I don't think Australia is big enough to pioneer new nuclear technology; even the locally invented SILEX enrichment process is first being used in the US. Moreover the signs are that liquid metal fast reactors will be ready before molten salt thorium reactors. I also disagree that we should use the heat exchangers and turbines on existing coal stations. They should be secure new squeaky clean sites. Desalination would be done most cheaply using multiflash distillation as part of the reactor's external cooling system. Some membrane (reverse osmosis) could be done for water 'polishing' but it uses a lot of electricity as ratepayers are now finding out. Coal should be left in the ground, not exported, not upgraded, not burned anywhere.

Putting those objections together I still see a niche for thorium reactors down the track. Australia should build several current generation reactors (eg the Westinghouse AP1000) on coastal sites not too far out of the major cities. They should incorporate MF desal with the water pumped to city reservoirs or mixing stations. Those sites would have sufficient acreage to expand to include a next generation nuclear power station next door. If that was liquid metal technology it could reprocess the waste from the current generation plant. If it was thorium that pre-existing waste could still be used elsewhere. Either way that waste will be vastly smaller and with less unshielded radioactivity than the millions of tonnes of dust and CO2 now spewing out of coal stations.

Taswegian,

If you think something that had the guts of it proved out in 1968, in the US, is "new", what do you count as "old"?

You appear to have confused RO for membrane distillation - as you say, RO does use electricity (not as much with pressure recovery, but still a fair bit). Membrane distillation, on the other hand, I picked because of its ability to operate with low-temp hot sides and need for vast quantities of waste heat in its operation, as a supercritical CO2 (oh, the irony!) gas turbine would reject in a new-plant setup.

However, for a higher heat rejection temp, I do see your point about a combined cycle desalination system - MF off the top, then MD to grab some of the rest and use up more waste heat. Wish I'd thought of that.

As for coal, you are of course entitled to your opinion, but I am no genius, doing the impossible thrice before breakfast without turning a hair. How quickly would coal's objection to nuclear evaporate if it was in their interests to roll out LFTR cores ASAP?

LFTR isn't big - its core is smaller than sodium-cooled reactors of equivalent power output, and needs no pressure-tight containment. The MSR mentioned in Cassino et al's work is rated at 100 MW electrical, the same as the cores I have been advocating, with perhaps half the underground volume. The only reason to need large exclusion zones like with current reactors would be regulatory demand.

If we go your route, the half-used, recyclable fuel from AP1000 or the like can actually serve as the spark plug - 10 kilos of non-U heavy metal per tonne of recyclable fuel is what takes so darn long to decay. Burn it up in the co-located LFTR under your proposal, and the problem goes away - the uranium can be recovered for reuse, and the residual ash can then be partitioned and on-sold.

Thankyou to both the author and Taswegian. It was so nice to read something by somebody who knows science and a response from another person who is also very knowledgeable re nuclear issues. After all of the bleating for solar panels and wind farms it was a pleasure to read this article. The discussion is purely about which nuclear method is preferable, not whether we should go nuclear at all.

Sadly we all know that Australia/Australians are hopelessly stuck in a mind set that 'thinks' that anything to do with newkeullar is axiomatically bad. I see little chance that we will grow up anytime soon.

I knew about Thorium reactors some years ago and they seemed to have real promise but cost was seen as a major isssue. I did not know much about modern methods so this article and the link to scientific detail is very interesting indeed.

It is to be hoped that a few people at least will read the article and, if they can manage it, think about nuclear systems as a real viable option today.

Well, I'm allowed to hope!

Gentlemens,
I've read a little about thorium reactors and by no means am I a scientist.

So far I've read the piece and some parts of the 50+ page document.
As a citizen, at least one who is prepared to learn, I'm wondering if you can calm my fears of radioactivity of thorium. While the physical amount is comparatively small my concern is it's half life and it's toxicity bothers from minute amounts, bother me no end.

Perhaps, you can explain to me how this is not going to end up as a need to dump 'low level' (sic) waste products once the myriad of units have been decommissioned. It is the disposal/storage of waste dead bits that bother me.
Notwithstanding I tend to agree with the author that the solution isn't with big anything rather a decentralised mix of options.
Clearly on the surface this seems like something requiring much closer examination.

Particularly since coal isn't going to go away and big reactors frighten the bejesus out of me on several levels, not least that they require big corps to operate and this leads to unhealthy domination of governments.

Can you please explain or direct me to readable/accessible literature commensurate with my limited nuke science abilities e.g."idiots guide to Thorium reactors" or "simple answers for 100 dumb questions about thorium reactors".

examinator there is the US website http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/ or perhaps http://www.energyfromthorium.com/forum/
However Australia's Barry Brook prefers a different approach to 4th generation nuclear http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/11/29/ifr-fad-1/

Ah, the assumed simplicity of it all: A corralling of complexity; public-private-projects fogged by constraint of information due to confidentiality; the trend toward lessened expertise within Governments in regard to adequate oversight of contractors in complex industries; the bucketing of funding into concentrated areas of energy supply.
The latest generation nuclear power generating systems – thorium based or otherwise - may very well be kosher: Let the industry prove it at their own expense – enough subsidies have already been thrown their way over the past half-century. Let them give adequate (can they?) guarantee that, in addition to other concerns, liquid metal cooling can have adequate supervision, continuously – that no-one will idly piddle onto a block of sodium.
While they are addressing that task, let us put our resources into the numerous alternatives begging for a fair go.

Fission in fast breeders like this one look like it will be a excellent solution one day. But that day looks like it will decades, if not centuries away. The cost of each of new plant design is measured in the billions, and the time to build it in decades. It is a unbelievably slow process.

Other technologies are far more nimble. Each iteration is dirt cheap and happens very quickly in comparison. They may be a bigger gamble, but we will know the answer sooner.

I'm with colinsett. If I were in government, I would not be throwing money at nuclear in preference to other technologies.

I have no pretence to be a scientist. The author is obviously convinced that this is an answer to a maiden's prayer. Fine let us assume for the moment that he is right. Presumably therefore there will be no need for any government funding - the private sector will only be too happy to provide the funds. We will need them to come up with an acceptable proposal to dispose of the waste, again that is not a problem because it produces virtually no waste.
So let me see why have they not been built? The main reason is that private enterprise has seen it as a dubious economic proposition. The track record of the nuclear industry does not help - long on promises short on delivery.

examinator, congratulations on your willingness to learn - as Taswegian has mentioned, Prof. Brook and I differ in methods, not goals.

r stuart - the LFTR is NOT a fast spectrum reactor - the flouride does too much moderating for that. You also seem to have not read the evidence about 4-5 year construction times for PWR that I have provided links to. Accident or mendacious oversight?

colinsett - you conveniently forget to mention that in at least the US case (which I'm most familiar with), those subsidies (the bulk of which are and have been for military use and thus irrelevant to civil nuclear power) have been more than offset by the 1 mill/kWh charge for "spent" fuel disposal, fees to the regulator, and income, property and other taxes.

What sodium coolant?

Alex,

I would agree with Taswegian that Aus is too small to be able to afford to build or run experimental or one off sites. The singular success (low cost) of French program as compared to the US is the building of multiples proven reactor design which reduces the construction and running costs considerably.

Which technology is finally adopted depends largely on the fine details as to its total cost and the political impact. Thorium might be able to be sold as cleaner version of uranium (especially with respect to mining it)

However, given that the power distribution network is up to 50% of the cost of a new installation, and existing power stations have an abundance of clear land (which is hardly pristine), and a existing power generation that can be phased out as the new generation comes on line. There are huge cost benefits in this scenario.

Anyone,
What is the end result with the spent hardware is it to be stored somewhere? if so how?

"I would agree with Taswegian that Aus is too small to be able to afford to build or run experimental or one off sites."

What nonsense. The process could be tested very cheaply, using existing infrastructure by converting an existing coal fired plant. I suspect the main hurdle is the huge fear politicians feel at the mention of anything nuclear.

But with nuclear power there is also the legacy of unfulfilled promise. If these high temperature fission reactors really do offer cheap power with little risk or waste, then surely there would be a strong commercial interest in developing the technology?

I admit to not knowing where I stand on this; it might help if there were working thorium reactors around for evaluation. It's all very well to say the technology proved itself decades ago but it wasn't taken up. We can and do see the less than best technological choices taken; better financed and politically positioned opposition, short-term cost disadvantage, short-sightedness but currently fossil fuels have the financial and political position and the short term cost advantage. But it could be that other technologies were always better.

It's clear that the major players - miners, power companies, governments - as much as the public, are all for fossil fuels and will hold up Carbon capture as the excuse for another decade or two of avoiding real action on emissions. I think opposition to nuclear energy won't survive in the face of climate change -over the longer term but I also don't Australia favouring nuclear solutions that, for whatever reasons, were abandoned by nations that do use nuclear.

Expecting Australia to lead the way in developing thorium reactors seems very unlikely and it's the existing energy sector more than the public that will be the biggest stumbling block for nuclear of any sort.

Examinator,

What the anti nuke lobby often lack is a sense of perspective. For example:

The smallest power station in the Latrobe valley produces a tiny fraction of Australia's power, but produces in a month about as much waste ash as the entire US nuclear high and low level waste from the past 40 years.

While it is not radioactive, coal ash contains disproportionately high contents of oxidized and soluble heavy metals, (arsenic, cadmium, etc) and are in reality a greater long term threat than glassed reprocessed uranium.

Obsolete nuclear machinery is classified as low level waste, and if contaminated is with rapidly decaying isotopes. If left above ground for 40-100 years the radioactivity will decay to a tiny fraction where it is close to the background level and can be recycled.

Alex Goodwin, you say I conveniently forget.

I do confess to an imperfect memory, but do you really expect those of us retaining a bit of memory to accept your statement “those subsidies (the bulk of which are and have been for military use and thus irrelevant to civil nuclear power)”?

What substantial change has occurred since 1969, the days of Operation Ploughshare? The Australian Government of that time assented to construction of a new harbour by peaceful nuclear means. That, even though Henry Kissinger was on shaky ground attempting to address the Limited Test Ban Treaty question. From Pentagon papers of the time: “The Cape Keraudren project, which will involve underwater excavation will inject radioactive debris into both the atmosphere and the ocean. Since the proposed harbor is on the coast of Australia, it will be extremely difficult to find weather conditions that will assure that debris vented to the atmosphere will not go past the three-mile territorial limits.”

That project did not proceed, only because the costs of “construction” were to be met by the iron ore entrepreneur, and they exceeded conventional methods.

Of course technology has improved over the past 40 years. And if they have become so economically favourable, in “the absence of any military connection”, why do Babcock & Wilcox and all need handouts?

If we can take on board your exclusion of potentially violently reactive sodium as a presence, please don’t deny us the potential excitement of thoughts associated with Liquid Fluoride.

Re emissions from coal fired power stations I thought that as Uranium is very widely distributed it also occurs at low levels in coal. Hence, bearing in mind the monumental amounts of coal that are burnt, there is a large amount of radioactive material emitted from all coal based stations. I feel sure that I have read somewhere that radiation from coal stations is comparatively very large. Would some of your comment writers or the original writer please advise the rest of us on what is a very big issue because it puts the emissions from nuclear stations into rather better perspective. It wuld be even better if someone could post the relative amounts of radiation from all sources including background radiation and, for example, radiation from substances such as concrete, wood and granite. Certainly Radon levels are higher in mines in particular if there is granite about.

Examinator, It is not the volume of nuclear waste that is the problem. Indeed to compare different toxic materials by volume of waste only is disingenuous. Most would agree that the waste problem with coal fired power stations receives far too little attention but to leap from that to arguing that since there is so much less nuclear waste nuclear must be better. (At least that appears to be the conclusion you are inviting us to draw.) At least one of the problems with nuclear waste is not a question of volume but a question of time - it needs to be stored in a safe condition for thousands of years. (whilst there is dispute about how long nuclear waste remains dangerous - I have yet to see nuclear physicist argue for a period of under a 10,000 years) Let us assume that we can store nuclear waste safely for a period of 10,000 years. That still does not get us out of the woods. Presumably we need warning signs and we need to clearly demarcate the danger zone. In otherwords we need to invent a means of writing warning signs that will still have meaning 10,000 years from now, we need to identify the zone in a way that it still will mean something to people 10,000 years from now. Given that we struggle to make sense of written text that is more than 500 years old you are assuming that we have the skills and ability to invent a set of warning signs that will still be unambiguously clear 10,000 years from now. ( we cannot assume that people can keep finding something like the rosetta stone)
Of course the foregoing assumes that you agree that we have a responsibility to future generations.

sorry examinator - I should have addressed that last post to shadow minister.

All

The problem I have with discussions like this is they tend to into a combative predetermined polarised mind sets, *arguing* either pro or con, often little more than emotive raves.
Contrary to common thought selling an idea is dealing with the buyer's needs, not the opinions of the salesperson i.e. if a relator's opinion a particular property was better value than one interstate or another area, would that convince you to buy it?

I am in data acquisition mode, comparisons with coal is irrelevant and 'only' 100 years (sic) is raises more questions than it answers. How much and who pays? At what consequence/risk and to whom? Is the risk comparison absolute or relative? How many big power execs and their families live next to their stations?

Clearly the issue to me is that coal/fossil fuel has gotten us into this mess in more than one way, toxic waste, excess CO2 , limited resource (if only where to store the waste) etc. One could suggest that we should be looking for a solution that at best minimises their effects, not simplisticly exchange one set of problems or limited resource ( incl water) for another. This doesn't necessarily exclude nuke power but let's not go down the “too big to fail”, lack of public transparency route, if we can avoid it.

Likewise , the big anything is big business' “endless growth” toxic mythology.

I have often suggested decentralised and a spread of technologies make the most sense.
Big anything, tends to create hidden problems, risks and distortions in 'power (both senses of the word).
As it stands, is the 'cheapest' necessarily the best?

Baygon,

Please refer to these simplified articles:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spent_nuclear_fuel_decay.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing
http://www.world-nuclear.org/education/ral.htm

I understood that there was no problem reading latin from 2000+ years ago, and 1000years will reduce the radioactivity to a nuisance level.

If the waste is reprocessed, a shorter time still will be required, and there will be only a fraction of the level of waste.

Only if you use 70s type reactors, no reprocessing, and extrapolate the highest level of radiation for the entire containment period do you get the problem that the greens are raving about. As none of those conditions are even slightly probable, the situation has been blown out of proportion.

Without nuclear it is extremely difficult to reach the 25% (of 1990 levels) reduction by 2020 or 50% by 2050. The fiddling around with renewables has not produced a viable solution yet.

In this country don't have any alternative in the future than to look to nuclear power. The country has it's own uranium source and I cannot understand why it has not been used earlier.

We need approximately 35 nuclear power stations NOW in this country. We cannot do that immediately but we must start. We don't need to institute a new type of nuclear power station, all we need to do is learn from the best existing models and start from there.

This country is wealthy in technology and a "green, clean" power source is needed, but we don't use it - amazing!! We sell it but we don't use it! It is quite ludicrous.

This country is denied the power source because our politicians want to tell India what to do or not to do with uranium. We deny them because they might develop a nuclear device to drop on their neighbours and, in the doing so, deny ourselves clean cheap fuel.

It is their business what they do with their purchase and I don't believe, looking at India's power needs they are going to make nuclear weapons. But that is their business not ours.

Alex Goodwin: "the LFTR is NOT a fast spectrum reactor - the flouride does too much moderating for that. You also seem to have not read the evidence about 4-5 year construction times for PWR that I have provided links to."

Touché.

Alex Goodwin: "Accident or mendacious oversight?"

Neither. Lazy perhaps? I wasn't preprepared to spend the hours of reading your links required. I doubt it would help though. Whatever they said, unless I saw a reactor that was indeed built for $500/kW hr I would find that figure very difficult to believe. Given current reactors are coming in around the AUD$2300 .. AUD$4000 per kw hr price, even the most optimistic promises are for around AUD$1200. If they really did cost AUD$500 they should be poping up like weeds after summer rain. (I got the figures for normal reactors here: http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeCostOfNuclearPower )

But instead all we have is you spruiking them. What has changed recently to drop the price so dramatically?

Examinator - you make the point:
I have often suggested decentralised and a spread of technologies make the most sense.
Big anything, tends to create hidden problems, risks and distortions in 'power (both senses of the word).
As it stands, is the 'cheapest' necessarily the best?
Hermann Scheer's book The Solar Economy tackles this question.
We tend to forget that centralised power generation was basically a product of the steam age. Steam ushered in a period of big factories with big and hungry power needs - electricity could only compete if it could generate sufficient power to replace the steam engine. Surplus power was then onsold for domestic consumption. Our domestic technology developed in response to the existence of centralised power generation.
However, as Scheer documents, the technology exists to decentralise power generation using a mixture of solar and wind. (Since the publication of that book there has been a successful trial in Germany where a community sourced all of its energy needs from a combination of solar, wind and methane)
We rarely seem to stop to think about how inefficient AC is as a source of power, DC is more efficient but tends to need to be produced locally.
The history of the last 50 years has shown that no matter how well entrenched a particular technology we are willing to make the transition to a new technology - so why not to a more efficient technology?

It is good to see alternatives to our present damaging sources of energy being considered .

Unfortunately all these air , energy and water saving sources will eventually flag the end of the natural environment .

Big Business Science at this point in our history is simply being used to increase Population Growth everywhere to increase profits - and at present all the [few]Green Votes in the World will not stop that growing Population from consuming ever increasing amounts of the Word's natural resources from land and our oceans .

Already we see in Australia many ignorant commentators and politicians wanting more dams and more people.

Weak politicians,cheap power and saved water will hasten the end.

I used to be dead against nuclear power but that was in the cold war era. Climate change together with LFTR and also the newer 4th generation reactors have given a new perspective on nuclear power.

There are few technical unknowns in LFTR, 4th gen still needs some prototyping but most issues have been solved.

Nuclear also fits in with the "dig and burn" economics we are all so comfortable with.

Of course I would prefer all renewables but I just don't think that will happen soon enough.

Short post between other stuff - equipment troubles and hangovers have slowed response.

I'll concede my claim about US subsidies or otherwise.

Argh, hit submit before brain kicked over. Conceding the bit about a majority of subsidies being for military and other defense-related uses (such as US-UK co-operation).

>"The technology exists to decentralise power generation using a mixture of solar and wind. (Since the publication of that book there has been a successful trial in Germany where a community sourced all of its energy needs from a combination of solar, wind and methane"

There's a widespread misunderstanding that decentralized power can supply a populace with enough electricity in a secure and economical fashion. Notice how even the trial community required an additional power source - methane - to supply them with power when solar and wind weren't available. Using solar and wind requires either an additional conventional energy supply or massive quantities of extra solar and wind arrays and power storage. Energy security is also an issue - is is possible for overcast skies or still winds to last for days at a time. Thus, even with a distributed electrical generation system, a more robust power distribution network would be required to share power between communities.

All of this is perfectly feasible from a technical standpoint, but using 'renewable's such as solar and wind requires much more in the way of resources than most people realize. As such, the only real way to roll out enough 'renewable' power to satisfy a power-hungry populace, even one making massive efforts to conserve energy use, will absolutely require the development of centralized power production facilities in areas where power is most available - deep deserts and windy hillsides.

Using solar and wind is really a combination of 3 different projects - building massive arrays of power generators, constructing huge batteries and pumped energy storage systems, and rebuilding the national electrical network.

If some form of advanced nuclear power were to be used instead, far less development would be required.

Alex, it's all very well to claim that particular solutions are the best or only options but whilst these arguments go on the use of fossil fuels goes on unchecked. Actually they go on being expanded, fully supported and encouraged by our state and federal governments. The focus ought to be a strong price incentive that makes the externalised future costs, including the cost of conversion to low-emissions part of the price structure now and letting those real costs determine where investment in new energy infrastructure goes.

You should be strongly advocating a strong carbon price and good carbon accounting first and foremost; that will make the choices clearer.

With dirty power made seriously expensive, much of the habitual opposition to nuclear will fade - as will the reluctance to invest in renewables of course. The pretence that future costs don't exist or should be put off rather than brought forward, backed by a dirty energy sector flush with money and strongly motivated to use any PR tricks, including the maligning of low emissions alternatives of all types, will probably prevail until real world consequences are already costly an irreversible.

The biggest argument for inaction will still be "too expensive" except that, with greater need and urgency, it may even become true. And the argument for inaction will gradually transmute into "too late".

My latest electric bill came with a big tick and noted good work, we had used 33% less electricty than the average household. I am not sure why, what are people doing? We have all the basic everyday appliances. If it is so easy to live on 33% less electricity then that should be the first objective.

If business could make a cut of 15% and households cut 20% then at least would buy time.

I am simply shocked that we use so much less and does make me think there is a lot of waste going on.

How to motivate people is the hard part but why we need to keep appeasing such waste by thinking of new ways to meet demand is worrying.

Elustran you are misinformed. I have all the 21st century mod cons with the exception of airconditioning but even though the temperatures can get up to 45 the house's design is such that the internal temp never exceeds 28. My home is solar powered giving me on average 13KWh per day - this means that I feed in about 2kwh back into the grid. I have batteries that kick in whenever the grid drops out. MacKay (http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/book/tex/ps/1.112.pdf) would agree with you that we can never go 100% sustainable but again like yourself he assumes that we will continue to use our inefficient technologies; sustainable power also implies that we use efficient appliances. Our whole 21st century lifestyle has been designed around the assumption that limitless, cheap energy will continue to be available - you only have to look at the way homes and offices are designed.

A more balanced description of the current state of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor can be found here:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/compose-message-article.asp?article=9857

The comments are well worth reading:

- The post by PhilBiker which compares where conventional reactors are at versus LFTR.

- The posts by lfennec13 and JBert give some insight to my earlier question, where I asked why these things aren't poping up like weeds.

- The posts from thomasrex and quixote2 question whether LFTR is truly proliferation safe.

Unlike this article which raised more questions than it gave answers, you come away from the wired article thinking you have a feel for why the current state of play is where it is - and changes of it changing.

In cities all over the world lights and air conditioning in commercial buildings are left to run all day and all night. Fairy lands! Very pretty and can be seen from space. There are street lights every few metres which could be at least halved. Some buildings have become solar powered but not that many. Yet here we are, the average householder being told to cut our useage more.

Well, we try and, to an extent, succeed, miniscule savings in the scheme of things really. Many of us cannot afford to go to solar and sell back credits etc, so we are stuck paying the exorbitant and ever growing bill. I see some posts here about how well you are doing with conserving energy and getting credits, well bully for you.

I think I will just stop caring anymore because big business doesn't, the government doesn't try to use less energy and they won't consider nuclear power, just expensive wind farms and the like. I read where Kevin Rudd is going on another crusade to stop nuclear profliferation or some such diploptic seeking adventure on the world stage, so he won't consider nuclear power while he is in government. He can't be seen to be two-faced about uranium can he? Although he may, if still in office, sell it to the Chinese one day, he seems to want to sell everything else to them. But then they basically own us now.

I am fed up with all the nanny statements and dire warnings. We can't do more than we are doing so stuff it all. I will suffer the cold in winter and heat exhaustion in summer, not much different than when I was younger and there was no air conditioning. But the young people won't do that. They don't give a sh#t and neither do I anymore.

RaeBee I share your sentiments. If this government was serious it would start by mandating energy efficiencies. For example an Australian invention the shaw airconditioning system is designed to be either installed from scratch or retrofitted to commercial buildings - it has demonstrated a 50%+ savings in power bills - has been adopted by China and is part of the Clinton Climate Change initiative. Australia has steadfastly ignored it to the point that the technology has been sold to the USA. We continue to allow the importation of cheap electrical appliances for both domestic and commercial use that are inefficient and drive up our power demands. Instead of initiating policies that drive down demand we have the absurd Carbon Pollution reduction Scheme a model that has been shown to simply create windfall profits for the same crowd that initiated the GFC without doing one little bit to reduce levels of CO2.
And then there are the posts in this thread - this preoccupation with AGW is a bit like navel gazing - doesnt get us very far. Surely regardless of what you believe you should be concerned that the government is not demanding that in all of the commerical buildings it owns it uses the most cost efficient means of heating and cooling. the Art gallery of SA had the shaw system retrofitted - in two years they made sufficient savings in their energy bills to cover the cost of the retrofit. I get annoyed when I find that my taxes are being spent on inefficient systems - just think what could be achieved with those savings we could do something about the homeless, about our health system about our education system instead we have governments that put out glossy pamphlets to create the impression that they are doing something.

That's the thing Baygon, it is all rhetoric with our politicians. They are full of grandiose statements about cutting carbon emissions to keep "climate change" at "an agreed" 2 degrees increase rather than 4. That has to be the greatest load of absolute bullsh#t that I have ever heard, more than that, these politicians think we believe this. They think we are either illiterate or brain dead. The whole 'global warming' scenario is fascicle and a way to introduce more taxes. They can't control the climate any more than the power saving measures we take will make any difference in the slightest.

All the leading politicians in this country care about is kowtowing to the Chinese or the Americans or any other power. Giving millions to Indonesia to help meet their Kyoto targets, WTF! what can you say to this type of thing?

You can see I am very angry and fed up with Mr. Rudd and his fuzzy green BS. But it hardly matters Howard was abiding by the Kyoto Protocol even though he didn't sign it. Spare me, they are all the same.

And you are quite right, they don't give anyone with good ideas and inventions any encouragement or help so we lose out. They will not even think about water collection at the top end because it is to, to expensive but they give money to the Indonesians who hate our guts. Go figure.

TheMissus: "If business could make a cut of 15% and households cut 20% then at least would buy time"

It sounds nice. Who knows you might even get households to cut back 20%. But there is no way business will cut back 15% out of the goodness of their hearts, and you are wrong to ask them to. In fact if they are doing their job, they will not cut back, they will instead absorb the excess 20% capacity released by the households. They will do that because we require them by law to maximise their profits.

The only ways to get business to reduce their CO2 emissions is to force them to via legislation, or to make emitting cost them money via tax or emission trading. Out of those, emission trading gives businesses the most flexibility, letting them invent their own ways to solve the problem.

Ideally, the government will implement the ETS, and use the money made from selling emission permits to build infrastructure like high speed trains. As for alternate energy sources, beyond financing lots of little experiments like small scale test plants I'd prefer to see them stay out of it. In an uncertain field like alternate energy, the government should not be picking winners - LFTR or any other.

RayBee,
It sounds as though you have joined the "More Dams Club" of Environmental Spoilers.

No water is EVER wasted if it flows out to the sea .

Just because fresh/brackish, water dependent fish ,prawns , oysters ,corals and all their underwater friends in the oceans and estuary marine systems are not painted green, or stand on top of the ocean, easy to see from the shore, giving us shade, swaying in the breeze, they are conveniently and easily ignored by the Dam and Big population Proponents and big business.

This attitude produces the extreme of Environmental Marine Vandalism.

The best catches of the biggest prawns for 40 years have just occurred along the east Coast primarily because of the floodwater going to the ocean. Everything marine thrives for a fleeting moment .

Cheap power if you must, but leave the north alone or are we happy to ruin it as well.