Don, you're supposed to be some sort of intellectual giant/university Chancellor, yet you seem to have simply based your article on assumptions and a few cherry picked outdated facts!?
You have completely ignored recent discoveries.
One being the fact that CHEAPER THAN COAL, THORIUM is now a self sustaining reaction, thanks to the thorium isotope 230.
So we've finally been able to disconnect thorium reactions from oxides, or any of their derivatives.
Moreover, thorium reactors are able to be mass produced and then trucked on site.
That fact that they're comparatively small at around 50 MW max?
Means they're not useful for a GOLD PLATED national grid system. PHEW!
Consequently, they need to be very local, and connected to micro grids, which more than halves the cost less than a grid dependent hydro, and around half what we pay for coal fired power!
PHEW!
And indeed, makes providing power for far flung communities and remote locations finally feasible!
And sure to warm the cockles of your old heart!
Mass production and bolt on modules, means that the life can be extended indefinitely, with the old replaced units, able to be recycled!
Meaning, so called decommissioning is simply not a factor!
Also ignored, with zealotry fossil fueled fervor, is locally manufactured and used onsite, biogas; made from millions of tons of waste currently contaminating our oceans.
Used to light up ceramic fuel cells, this combination, with a energy coefficient of 80%!
Beats coal fired power with an energy of around 20% 4 times over, or put another way, is four times less expensive.
And given solid state technology, no moving parts to wear out!
Every system has a use by date, and one with no moving parts to wear out, pushes that date way out!
Continued, Rhrosty.

In the news lately, was a practical electric car powered by a fuel cell!
This means, we make the electricity on board, and given fuel cells work nearly as well powered by NG/biogas; even then the exhaust product is mostly water vapor!
Sort of destroys your maths, and comparative electric car Co2 emissions graph, (thinking within a bubble) doesn't it Don?
By the way, GM have produced a prototype battery, that may extend the useful range of the electric car, beyond 600 kilometres.
Recent advances in solar thermal technology means, it must now be included; albeit with economies of scales and robot welded and assembled/mass produced solar arrays.
This brings the infrastructure cost way down to more than compete with coal; otherwise private enterprise, would continue to look the other way, instead of building one in the Californian desert!
The moving, computer controlled, solar arrays are focused daylong on a single tower! And just heats, thorium fluoride salt.
This salt heat to molten white hot, and the thorium reacts "moderately", to help retain useful power generating heat, for up to seven+ days?
Meaning, solar thermal also copes well, with all envisaged base load applications.
And given construction costs more than now match that for coal based generators!
The undeniable fact is, that this is also cheaper than coal, given the heat source is forever free.
And or, the heat retaining salt, measures in just tens of tons, during the useful life of the solar thermal plant; whereas, coal fired power, burns millions of tons of (exponentially expanding expenditure) coal, in any comparative period.
As a very knowledgeable Peter Lang would attest, [based on historical fact,] coal is far and away, more dangerous, with more lives taken, than the combined nuclear accidents the world over, since we first began to use Nuclear power.
Lift it up and look around Don!
Rhrosty.

How could anyone with any intelligence call the chaotic mess that our world is in a CIVILIZATION.

It may have been a civilization during the time of Ancient Greece but then it stopped. Seven billion people now go to bed each night wondering if the world will be there next morning.

Yeah, nukes have changed everything, them and the predatory capitalist system so loved by the U.S. which, built on permanent war, funnels most of the world's wealth upwards to wealthy Oligarchs and Corporations.

Civilization it's not. A Warring Rabble, a Greedy Cesspool, an Insane Menagerie, a Lunatic Asylum, The Planet of the Apes, a Psychopathic Jungle, take your pick!

This article: http://www.clca.columbia.edu/241_Raugei_EROI_EP_revised_II_2012-03_VMF.pdf
explains how 'apples must be compared with apples' i.e. wind and solar give electrical output and nuclear, coal gas and oil give heat output. Converting that heat content in a thermal power station produces only about 1/3 as much electrical energy. So in the table I posted previously the fuel (coal oil nuclear gas) EROI figures need to be divided by 3 to give electrical EROI's. The renewable energies are already electricity and do not need to be altered

Another crucial point to take into account is that an EROI of 8 is only 87.5/50 = 1.75 times as good as an EROI of 2; not 4 times as the EROI numbers suggest.

The reason is that EROI relates to a ratio or fraction. EROI 50 means 1/50th or 2% of energy is used to make the fuel; EROI 8 means 1/8th or 12.5% is used to produce the energy output. EROI 2 means 1/2 or 50% is used.

It is explained by Murphy here: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8625

There are other ways to create free energy.
Look up the Stirling Engine for example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pdqDQwehlk
Why cant they invest a few dollars and figure out how to make these things viable to put in everyones homes?
I saw something a few years back on a free energy forum but cant remember what it was called.
I wish I could because I dont like bringing up things which I cant provide a link to.
It was a small round metal canister about a foot or so long and had some kind of heat exchangers inside it. The engineer who worked on creating it said that you would input like 100watts or power and it would output like maybe 150watts of power. These aren't the actual stats, just an example but the point is that the output was more than the input.
So they are creating ways of better power creation its just that there isn't a lot of interest or investment into these kinds of ideas.
I'm still all for solar power and hydro-electric. I used to be pro-nuclear but I have turned against it in recent years as I think it just creates too many dangers to human life from radiation and used fuel.
Heres a link to a piece that discusses free energy.
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/10/11/multiple-scientists-confirm-the-reality-of-free-energy-heres-the-proof/

You say that the car would have to travel 80,000 kilometres to recoup the CO2 used in building it. Yes, but it would also apply to fossil fuel car. Yes, that one would increase the CO2 in every kilometre driven. On comes far out ahead with the electricity car.