@Luciferase you must drink the same coll aid as Don does, predicting the future with such centrality.
Or you have seen the future through some extra sensory perception.... can you tell me what the lotto number are this weekend it's a mega draw!

//we have no safe, reliable and cheap alternatives to coal and gas in generating electricity.//

Yes we do. It's called nuclear, and we already know it works. Presenting the argument as a choice between renewables and fossil fuels is a false dilemma.

A smiling CEO of an oil or coal Corporation is enjoying your article and thinking " the propaganda is still working".
It would be great if we woke up the morning after the election to a Green Government but I am realistic and would be satisfied with a large enough green and independent number elected to hold the balance of power.
This is possible the most important election yet because depending on the outcome the country will either swing toward actually doing something about global warming or as usual just talk about doing something one day.
Regarding the race for the silliest, well Don is not going to admit that some of the most unlikeliest countries are successfully silly and are close to running their power supply totally on alternatives.
Yes it can and is being done but the well financed propaganda of big business drowns out the information.

I am sure that the unis coach gw alarmist/Greens on how to be shameless. Whether it is the economy, blocking sea walls, building desal plants in flooded zones, making completely dud predictions it seems impossible to shame such shonskers. Anyone hear Hanson Young trying to describe superannuation. To much time on boats bringing rapist to Europe and organising spiteful violent anti racist to stop free speach here in Australia. Amazing how much time the morally bereft abc give to this mob of anti family, anti Australian and economic illiterates.

While I agree with pretty much everything Don says, the reality is that around half the Australian electorate (that’s an informed guess) believes that ‘100% renewables’ is a feasible objective, are unlikely to be swayed by mere assertions that it isn’t, and have never been exposed to contrary views. It’s an absolutely critical issue that determines energy and climate policy. For example there was a time when Australia’s peculiar aversion to nuclear energy was justified on the grounds that ‘we don’t need it as we are rich in fossil fuels’. Now the grounds have become that the future is one of ‘100% cheap renewables that create marvelous green jobs’, or some such fiction. It doesn’t help that renewables scepticism is damned by association with climate scepticism (Don, take note). So we have the bizarre but very serious situation that future energy choices have become a kind of beauty contest where the judges (the public) are effectively wearing blindfolds because they know nothing about energy (nor should such knowledge be expected). That’s why I recently http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=18243 put some effort into providing an objective and easily understood basis for renewables scepticism. Don, we won’t change public opinion overnight but bit by bit we can have an impact.

What is not realised by many on here and elsewhere is that the
politicians are all too happy to go along with these 20%, 50% 90%
renewable aims but when you actually speak to them, they just do not
want to know.
A minister of the crown actually said to me that we have good commercial arrangements.

He meant that there is no energy problem ahead of us.

Cobber; the problem we have is much bigger than going to the moon.
Toni; I think it is too late to undertake to build a fleet of nuclear
power stations. Look at the problem the UK is having just to build ONE more !
YOU do not have the money.

Robert; Please do tell which country is close to running their supply
on 100% alternatives ?

Of course with coal mines all closed how are you going to get the
steel to build the solar panel frames ?
Well you could use aluminium, grin !
We need a system that can build itself. If it cannot do that then it fails.
The low ERoEI of solar & wind suggests that they cannot build themselves.