Wobbles - This is complete nonsense. We don't have "too much carbon'. There is no more Carbon now than there ever was. We are NOT creating new Carbon!

Your comment on C12 and C13 is also inaccurate. C13 is a naturally occurring isotope of Carbon and found in living creatures since the Year Dot.

This is the lunacy of the Carbon Tax proponents. They don't even understand what is being taxed. Gillard included.

Wobbles, you've wasted around 10 minutes of my time. Plants use C12 and C13, but prefer C12, but only by 2% difference in the ratio. Google will help you work this out, as it did me. If you can't do better than this you will damage your credibility (and I use the future tense advisedly).

JM, I've been a big fan of solar energy for around 40 years. It has yet to deliver. I was opposed to nuclear, but I've changed my mind. It is the only source of power that doesn't emit CO2 and can deliver our current standard of living. You're overstating the disposal problems.

However, I'm much more relaxed about the CO2 heat effect than I used to be. I think the main problem is that we will run out of CO2 to emit into the atmosphere via peak oil, although I accept Curmudgeon's drawing our attention to the gas boom going on around the world using fracking techniques.

GY- you said
"JM, I've been a big fan of solar energy for around 40 years. It has yet to deliver. I was opposed to nuclear, but I've changed my mind. It is the only source of power that doesn't emit CO2 and can deliver our current standard of living. You're overstating the disposal problems."

First, solar IS delivering. Water heating already competitive; PV reaching grid parity in about 5 years; wind competitive; solar thermal not far off. Sure, not dominating the market yet, but inexorable positive progress. No meltdowns.

Secondly, nuclear. You didn't respond to my previous comments about future significance. All other issues aside (tell that to the Japanese), nuclear CAN'T solve anyone's problems any time soon. We can't (and probably now won't) build enough reactors to make a difference.

Thirdly, nuclear not emitting CO2. You've heard me bang on about life-cycle analysis now for some years. When are you guys going to get it? Simply displacing the CO2 production to the front-end and back-end of the nuclear life-cycle doesn't reduce it. It's the same as saying that a Prius is CO2 free. And I still claim that least cost is likely to be least CO2. Prove otherwise.

Fourthly, I've never gotten into the disposal argument, other than as a physicist, I probably understand the issue of radiative waste longevity and statistics (including Black Swan events) as well as Ziggy.

Less "belief" and more facts are needed to form strongly held opinions than are being displayed by the AGW-bashers.

@Jedimaster, if you think the percentages you put up mean "nuclear CAN'T solve anyone's problems any time soon", try holding solar to the same standard. The same argument CANNOT be applied to solar because the numbers for solar look worse by somewhere between ten- and a hundred-fold.

If it's life cycle emissions of CO2 you're concerned about, again, solar is something like five times WORSE than nuclear, per MWh. See http://www.parliament.uk/documents/post/postpn268.pdf

Jedimaster - I hate to burst your balloon but who told you that wind was competitive? It most certainly is not.

Even the wind advocates will say, reluctantly, that its somewhat more expensive than conventional. But there is evidence to suggest that its many times more expensive.. look up what I've written (Mark Lawson) plus the key word wind on this site, and then waste time denying the various reports.

There is also "Study of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources" 2009, Gabriel Alvarez, King Juan Carlos University in Spain(its avilable in English). Yes, I know the activist sites have since claimed (on thin evidence) that its discredited, but they were most worried about the paper's estimates of the number of jobs destroyed by wind energy. They haven't been able to deny that the electricty authories in spain pay at least twice as much for wind as conventional power (I think its more than that). And that's before all the costs of transmission lines and revamping the whole network to accommodate the stuff.

The ability of wind advocates to ignore or deny evidence that wind energy is a very expensive way not to save carbon is truely amazing. No it has not delivered.

Well in the end I guess it's all just some elaborate international conspiracy set up to establish a world government and/or a huge financial scam designed to make some mysterious faceless people a lot of money.

There's no politician I can think of that could win extra votes from imposing these restrictions so why would they even bother to do it?

Then again, some think that the moon landing was a hoax too and can produce all sorts of evidence.