" I think concessional loans are the best solution; funding renewable energy this way would benefit nearly everyone."

The investment in nuclear energy required to achieve a carbon abatement unit is a tiny fraction of that required for buffered RE.

Given the magnitude of abatement required, the time there is to achieve it, and the amount of money that can be thrown at it, why would anybody who considers themselves intelligent think RE is the solution unless, of course, they have an aversion to nuclear energy?

Your putting down any mention of EROEI, as if you can just close your eyes and it will go away, is your immense blind spot. I can well understand that you will see no limits to the resources that can be thrown at AGW, whereas they are very real to anyone who is not a complete dreamer.

It's your ilk that is dragging us towards the precipice, because you put impediments in front of real solutions by your obstinate rejection of them. You say you have no issue with nuclear, but really, it is a passive-aggressive stance in the happy knowledge that nuclear is down and out in Australia thanks to the sheer terror instilled into the population. Nuclear is seen as evil partly because your ilk has been so successful in brain-washing the public, from childhood through the education system, that green is good and will save the planet. Well it can't and it's not! It can only help as an projection of the true solution. It is not the main game.

All this crap about the Reserve Bank, concessional loans, printing money, investing in China, blah blah blah, is just so detached from the basic problem it makes my gums bleed!

Peter - "top down policy" - this is not my approach. Perhaps best described as wishful thinking, comparable to nuclear in Australia I might add.

"remove most of the very large impediments to low cost nuclear power" - I see multiple issues with Nuclear. I am not an expert on it but from a laypersons perspective, and the minimal reading I've done, there are huge hurdles to overcome that are not the governments fault: water usage, Australia's high wages; waste disposal; and no need for additional capacity.

Convincing the public will be the most challenging. As you've stated, or at least alluded to.

Aiden, "is no law preventing the RBA from creating currency out of nothing" - you're correct on this point. There needs to be a law that allows them to do it (it's not like criminal law). What part in that link are you referring to in support of your proposition?

"used in Australia being exported and burned overseas when renewables are built" - I think there is sufficient evidence, but not conclusive. Australia can extract and export coal for a profit, so when a coal plant cuts production there is little economical reason for an existing coal mine to also cut production. Thermal coal exports have also been increasing above trend since 2008 when black coal plants starting cutting production.

"a lot of what we do export is for steelmaking rather than power generation" - You're right, but it's mostly thermal exports: 182 million tonnes vs 154 million tonnes in 2012-13.

Luciferase, "the time there is to achieve it" - nuclear power would take a while to get going in Australia. Possibly several decades.

"basic problem" - Australia produces around 1.3% of the worlds emissions and we export about 2.6%. If we replace coal and gas with nuclear, we will export more offsetting a lot of what you wish to achieve. I don't think you are considering the wider implications.

"EROEI" - why is nuclear rated so highly by this measure but needs a high level of subsidy to make it economically viable?

>"Peter - "top down policy" - this is not my approach. Perhaps best described as wishful thinking, comparable to nuclear in Australia I might add. "

So, you are not seeking any legislation or taxpayer funding, or government targets' or anything, eh?

> " I see multiple issues with Nuclear. I am not an expert on it but from a laypersons perspective, and the minimal reading I've done, there are huge hurdles to overcome that are not the governments fault: water usage, Australia's high wages; waste disposal; and no need for additional capacity."

Correct, there are huge hurdles. They are not technical (it’s the safest way to generate electricity), not water usage, not waste disposal, do not increase capacity because they will replace aging coal plants as they are retired - IF, we get the impediments out of the way so it is cheaper. However, removing the impediments is blocked by people like YOU, who understand little about what's relevant, yet keep repeating the anti-nuke nonsense. As you admit, you know little about it - other than what you've read from the anti-nukes scaremongering.

>""EROEI" - why is nuclear rated so highly by this measure but needs a high level of subsidy to make it economically viable?

Why can’t you grasp these facts you’ve been told repeatedly? You seem to struggle to understand and combine relevant facts rationally. Subsidies for nuclear are a small percentage of those for renewables (per unit of electricity supplied). They are needed to offset the massive impediments we’ve imposed, until they are removed. Nuclear fuels is effectively unlimited. ERoEI can increase by almost a factor of 100 above what it is in the current generation of reactors. Then there’s fusion. But renewables are hugely expensive, use ten times more materials and not sustainable. Their ERoEI is too low.

You keep repeating the same misinformation despite repeated explanations of why you are wrong. Not acknowledging when wrong is one of the signs of intellectual dishonesty. See 10 signs of intellectual dishonesty: http://judithcurry.com/2013/04/20/10-signs-of-intellectual-honesty

Peter,

"you are not seeking any legislation" - I only need one subsection of a section to be repealed or amended. You need to change both State and Federal laws and introduce new legislation for nuclear subsidies. Comparing our ideas is misleading.

"taxpayer funding" - none.

"government targets" - only from international countries.

"they will replace aging coal plants as they are retired" - gas plants are well and truly doing this job. Nuclear isn't needed from an electricity capacity perspective.

"keep repeating the anti-nuke nonsense" - other than what I mentioned, there is no chance, or a miniscule chance, perhaps in the thousands of one per cent, that you could get nuclear approved in Australia. Why would I want to waste my time on that?

"combine relevant facts rationally" - The fact remains that gas-fired power plants are more economical than nuclear in places that have access to gas. Even the World Nuclear Association admits nuclear isn't more economical in places that have cheap supply to coal or gas. I prefer not to get my information from sources with obvious vested interests unless it makes the opposite point.

Therefore, I was asking a question as to why Luciferase was so reliant on this analysis when it doesn't explain the broader economics of nuclear vs gas-fired (omitting nuclear vs renewables for a moment).

"Subsidies for nuclear are a small percentage of those for renewables" - Nuclear may or may not be better, but this really doesn't impact my proposal at all.

"why you are wrong" - I am happy to tweak my proposal, but considering Ernst & Young, multiple banks, the CEFC, the Future Fund all support the idea that investing in renewables is profitable, I don't see how you've come to this conclusion.

Perhaps you're confused that my argument is about the energy production of renewables? How did we get onto comparing renewables with nuclear? To me this has no impact at all on my proposition.

You may or may not be wrong but I don't see it as a good investment in my time to advocate for nuclear.

Spencer Wright, sorry I linked to the wrong part of the page. Have a look at the Standing Facilities section.

And if you look at a chart of Australia's M1 money supply (such as http://www.tradingeconomics.com/australia/money-supply-m1 ) you'll see it's rising. How do you imagine it's doing that if not by creating electronic currency out of nothing?

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Luciferase, the main use of EROEI is determining whether something's technically viable.
It's reached the stage where it's clearly technically viable. EROEI can't tell us much more.

EROEI figures can't tell us whether something's financially viable. British Energy, which operated mainly nuclear, would've gone bust had the Blair government not intervened.

And use of P&H's EROEI figures is deceptive, as some of the things they count as energy inputs don't actually involve inputting any energy at all.

Assuming you don't just mean the energy investment, I don't accept that "The investment in nuclear energy required to achieve a carbon abatement unit is a tiny fraction of that required for buffered RE". It's usually quite a large fraction, though it depends on the individual circumstances. I'd expect it to be a lot lower for a small densely populated country than for Australia.

I also think it's pretty misleading restricting the argument to buffered RE when we have the ability to handle plenty more RE before the need for buffering becomes important.

What you appear to have overlooked is that different power sources have very different cost structures. Fossil fuels have relatively low infrastructure costs but very high running costs (because of the fuel needed). Nuclear costs more to build but its running costs are lower. And renewables have even higher infrastructure costs but much lower running costs. And that's something that can and should be exploited, though we've scarcely begun to.

Currently renewable energy's market share is low because it's often uneconomic due to the cost of interest on the loans. Concessional loans would make it economic. If you can't get your teeth into it that's your problem, but until you solve that problem your view of what can be done will remain distorted.

Aiden,

If you are referring to the RBA's open repurchase agreements, that is just an agreement between the RBA and a private bank on an exchange.

It is like a secured loan, but the certificate of title (proof of ownership) for the security that is being exchanged will pass to the RBA until it's repaid (with interest) and the private bank will have an interest over the title.

An actual secured loan, such as in the case of a mortgage, the proof of ownership always remains the landholders (even though the bank gives the landholder money) and the bank still has an equitable interest over the title. Of course the bank can become the landholder if you don't pay your mortgage and it gets permission from the court to transfer it into their name.

I've probably used a bad example, because the bank has the interest in each scenario, but in the former scenario they are being paid money and in the latter they lend you money.

Does that make sense? Probably not! I've done a poor job explaining it I think.

As for M1 its money supply (the $62 odd billion we have in circulation in notes and coins) plus bank current deposits from the private non-bank sector (the latter part does not include the RBA). So even if the RBA created electronic currency it wouldn't be counted in M1.