warmair where did you get your cost estimates? Try this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

Convert $ per Mwh to cents per kwh by dividing by 10. Agreed nuclear looks costlier than onshore wind but I would make another correction for capacity factor; for example if an intermittent source has c.f. 33% I'd triple the cost to make it comparable to a dispatchable source.

Minemouth brown coal prices in Victoria are said to be in the range $6 to $6.50 per tonne. Piped gas is about $270 per tonne but has much higher thermal energy.

Oil, coal will runout, we need to find a range of replacements. The author is saying we should give up on solar and wind.
Perhaps it's a good thing he is no longer in a position to have any impact on the powers that be.

Wind and solar do not work; Tom Quirk's paper, which I link to above, conclusively proves that; anyone who says otherwise is a fool or a liar; unfortunately fools and liars are controlling the investment of vast amounts of public money into both RET and AGW.

The lights will go out soon; the suckers are being softened up now with the PM's declarations abut goldplating.

There's going to be less electricity while ever the greens/alp government is in power; a nice irony, while they're in power there will be less power.

I agree solar panels are expensive.

Why did i buy them? cost benefit decision. Thanks to govt, through tariffs and feed in tariff, i will do alright in financial terms.

However, system, supposed to produce avrage 19kw per day, still cost me over $12,000. Thsat is equivalent of ten times my current annual electricity bills.

I bought them as part of new house infrastucture to avoid seeing high bills in future. I was lucky to have some spare cash.

For most. it is still expensieve and others have cited how subsidies to solar may also be contributing to higher prices.

Still, i hope solar panels and technoogy will continue to improve, saw a show of German mnaufacuring which produced paper which plays stereo music. They predict paper will even produce solar energy in future.

I like nations and people who think big, rather than accept mediocrity and more of the same as if there is no environmental problems in world.

Good on you Chris; bludgers like you are what are driving electricity prices in this country through the roof; the feed in tariff NSW scheme is going to cost just NSW taxpayers over $4 billion; don't worry about poles and wires, its the nuts and bolts and opportunists on the bandwagon who are sending the country broke.

FITs don't produce electricity; they produce power which is unusable due to its intermittancy and expense; that is both the sum of the scam and the proof that wind and solar do not work; their power is unusable because it is intermittant, haphazard and cannot be collected through existing technology, poles and wires.

And there's Chris fascinated with paper playing music while he collects his handsome stipend; that's all you need to know about the supporters of renewables; getting money off the taxpayers for nothing while they daydream about pixie dust and perpetual motion machines.

Bludger and huge stipend. What would you know moron.