Pericles, thank you for being prepared to at least contemplate the real issue, despite the tenor. So, let's move from my brainstorm to thinking it through.

All depends on whether you are prepared to start with the premise that CO2 and AGW hypotheses are sufficiently supported and, globally, fossil fuels MUST remain buried to achieve a 2 degree limit on global average surface air temperature by 2100. If you aren't then, for the sake of argument, please think it through with me hypothetically.

Let's say Australia converts its power generation from a carbon base to a thorium-nuclear base. That might take 25-40 years to service all our major population centres if we get started soon. Fossil fuels will be needed for long-haul transport until hydrogen (water electrolysis) becomes viable in a distribution sense. Agriculture will need diesel for longer. Metallurgical need for coal will remain, especially for aluminium and iron, unless non-emitting extractive technologies arise. Cement making will be unavoidably produce CO2, which it may become possible to directly geo-sequestrate. Our carbon footprint would be massively reduced further by solar and wind developments within and beyond the grid.

Through all this, we would be diminishingly using our fossil-fuel assets. We must necessarily arrive at a point where profit opposes the need for self-preservation. That is the point where our decendants decide either to leave what is left in the ground or sell what is beyond their need e.g. They may wish to sell coal for industrial purposes but not for energy production. Whatever, let them decide.

If the world fails to follow our path, there will remain a massive need for fossil-fuels. Also, the price will be high as they will be globally depleted. Please explain, Pericles, why there will be neither the need nor a high price if the rest of the world fails to adopt the necessary remedy to AGW.

cont'd

My approach puts the decision of what to do with Australia's remaining buried fuels into the hands of our descendants rather than us choosing to send them to oblivion through our inability to bite the necessary bullet.

Regarding mining investors (let's stick to talking about energy miners), 25-40 years is a satisfactory profit horizon. They are going to have to bite on the same bullet, and negotiate with our descendants over what will ultimately their decision.

With regard to both your criticisms, Pericles, it's a case of "you can't have your cake and eat it too" in caring for our descendants.

Thorium is the way to go and I dispute it would take the grid 25-40 years to convert from fossils to Thorium or even 4th generation nuclear.

I don't think there is a peak oil aspect to fossils at all so protecting a diminishing resource in the hope it will be worth more to our descendants is spurious.

In any event AGW is a failed theory but it would have been partially worthwhile if it had facilitated the development of genuine new energy sources such as Thorium but instead all that is happened due to the pernicious influence of the Greens is that $billions have been wasted on the chimeras of wind and solar.

With all of the hype about nuclear power, are you prepared to risk another Fukushima? If you are, then I will not argue with you any more.
Risky Repair of Fukushima Could Spill 15,000 Times the Radiation of Hiroshima, Create 85 Chernobyls http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/19073-risky-repair-of-fukushima-could-spill-15000-times-the-radiation-of-hiroshima-create-85-chernobyls
The Crisis at Fukushima’s Unit 4 Demands a Global Take-Overhttp://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/20-1
Nuclear Crisis at Fukushima Could Spew Out More Than 15,000 Times as Much Radiation as Hiroshima Bombing http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18208-nuclear-crisis-at-fukushima-could-spew-out-more-than-15-000-times-as-much-radiation-as-hiroshima-bombing

Zero-emission power generation has to be a part of getting us out of the warming problem without severely curtailing standard of living. Clean energy will be at the basis of cleaning up every other environmental problem we create, also.

Uranium is passe. Also Australia is one of the world's largest thorium producers and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2011/09/11/is-thorium-the-biggest-energy-breakthrough-since-fire-possibly/

Here's a quick and breathless coverage of the benefits of liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTR aka "lifters"):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2vzotsvvkw (the first four minutes are about water cooled uranium reactors)

Or, you can take your time at http://energyfromthorium.com/

If there is "Direct Action" money it would most effectively be directed towards lifters.

The last thing the world needs is plentiful fracked oil to extend the life of a world carbon economy. The C02 and AGW hypotheses are more than sufficiently supported, and we must begin decarbonizing to limit warming to 2 degree by 2100.