It is strange how Australia, way ahead of the rest of the world, with the world's biggest economy wide tax, is the most backward in alternative power sources.

Nuclear is statistically still by far the safest energy source (no one has yet died of radiation in Fukashima compared to the 30 000 that have died from the Tsunami)

PS. Hot rocks is all but dead and buried.

Daffy or daft as usual, I quite like the perspective on Nuclear Power given by William Irwin Thompson at Wild River Review.
Plus his essay on the In Context website, and all of his other essays on the Wild River website.

Don't forget all that methane clathrate lying around the ocean deep, just waiting for us to start dredging or vacuuming it up.

Who ever it was that put this planet together sure didn't want us to go short of energy, provided we developed half a brain.

I wonder how much longer it is going to take for the inner city chattering classes to do that?

Rhosty
Where are you getting this stuff from?? Are you just making it up, or is there some basis to this fantasy..
"A ceramic fuel cell, around twice-three times the size of a microwave, will run an average family home and supply endless free hot water!
A much smaller water cooled one, could replace the combustion engine in any hybrid car."
As far as I know all of that is completely wrong .. ceramic fuel cells are not around the technological corner, and mass use of them for the family home is not being proposed by anyone. So do you have any links on that one? I'm curious to know where this has come from..

We're now entering the seventh year of a smoke-and-mirrors, extend-and-pretend, can-kicking phase of history in which everything is being done to conceal the true condition of the economy, with the vain hope of holding things together until a miracle rescue remedy occurs.

As the US and broader global economy stumbles, the banking system implodes on the incapacity of debt repayment, there will be less and less capital available for investment in shale oil and other energy investments.

As with shale gas, the shale oil wells deplete very rapidly, too, and production requires constant re-drilling, meaning more rigs, more employees, more trucks hauling fracking fluid, and more capital investment. This is referred to as "the Red Queen syndrome," from Lewis Carrol's Through the Looking Glass tale in which the Red Queen tells Alice that she has to run as fast as she can to stay where she is.

A perfect storm in the global bond market has formed with Europe crippled, Canada and Australia entering their own (long-delayed and spectacular) housing bubble busts, the USA sharply losing credibility as it fails to politically address its balance sheet problems - or even continue to pretend that it might - and Japan utterly floundering under a new lack of commitment to nuclear power, the need to import virtually all the fossil fuels it needs for its industrial economy, a consequent negative balance of trade (for the first time in decades), and a deadly debt-to-GDP ratio around 240 percent.

As I see it, shale oil and gas production will stop increasing, possibly turns around to decline. The event hugely demoralises "energy independence" cornucopians.

Fuel shortages return to the USA on a scale last seen in the 1970s. Cause: broken oil market allocation system. Some regions will suffer more than others.

Do any of us really think there is enough capital to develop a global nuclear industry no matter its engineering size or energy output, I doubt it all.

Reality is something we all fear, nuclear power is going to be one of those dreams that never really surface into reality, especially in Australia.....dream on!

Good morning Geoff of Middle Perth,

It’s a sure sign that the former alarmism behind CAGW is fading rapidly when you come up with its replacement, CPOW (Catastrophic Peak Oil Warning).

Your very scary alarmist post surpasses our greatest expectations but Shhhhhh! You are frightening the children.

As for the rest of us, I think we will leave you in “predictable box”.