind, and the wind farms are not there to save carbon (although they may do so as part of their operations). The wind farms are there to generate renewable energy certificates and otherwise meet legislative requirements. If a wind farm generates a megawatt of electricity it is assumed to save a MW. Whether it does or not is irrelevant - that's the assumption.

As wind farms are the cheapest way of meeting legislative requirements they are the ones to get built. The emphasis is not on real carbon savings but on nominal savings. Hence no one will worry about the other stuff you mention.. its costly and not needed for what they are aiming to do..

A lot of the criticisms made in comments thus far have been answered in detail at yes2renewables.org so I will just make a few key points in response.

The Energy Users Association, i.e. big energy intensive businesses, has said SA's power prices are the highest in the world. Yet SA wholesale electricity prices are now the lowest since the beginning of the National Electricity Market.

Further, according to AEMO figures, their carbon emissions decreased significantly over 2005-2011, even while their overall energy use increased.

There are no reports of massive or unusual blackouts, power surges etc in the SA grid. If there are, please let me know!

Germany also has very high electricity prices, but costs per household are half Australia’s due to sensible energy efficiency and demand management. Their per capita emissions are likewise far lower.

Fossil fuels have been shown to receive around $11 billion in subsidies in a year. These do not take the form of such obvious and literal subsidies as RECs; they are built into the system in the form of rebates, the failure to index fuel excise for ten years, etc.

Further, the obvious point is that the costs of fossil fuels are far more than the dollars. There's the fact that once burned, they take millions (billions) of years to regenerate. There's climate change. There's air pollution. There's damage to farmland and water tables. Wind farms take up a little space but other than that, do none of the above.

The carbon price is set far too low to account for all these. In particular, none of the critics here have addressed climate change. The International Energy Agency says that the investment decisions to go clean and avoid a catastrophic 2°+ of global warming must occur within 5 years.

That is why a rapid rollout of renewable energy at large scale (including replacing baseload coal and gas with renewable energy) are needed and that’s why a feed-in tariff would work better. Fantasies about nuclear and “clean coal” will just see endless delays

Curmugen: If you'd bothered to check with ABC's new inventers, you'd have discovered that we have had wave powered pilot projects and arguably proved wave power as almost the most reliable source of endlessly sustainable alternative peak demand power.
[Please engage brain before putting mouth into gear.]
Am I being critiqued for simply being very knowledgeable and well read; or, not wielded to a particular favourite form of alternative energy? Really?
I am extremely tired of Idealogs and the constant demand in some quarters, for much more expensive energy options; which of course can only ever spell the demise of our energy reliant manufacturing industries.
I'm not bothered where ideas come from, green pink or purple!
All that I care about is that they are good ones and potentially less expensive than what we have now.
Cheap energy gave us our manufacturing base and even cheaper; ultra reliable, endlessly sustainable alternatives, will not just revive it; but confer on us the ability to compete with and or beat the emerging Asian economies.
I contribute my ideas; which could make me a personal fortune, because I actually give a dam about my fellow Australians and our future!
Moreover I'm not long out of hospital, with a number of health conditions, which are normally terminal; and regard every new day as a bonus and another chance to make a difference!
Which can hardly be said for the plethora of self serving, I'm all right jack, posters; clearly over represented on most public forums?
Of greatest promise is, I believe, solar powered, solid state, hydrogen production, utilising catalyst assisted water molecule cracking; probably worth at least 5-10 trillions per, when in full production. WOW! Said it for you? Cheers, Rhrosty.

Ben. You see nuclear power as 'a fantasy'. How ridiculous. Would you kindly give your reasons for that statement, and please give numbers? I am uninterested and totally unimpressed with statements without data-how big, how long etc. Do not say that xyz is dangerous or very dangerous, give numbers, statistics, not adjectives. I await your response with interest.

SA people like to cite the 26% wind power but omit to mention that another 44% of their electricity comes from gas, about double that of the eastern states. Torrens Island gas fired power station is the largest single gas user in Australia. Gas generation unlike coal has the flexibility to shadow variable wind output.

SA gas comes from the Cooper Basin from which gas is also sent to Gladstone Qld and from the Otway Basin around Pt Campbell Vic. Both basins are in their twilight years. It won't be possible to run heavy industries, hospitals, air conditioners in heatwaves and the breakfast power demand rush with fickle wind power alone. SA does have another large potential controllable energy resource. No it's not geothermal.