Haduell; around 50% of our energy generation is lost in transmission wires, and factually, coal fired power burns virtual mountains of coal, which as many will appreciate, can do nothing other than rise in cost!
Some will argue for nuclear power, i.e., oxide reactors, even though these are at least as twice as expensive energy solutions, only ever consume around 5% of their nuclear fuel.
Which results in enormous waste of highly toxic material!
And yes, we may be able to reuse the waste in FBR? And then again and again, thereby reducing the half life of the waste, to just 300 years?
And we as an intelligent species, should be capable of storing said toxic waste for 300 years, in complete safety?
Forget that this choice is at least twice as expensive as coal and still bleeds the same amount of energy, via gold plated transmission lines!
Conversely, we Aussies are blessed with huge thorium deposits and could conceivably power the world for 700 years with thorium.
As opposed to using it here and reaping all the then economic advantages it would then confer, as the world's cheapest energy!
Thorium reactors can be mass produced and trucked on site, and their power fed into very local micro grids; that produce little or no discernible energy loss.
And during their entire service life, would be lucky to use a couple of tons of thorium, rather than the millions of tons coal fired generation requires.
And in almost inverse proportion to oxide reactors, consume as much as 95% of their fuel; with the waste being far less toxic, and eminently suitable as long life space batteries, in the increasing population of service satellites etc!
And city populations, can power their own homes etc; 24/7, with endlessly sustainable and even vastly cheaper biogas.
And always available, as long as we humans produce waste!
Rhrosty.

There are now more Australians employed in our solar industry than in our coal-fired power stations...

The author unwittingly points to the inefficiency of the solar industry. It employs more labour input than coal-fired which produces many, many times the electricity produced by inefficient, intermittent, unreliable solar, and at much less cost.

The RET was arguably the worst decision made by the Howard government . It was based on political correctness. There was no scientific or economic justification for the decision.

On the assumption that the author is no longer under the spell of the Greens, she should note that this still applies today.

There is no empirical scientific evidence to substantiate the hypothesis that anthropogenic CO2 emissions cause dangerous global warming. Consequently, there is no scientific or economic justification to maintain the RET.

Regrettably, the author wittingly supports the RET and thus supports the continuing raising of electricity prices that this will bring, and the effects of such irresponsible action -- namely, worsening operating cost disadvantage of all of our industries, reduction in employment, raising of the cost of living, and wait for it -- no measurable impact on climate change.

We do not need any more investment in-- rather subsidisation of -- solar and wind energy production, as we have more than adequate national electricity power supply to continue without it.

VK3AUU,

"Tasmania could be doing even better if the greenies had not torpedoed the dam on the Franklin."

The dam on the Franklin was torpedoed by the people that proposed it.

The site was eminently unsuitable as the underlying rock strata was unstable, being full of cracks.

As I remember from the Geological report that was commissioned by the Authority concerned the dam would not have held water and without some 7 miles (or maybe kilometres) of deep drilling and concrete being forced into the fissures the dam wall could not have been built, whatever the distance only fools would have gone ahead with building the proposed dam.