Aiden please understand the problem of too much debt is not fixed by borrowing more. Eventually the crunch comes and then watch out. All the pundits will say "Where did that all come from?"
The plant is Spain may not work but tell me where there is a solar plant WORKING in Australia. Bridgewater is not and I bet the big ones at Mildura and in NSW meet "Unexpected" problems. The subsidies run out and so do the operators and we mugs are left with the bill
Give it up boys and girls is is just rubbish.

Hi JBowyer,

Aidan might have a point - we can always borrow more, even if at higher interest rates. Consider a household - if you max out your credit cards, what can you do ? Get another credit card ! But, you might say, how do you pay off the interest on all those credit cards ? Get another one !

If that starts to falter, but if you have aged parents with property, you can persuade them to do the right thing. We don't need to go into that in detail, but you get the picture.

On a national scale, on that same model, Australia has plenty of resources that we can sell cheap to overseas investors, farms, mines, women, that sort of raw materials. That might give us another generation of comfort without too much thought or effort.

What happens after will provide an exciting challenge, perhaps many, to our grandchildren and, although they might not think so at first, they will thank us in the end, probably.

Right on, Aidan :)

Joe

Bower, Spain did run for four days on "alternative" power.
They used solar, wind, some bio I think and hydro.
I guess hydro got them through. The fifth day might have been cloudy.
The greenies are running wild with that news.

Oh, yes the UK ran one day on alternatives, hooray hooray !
So it can be done if the wx permits and the dams are full.
Oh, didn't someone say the rail will never fill the dams, oh Damn !

Loudmouth,

You misunderstand completely.

Australia owns the RBA.
The RBA has unlimited capacity to create Australian dollars.
So in the extremely unlikely event that everyone else is unwilling to lend to us, we could always borrow from the RBA.

There's a persistent myth that doing so would cause our dollar to collapse. Before the dollar was floated, that was arguably true (the argument being about what is cause and what is effect). But since it was floated, it's undeniably false, as the dollar's value is self correcting. There's no theoretical basis for a collapse that doesn't rely on false assumptions, nor any real world examples of floating currencies collapsing in that situation.

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JBowyer,

The problem we have isn't too much debt, it's too little money. And that can be fixed by borrowing more.

Unlike Spain, we have unlimited credit. The RBA will never refuse to lend to us even though the ECB refuses to lend to Spain.

There has to be a first time for everything.

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Bazz,

Australia can afford nuclear power, and could probably learn from the UK's mistakes, but with our low population density and sunny climate, I think solar power is likely to work out cheaper.

"Of course with coal mines all closed how are you going to get the
steel to build the solar panel frames ? "
Molten Oxide Electrolysis!

We've long passed the stage where EROEI's the limiting factor. It's no longer that low, either for solar or wind.

Rail may never fill the dams, but rain is likely to.

Don, you stated "...there are no alternatives of any consequence for petrol and other oils in areas like transportation." You also stated "we have no safe, reliable and cheap alternatives to coal and gas in generating electricity. Nor are any likely to appear in the next 14 years."

I have news for you. You are 100% incorrect.

Australia can and must start development and construction of Liquid Floride Thorium Reactors, a proven safe, reliable energy source which not only generates electricity 24/7 but also permits the generation of transportation fuels (very similar to diesel), greatly needed medical radiation products and lastly, safe nuclear battery technology, safely used by NASA for over 30 years and now no longer available due to a number of factors.

Google search thorium energy and in particular try to watch presentations by a guy named Kirk Sorensen, here is a brilliant start https://youtu.be/P9M__yYbsZ4

We only need the will to take off our myopic blinkers regarding new developments (actually old technology from the 1950's and 60's) in the nuclear energy field and to see what a bright future could behold us.

Unfortunately vested interests, complacency and corruption within governments, and total ignorance from the green sector are likely to see this brilliant opportunity slip through our fingers.

Cheers
Geoff

So Jeff, is this thermo energy something we can produce here, if so, can it be mothballed for a later date?

I say this because we have invest hundreds of billion of mainly private funds into our CSG industry, and it would seem a waste not to use it, even if it were to provide for our own needs. Even diesel powered motors can be run on CSG.

It may not be as clean as thermo, only guessing, but it's here and ready to go and it's far cleaner than coal.

It would be wise to use this reserve before turning to another don't you think?