Coal is a dirty fuel, but what we don't need is replacing one bad fuel with another. Do we really want to leave our children and grandchildren a nuclear waste legacy? Do we really want to run the risk of environmental contamination that lasts generations? Do we really want our neighbours to think we might be pursuing nuclear weapons? Do we really want to risk nuclear waste falling into the wrong hands? Remember, this is something that once we commit to will be with us for generations. Do we really want to ruin our reputation as a nation that values the environment in a way that is different to the rest of the world? Don't our politicians understand that we should be ridding the world of these poisonous materials. We should be setting an example to the rest of the world that we don't have to go their way. We can be different here. Australia is perfectly poised to embrace renewables in a way that might not happen again if we choose to go nuclear. This is an opportunity that would be letting our future generations down if we miss it. Let it be known to John Howard that he isn't always going to get his way.

"Let it be known to John Howard that he isn't always going to get his way."
Wish you well with that one Crusader. The Howard led Coalition is a juggernaut out of control while he's got power of the Senate. He's not interested in future generations or the mess they'll inherit. His only interest is in keeping power after the next Federal elections so he can continue his stomach churning pandering to big business. In the case of nuclear enegry, it's the mining industry that he's pandering to. I'm all for offsetting the effects of the coal industry by more use of renewables, better use of energy etc, but the sorry fact is that such things are not always in the best interests of big business. It won't stop until humanity has been driven to the edge of the abyss and toppled over the side.

Far from cutting back coal use is increasing on the sly; in Australia there is Basslink supplanting hydro, in the UK and Germany coal fired electricity is easing concerns over Russian gas imports, in China coal-to-liquids is proposed on a massive scale, Ireland is importing Polish coal, the US is using coal to distil ethanol and the list goes on. If climate scientists are right coal use should be cut by half within a decade. Obviously the first step is to impose carbon taxes or CO2 caps. Then see what works; alas I am near certain clean coal will never be viable on a large scale with or without incentives. Beattie & co. are playing to their mining constituency by invoking eternal salvation via clean coal. If they are so confident it will work they should lock in some contracts now. Meanwhile farmers and water users are paying the price for coal's pollute-for-free status.

To say that so-called clean coal is the equivalent of "healthy cigarettes" is a debating-type red-herring which trivialises an important debate. Let's concentrate on what I think is the topic here: "To only achieve a stabilisation by 2025 would lead to a climate change induced nightmare." I take it, this means stabilisation of Australia's coal use (or greenhouse gas emissions) or those of the world. Anyway, the principle is the same. No-one knows - you, me or anyone - whether the world will be warmer or cooler than now in 2025. IPCC/CSIRO say that there will be just more and more warming - with NO cold periods. Sceptics like me say the next Little Ice Age cold period will be obvious by 2025. Until the future unfolds, we owe it to humanity to plan for either warming or cooling in the next quarter-century. Even if for the best of all possible motives, blind dogmatism is not good enough.

Come on people, let's stop playing around with semantics. We all have to admit that we are living in a fool's paradise where we are using energy and other material resources like it is going out of fashion. Our standard of living is much higher than we can afford and in the comparative short term, civilization as we presently know it will undoubtedly come to a grinding halt.

As well as developing all sorts of renewable energy sources - wind, solar, tidal and including gethermal and nuclear, we also need to be doing something to drastically reduce the number of people living on the planet. Let's get pragmatic about it. We cannot sustain the present population, let alone any increase. If we don't do something about it, then nature will have the final say.

“We are living in a fool's paradise”, No, it is a Looters Utopia; there are some who keep the useless Idiot parasites amerced in Ill begotten wealth, the problem is the over abundance of depraved Ideological irrelevant Looter Proletariat W.O.F.T.A.M.S and Useless idiots sucking the life blood out of the host .

Remove the Parasites, and the economic foundations and principled ethical realization will return- maintain the Looter Idealism, and we loose everything.

It goes back to Value of effort: http://majorityrights.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/22/

Once you devalue effort-and Embolden Ineptitude and encourage mediocrity instead of developing the best some have to offer- then as we look out side the window now, we are doomed. Some what understated.

I would rather a nuclear reactor in my back yard as it is much safer than the useless idiots Immigration policy. And besides, the way the world is and The Civilizations decline, living in caves and nuclear power plants seem to be an incompatible conundrum.

Soon there will be nobody left to realize what the structure was.

But to have both is Suicidal. What say you?