Thank you Max, I read the article and posted a response giving a few reasons why I still think people who seriously advocate nuclear fission as an energy source are certifiably insane

I second Peter Lang's comment.

Ybgirp, you had a big rant without any backing in science, any numbers, or even any links to typical Greenpeace agit prop. Just nothing. As I answered on the blog, you lack any real *data* backing your anti-nuclear stance. In summary:-

American LEGISLATION makes nuclear expensive, but other countries are not facing this issue.
http://goo.gl/YGnZnu

BREEDER reactors will eat the actinides (longer lived nuclear waste), and be massed produced, and China are planning an assembly line GenIV nuke cheaper than coal in just 6 years!
http://goo.gl/fePqHf

SOLAR THERMAL: just asserting it is ready for prime time doesn't make it so. It's exponentially more expensive than nuclear.

FINAL NUCLEAR WASTE (fission products) are only radioactive for 300 years: vitrify them into ceramic tablets and drop them in the ocean! Radiation from them will halve every 15 cm, meaning a fatal dose becomes a non-issue with just a few metres of water. But if the ocean is not palatable, just bury them in a bunker for 300 years. Done.

Sadly, many groups quote Dr James Hansen on the problem of climate change, while ignoring his stated *solution*.
He says:
1. Believing in 100% RENEWABLES is like believing in the Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy. (Yes, he’s aware of all the ‘studies’ that say we can, but still thinks storage is ridiculously expensive and cannot do the job).
http://goo.gl/8qidgV

2. The world should build 115 reactors a year*
http://goo.gl/Xx61xU
(*Note: on a reactors-to-GDP ratio the French *already* beat this build rate back in the 70’s under the Mesmer plan. 115 reactors a year should be easy for the world economy. France did it *faster* with older technology, and today’s nukes can be mass produced on an assembly line.)

Hansen's carbon tax proposal, as applied here in Oz, was turned to subsidizing the renewables "kool-aid" solution to AGW.

If, as he suggests, the tax is fully redistributed, yes people will make good decisions around efficiency, but that's all. Buying into household solar or subsidizing mass installations is drinking the kool-aid that seems so appealing on its surface, but will do very little to solve the problem the carbon-tax is ultimately aiming at.

No, a carbon tax is a waste of time, time we don't have. We simply need education towards the only viable solution there is by a political party with enough balls to take us there. Hopefully, Turnbull has had a good think about renewables and, together with our Chief-Scientist, will get the nuclear ball rolling. If not, people of sound mind on the matter must infiltrate the major parties and try to rid them of Tooth-Fairy/Easter Bunny thinking and redirect them towards sane logic.

To those saying Oz is better suited to renewables than nuclear, you are selling kool-aid as a solution to keeping our children safe from AGW. It is simply not an either/or matter.

...and just to preempt the usual suspects with their usual comments:

I am excluding hydro from my statement and referring to main-grid electricity supply in populated areas.

Renewables are merely an extension of the grid because they are built with main grid energy. They, like fossil-fuelled electricty, are unavoidable in remote situations.

BTW, Sth Aus in trouble with their alt energy. They are restarting
the gas turbine station. They now want NSW & Vic to provide backup
electricity at a good price. The company who owns the gas turbine will
no doubt soak the Sth Aussies. After all they were told they would not be needed.