I hate to say this Geoff, but the technically illiterate dunderheads in both government and oppositions on all our parliaments, as well as the unwashed multitudes, just don't understand realities. If we had any sense we would have followed Frances' example many years ago and built atomic power stations. It is actually too late to start this, because some of our aging coal fired power stations will have closed down before any atomic stations could be built to replace them. On top of that, renewables will still be insufficient to meet our growing demand for power. The bottom line is that in the short term we are going to have blackouts in periods of high demand and the country's manufacturing industries are going to wear the pain.

David

VK3AUU,
Blackouts used to be a common occurrence. Now they're rare. We're getting more storage as well as more renewables, so supply problems are unlikely.

As for technically illiterate dunderheads, look no further than Geoff who doesn't understand the difference between efficiency and capacity factor!

Whats this "Industry will bear the cost" nonsense? We will bear the cost in no jobs, low pay jobs and higher costs for everything!
Aiden when we get Brown outs and Black outs who will you blame? I guarantee it won't be your sleazy, corrupt politicians or the Greens and their idiot influence?
We need GIANT brown coal plants. Offer a world wide tender, legislation as Andrews did in Victoria ramming through his overhead rail to ensure no one delays and lets get on with it!
Of course the future is many more smaller nuclear plants across Australia which will be the future of power generation. What we will get is the same rubbish as we have now. Power doubling in price, erratic supply until a catastrophe occurs and then, maybe, common sense.

The prognostications of 91 eminent climate scientists are hardly dogma Geoffy. Nor their peer-reviewed findings.

And supported by mountains of evidence like unprecedented ice melts that includes a now melting tundra and an arctic sea completely free of summer ice along the Alaskan coastline. Never ever witnessed in living memory.

And record-breaking heatwaves and drought here at home and during a waning phase of the sun, which should have heralded a mini ice age, rather than what we've just lived through!

Can't begin to imagine how much worse it could get when the sun as it will, returns to its next waxing phase and the joint starts to warm up again it has done for all of recorded history!

Won't have to worry about fuel then as our coal fields will virtually melt releasing veritable tons of free methane we only need capture and use as a primary energy source as our tyres melt on melting bitumen as we commute to our places of work study or play.

Footy matches will need to be cancelled due to the mercy law as winter temps cross 50C?

As for tennis? Our courts will be places where we cook breakfast/bacon and eggs as the courts will be more than hot enough!

I just don't see the problem. If we can't mine thermal coal, we can instead mine uranium-thorium lithium and graphene and export much of that.

We are having this problem now because of diabolically dumb policies and subsequent privatization etc. That has prevented us from getting into the 19th century. Given we are still locked into 18th-century power provision because we have lots and lots of coal.

Which could be cooked to release the entire methane content that would then be able to power every conventional engine and all power delivery, with an immediate reduction in CO2 production of around 40%?

And pocket the current 26 billion plus we spend annually on fully imported fossil fuel!
TBC. Alan B.

This debate is again full of mountains of misinformation. the first being it takes too long to build nuclear power stations. And propaganda rent asunder by the six months construction of a modest nuclear power station in Iceland. Not all that long ago.

The only real problem with traditional nuclear power is their operating pressure requirements of around 150 atmospheres or above! And the fact that solid fuel always expands inside the seven inches thick, steel reactor vessel. Radiation can be completely contained behind a water jacket and concrete walls.

MSR doesn't need to operate at any more than normal atmospheres. Moreover, given fluoride salt doesn't boil until around 1400C and the highest operating temp of MSR ever recorded has been 1200C! Means, they're inherently safe. And cheaper to build than any current clean coal on any drawing board.

If we wanted to build a few, we have a tried and tested FUJI 350 MW to use as the template for paralleled or in series, reactors? Mass produced inside factories and rolled out as one a month or better? Deployed where we want power, be it the tip of Cape York or the dusty outback?

Thorium is fertile, not fissile yet can be used in a reactor after it's converted to U233. Produces far less waste, which is far less toxic and eminently suitable as long lif space batteries that burn up with reentry.

Thorium is four times more abundant than uranium and we have so much of it, need so little to power our entire energy service provision we can never ever run out of it! Therefore ought to qualify as sustainable carbon-free energy.

As for coal? It's not the electricity market's fault that some producer and pollies haven't got enough nouse to get out and reinvest in cleaner cheaper safe options. As any other sane an rational being would when confronted with the mounting evidence!

Let's de-privatise if only to gain control of a current price gouged market and decide on logic's rational, where we should be heading. What we've now is not working!
Alan B.

Alan B, I disagree, the current power industry is working perfectly! Close half the production every couple of years and double prices! Perfect! Profits double!
Or did you mean efficient for the people who pay? If so, private needs another lesson in efficiency, First wind fall profits tax of 94% or forty per cent of turnover (Whichever is the greater). Then tender out new power stations at best pricing offered but no incumbents can tender.
This would gut the current companies and get us cheaper pricing. Or we can build our own small nuclear and or large coal plants.
The pollies have to get up the current corruption and ensure the incumbents are punished very, very severely! No one would give cheek after having their testicles cut off and shoved down their throats believe me.