Which would imply Shadow that the notable difference of cost would be
-Price/quantity needed of coal vs uranium/plutonium
-Any difference in heat- therefore water and maintenance
-How much it would cost to increase and implement the containment and decontamination measures.

Vivor- never actually thought of that. I would have assumed that our neighbours would not assume we are increasing our arms (unless a hugely anti-Indonesia candidate steps up from a rock somewhere)- though I'd assume you would be right that we would not be improving relations in a time we are punishing Iran for doing the exact same thing we are trying.

Also, although the destruction of a nuclear bomb far outweighs that of a power facility, the leaking radiation (and possibly radiated cooling waters) is nothing to be sneezed out- and it will become the new target for terrorists.

Australia's politicians are not alone in thinking that wind and solar need special treatment not given to nuclear power. In the UK nuclear producers want loan guarantees and a decent carbon price. They do not want an ongoing per-unit subsidy like renewables. Yet in the UK coalition government the energy minister Chris Huhne from the LDP says nuclear shall get nothing while wind and solar get feed-in tariffs. Germany is similar with its expensive but still minor renewables. They have slapped a special tax on nuclear power while it is being forcibly phased out and there are plans to build a number of new brown coal burning power stations.

King Hazza if you favour solar just imagine the difficulty of finding the power for aluminium smelters that run all night. Then millions of people get up at daybreak for showers, tea and toast. So far energy storage hasn't cracked that level of performance. We don't need to bury much nuclear waste just yet as it is small volume and much of it can be reprocessed. As to the small amount left well much of the original uranium came out of deep under the outback and the end products can go back there.

The Greens, with their doom-and-gloom alarmism, are actually nuclear's best chance. The greater they portray the threat of global catastrophe through CO2 emissions, the more relatively sensible the nuclear option seems. (It's deliciously dialectical - they're digging their own graves on this one).

As for Labor in power, don't be surprised if PM Gillard, post-election, moves in the nuclear direction. Labor can do certain things more easily in terms of public response than the Liberals. We've seen it with NAPLAN. She stared down the reactionary teacher union bosses, threatening to call in scabs, and they crumbled. Imagine the response were Abbott to try the same in power?

As the price of fossil fuels becomes greater as they become scarcer due to rapidly increasing demand from China and India (and eventually Africa), the nuclear option will become more acceptable to more people as it will make better economic sense.

In my opinion, it's only a medium term 'solution', though. What's needed is a vastly increased investment in research and development in the momentous field of nuclear fusion. There's a great opportunity to a brave party leader to commit to this area, as part of an international effort. Of course, there should still be R&D into renewables, including solar, but, hey, let's think BIG - despite the Gillard/Abbott/Brown commitment to thinking and aiming small.

And by the way, opposition to nuclear energy is not a left-wing position. Communists always supported it and, when I joined the party in the late 1960s, it was still committed to the 'peaceful atom'. Things changed with the decline of Marxism and the rise of the mish-mash best described as pseudo-leftism during the 1980s and 1990s. Unfortunately, that reactionary outlook is still widely described as 'left-wing'

Taswegian, I don't even know why I'm bothering to answer you;

But to answer both of your questions:

1- for industry (high-power consumers) you would merely have to continually implement solar collectors/renewables in general to each reduce the amount of energy required by a non-renewable source, until either the renewables fill up the power supply entirely or, failing that, the infrastructure would rely on a greatly minimized amount of non-renewable energy as backup only- thus reducing the amount of them needed to run and the amount of pollution they generate. This is simple mathematics taught to young children involving blocks, my friend.

2- actually you are flat out wrong about existing solar systems failing to substantiate hot water and energy needs of a household, entirely. Houses (including mine) rely on solar heaters for hot water, and houses that rely on PV solar panels are generating an excess of their energy consumption levels. So my answer to that would be- solar panels would do this.

In other words, households are completely off the list- which means using any further renewable infrastructure to assist power of only hospitals, industrial and commercial structures (and relying on any other forms for whatever's left).

Byork,

Fusion energy has been "just around the corner" for some several decades now. My opinion is that it is pie in the sky. An article I read back in the early 1980's, in PNAS if I correctly recall, suggested that the number of nonlinear variables that have to be controlled to achieve reliable net energy production is unachievable in the near future.

Meanwhile, we have smart grids to develop, efficiency measures which have been successfully implemented, and solar technologies for direct, low-grade heating, centralised power generation and photovoltaic electricity production. Not to mention wind energy.

Someone above mentioned infrasound as a problem with wind generators, and I will have to Google that one. I was not aware that infrasound was a human health issue, although I can imagine that elephants in Australia could be affected. Still, best I do the possibility justice - - -

And I suggest you google "Rocky Mountain Institute". Amory Lovins has probably done more to address the energy needs of the developed world than any dozen thermonuclear physicists.

Sir Vivor, the beauty of nuclear fusion is that it can generate all of humanity's energy needs for thousands of years, without CO2 emissions. It's a source that would allow us to further develop production and, under the right social system, eradicate poverty and other nasties - and have lots of fun.

Under capitalism, it remains hopelessly, scandalously, under-funded. Existing capital has no interest in undermining itself and governments have generally ignored it - with a few exceptions where it is none the less grossly underfunded.

Needless to say, now that all of Australia's main parties - the Greens, Labor, and Liberals - are committed to a small Australia, and to small thinking, it is unlikely the reluctance to think about nuclear fusion will change without public pressure.

We might start by demanding an end to government funding of climate change entrepreneurs and transfer those multi-millions of dollars to a fusion project, which would be part of an international project. No use waiting for the capitalists to work on this one - it will require government initiative.

The nuclear fusion process has none of the problems arising from nuclear fission: no long-life waste, no potential value to weapons production (in magnetic confinement fusion), it is fueled by deuterium (abundant in the oceans) and no possibility of catastrophic accidents.

Read more about fusion, and the excruciatingly slow advances in its R&D here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power and here: http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/the-other-nuclear-energy/2006/07/02/1151778807198.html

The good news is that in 2006, the US, Russia and the EU agreed to build the world's first nuclear fussion reactor