Thank you, Sven Teske, for setting out clearly a well –informed case for some optimism, in discussing the Energy Revolution Report, and The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry and Resources inquiry into Australia's renewable energy sectors.
A year ago, when I realised the urgency of Australia’s current wrong direction on energy policy, I began a website, all out for preventing nuclear power – for all the danger and pollution reasons.

Now I’m realising that for Australia’s ECONOMIC future, we desperately need, not just to fight backward-looking polluting technologies like nuclear, but more, to get on with conserving energy and promoting renewable energy technologies. The Howard government has Australia on the wrong track – and I’m not that confident about Labor, either. But it’s becoming clear that, world-wide, people are taking up these clean 21st century technologies. With this groundswell of public opinion, and with some people of vision in Parliament – there definitely is hope!
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com

This is a very good article that hopefully attracts much attention.

Unfortunately, some people are still mired in the debate about whether climate change is happening. So be it, they will wallow in the mud. The rest of the world is moving on.

But where is Australia? Where have we been these last 10 years? What are we going to do?

The author is right, “The political choices of the coming years will determine the world’s environmental and economic situation for many decades to come. Renewable energy can and will have to play a leading role in the world’s energy future. There is no technical barrier - only political barriers are blocking the shift from coal to a clean renewable energy future.”

Powerful vested interest groups (like the coal and nuclear lobbies) have the blessing of our current government. This has to change.

How we make these changes under the current regime would be difficult, we need business and political leaders with a vision.

It’s not about right or left, conservative or liberal, east or west, them or us, whatever. People have to understand that it is the troposphere, the planet’s border, which needs protecting.

Political ideology will taint the issues but the environment must come first, all else follows.

Last year just THE INCREASE IN ENERGY USE ALONE was five times the total wind energy capacity ever installed!! This shows how rapidly world energy use is increasing relative to the tiny fraction of energy derived from renewables. Unless population and economic growth is stopped there is no hope of renewables contributing significantly to our energy use before an economic/population growth crash (and not much after because, after a crash, there is not much capacity to do anything).

michael, please don't use that dirty language in public. p*pulation g*owth makes all the discussion of energy generation rather pointless. if p*pulation keeps growing, it won't matter how frugal we are, the heat generated will cook the planet. but none of the chatterati know what to do about p* g*. so they talk about some easier, and fashionable, problem. to be fair, putting the problem on future generations has always been the solution of choice.

of course, here in oz, the need to produce water with desal plants because we haven't got enough for current needs means water shortages are going to promote more global warming, which promotes more water shortages...

quite a few people realize the population question is fundamental, enough at least that i don't worry about my sanity- but i do worry about the iq of the general populace, or the arrogance quotient of the people who fight their way to the commander's position, and then have no notion of what to do. it's likely "we'll all be rooned" is all we can hope for. but i'm struggling against the more likely scenario wherein we are all ruined, except for the rich and selected flunkies.

A very sensible article by Sven.

To our detriment, there are few politicians, Labor or Liberal who are able to grasp the impact of toxic hydrocarbons on all life forms on the planet.

Even if the IPCC got it wrong on climate change, the emissions of hazardous hydrocarbons and by-products from incineration, will continue to wreak havoc on human and animal health and the ecology.

How many deaths have occurred from the emissions of anthropological hydrocarbon chemicals and then covered up by pollutant industries and the industry aligned, sycophantic governments?

How many pollutant industries are there who've been sufficiently ethical to implement the already available pollution prevention control technology? Very few!

Our "leaders", obsessed with economic "progress", threaten us with recessions - even depressions, when we object to their attempts to dupe the masses in their quest of profits for the few.

We, the masses will have to pay for any reduction in industrial CO2! What ever happened to the "Polluter Pays" principle? "All praise to the recidivist polluters,". says our ill-informed Johnny and his cohorts and the state premiers!

My recollection of the pending computerised era within Australia was the fear of thousands of workers where they would become redundant, having only manual skills. That fear has been proven to be unfounded.

The increase of renewable energies in this country can only be to the benefit of the masses, creating new skills, many new industries and a vast improvement in environmental and human health.

Unfortunately we are governed by yesterday's men, determined in their pursuits to further pollute this fragile planet!

Reckon the power of the sun on a hot summer's day is nowhere near utilised in Australia.

Mirrored reflectors also must only catch a fraction of the sun's true solar power.

Aussie kids found out years ago how a bulbous torch magnifier glass a half inch across could burn one's skin to the bone in seconds on a normal sunny day.

Using the above principle then, what could a magnified bulbous dome the size of the Telstra dome achieve?