Til Hasbeen's post I didn't realise China was a big importer of bauxite and alumina http://www.capealumina.com.au/bauxite_aluminium-market-demand.htm
In Russia they make aluminium from nepheline, a hard rock, since they have cheap nuclear power.

We send Australian iron ore and bauxite to Asia so it can be processed with coke or electricity made from Australian coal. Then we buy back the vastly value added metal and conveniently escape paying carbon tax on our own coal. It's bizarre. We could certainly smelt all our aluminium with nuclear electricity while using coal for steel making if we didn't also use coal in power stations. That would keep CO2 way down.

Even if you don't think CO2 is a problem it is underhanded the way we get Asia to do our dirty work for us, dirty deeds done dirt cheap as the song says. Trouble is we're denying ourselves jobs and profit while still emitting vast amounts of CO2 by proxy. Bring it back home and use nuclear power as much as possible.

Oh my God Taswegion WHERE do you live ?

Cultural changes around energy usage and sustainability will be easier to sell than endless taxes and surcharges to pay for exotic generation technology. Nobody likes to shell out their hard earned but they love to show their neighbours how much money they can save.
The obvious answer to all these problems is self sufficiency and a culture of frugality.
When the government operatives talk about "sustainability" they're only talking about sustaining economic growth, as in how can we keep the plebs on side while still maximising profits.
A sustainable society is one which eschews luxury and encourages people to be frugal and live within their means.

Martin, a rational, sensible and pragmatic approach when accepting the notion that we will be spending Billions purchasing overseas carbon credits (currently valued at 6.3 Euros - and falling), but I have to agree with Hasbeen....

"The really good thing about all of this is that by 2020 we will be well aware that CO2 is not a "pollutant", & is if anything an advantage in producing our food."

Lets hope we can minimise the economic damage proposed and propounded by those poor misguided zeolots in the meantime!

With you there Hasbeen, and of course you too Taswegian.

I feel like I'm in a time warp. My electricity meter reading hasn't changed for weeks. I leave in the morning and the last 3 digits are 365 but when I get home it's 360. No battery banks on my solar system. It just feeds into the grid when the wheels of industry grind into action and I make my personal sacrifice for greater national glory make magnificent GDP. I don't know what we could do with base load solar ...something ...perhaps. Oh solar, it's a pipe dream! Like wave and tidal energy. Just ask any Aussie, we know about this stuff, we're ingenious don't you know? We export intellectual capital. Why capitalise on intellectual capital when you can export it as a raw material and pay factors more for it when you import the value added product? What a mugs game! We import people and industrialise our economy around population growth. What could possibly go wrong with that?

Putting aside 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima etc. etc., I think this nuke biz has a future. I like the sound of them throium rectors too. I'd invest and put it in with my portfolio of perpetual motion machines.

One thing about nukes though, who is going to guard the waste from A-Rab terrorists for the next 250,000 years? How much will that cost? And when the waste containment materials become contaminated and that waste needs to be repackaged and contained (thereby adding exponentially to the waste), who pays for that?

Dump it on the kids like everything else we do?

Oh no we wouldn't do that, we'll pay these costs up front because we're economically literate and morally virtuous right? If you think a carbon tax will increase the price of electricity, try about a million per cent increase to cover the true cost of nukes.