Just get back to using coal and stop the madness. Global emissions are rising, and will continue to rise no matter what stupidity the lunatic class comes up with. Coal, nuclear, solar, piss and wind - no matter what - the weather is not going to change any more than it does naturally.

Looking at NEMwatch just now I see 12 GW out of 30 GW demand is being generated by black and brown coal. That's despite two decades of renewables subsidies and mandates. Within a week of the PM elect telling us power would get cheaper it went up by about 15% all around Australia. For all but the true believers the 100% renewables nirvana must be wearing a bit thin.

I suspect losing baseload will mean the end of aluminium smelting in Australia. We can always import aluminium from China where it is made using Aussie alumina and thermal coal. A bit inefficient but our conscience will be clear. Alas I fear it will be some years before the public grasps the problems of lack of baseload or 30% efficient hydrogen.

Agree with most of this and add that current CO2 levels are in uncharted territory. If we would reduce this without reducing our living standards and tanking the economy, but the opposite, then only carbon free nuclear is available! And the best of that is MSR thorium. MSR technology can also be tasked with burning all our nuclear waste, which in MSR is mostly unspent fuel which when burnt leaves a vastly less toxic material that has a half life of just 300 years. This unspent fuel is what others will pay us annual millions to take from them and money we can leverage to build as mass produced reactors. That together with the reprocessing plant, fit inside a shipping container!

There were some issues with MSR thorium, corrosion and tritium, which have now been resolved. The first I,, believe with, metal heat treatment, oil plunge and the carbonizing of reactor metal surfaces, the second by using nitrate salts in the heat transfer side, where nitrate salt absorbs most of the tritium.

Add in under road, cling wrap thin, superconductor 200 times stronger than steel, graphene as the transmission system, you then reduce the combined transmission and distribution losses of 75% by a very significant amount!

More so if microgrids are part of the plan going forward. Finally, nuclear waste continues to decay and over a period of thirty or so years decays to mostly plutonium, which can be processed to remove the transuganics, including cessium and strotinium.

The latter two being able to be used in freezer free, all food types, preservation. The plutonium can then be used again as nuclear fuel in an MSR nuclear reactor. The waste from MSR is not much more than 5% and is still useful as long life space batteries.

Thorium as the refined metal is fertile not fissile and is less radioactive than a banana! MSR thorium is walk away safe.

See LFTR in five minutes.
Alan B.

I don't see the justification for this statement, "Phasing out fossil fuels is essential".

CO2 levels are not the problem because most of the heating (greenhouse) effect caused by CO2 is approaching saturation. Adding more CO2 does not produce warming proportionally. There is no guarantee that increasing levels of CO2 will warm the world or indeed prevent the world from plunging into a far more catastrophic ice age. We just don't know.

We still have not a single scientific proof that human CO2 emissions are the cause of warming - I'm quoting Professor Ian Plimer - and we currently sequester far more CO2 in Australia and our seas than is produced by our population. I'm with the professor on this subject.

We should forget entirely any efforts, expenditures, laws or regulations that attempt to constrain CO2 emissions and spend the effort far more productively enhancing our industries for the common weal of the people.

Just cut back on un-necessaries & all will be well & that includes dumbing-down education !

Why do people cling to the absurd belief that we need BASELOAD electricity? It reminds me of the joke about the Irish hydroelectric scheme to deliver cheaper off-peak electricity!

The base is then easy part to supply; we certainly don't need dedicated power stations to provide it. It's the peaks that are more difficult.

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Taswegian,
It's the fossil fuels, not the renewables, that are responsible for the price rise. More renewables will counteract that.
For 9 years we've had a government in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry. Meanwhile the cost of renewable energy has come down substantially while the cost of fossil fuels has gone the other way. So what's stopping you from becoming a true believer? It makes more sense than being a lie believer!

Baseload may die, but cheap electricity will continue therefore the aluminium industry will continue, though it will probably change the way it operates.
And on wat do you base your claim of "30% efficient hydrogen"?
It's cheap electricity, not baseload, that the aluminium industry relies on.