calwest,
"Coal is the only reliable, cheap, baseline option for electricity generation in Australia for the foreseeable future."
If that's all you can foresee then you're very shortsighted!

"It's also a great job generator and export earner."
...and health wrecker.

You misunderstand my position completely. I'd actually like electricity to be cheaper. We're already close to (indeed I believe we've already reached) the stage where it's only the funding inefficiencies which make renewables a more expensive power source, and technology is still pushing the cost down further. Meanwhile the overall effect of the RET is unclear - the NEM is so inefficient that the RET is known to drive costs down, but AFAIK there's no definitive answer on how that benefit compares to the cost of the RET itself.

If you think I regard wage owners as slaves, your comprehension level's even worse than Jardine's! What I'm not sure of, though, is whether it's my position or reality you fail to comprehend. If you think all duty is slavery, it's the latter.

It is simply a statement of fact that when someone has paid tax, they no longer own the money they have paid; the government does. Conversely, the taxpayers are not liable for the government's debts; the government is. The government is accountable to the people (indeed it should be more accountable than it is) but legally it is a separate entity. And (although I doubt anyone who self identifies as a "pure socialist" would regard me as one) like most socialists I want the government to be in a symbiotic relationship with the people, and I don't want the government to waste its money.

Correction to the above: in paragraph 4, "wage owners" should be "wage earners".

The 2014 RET review concluded that the cost of CO2 avoided by the RET was $59 per tonne. At the time the LGC subsidy was about $35 per Mwh now it's $85. The late carbon tax closed at $24.15 per tCO2. The sight of all those windmills and solar farms apparently gives warm fuzzy feelings to Shorten and friends but it is costing plenty for minimal emissions reductions. Time to try something else.

Lighter than air methane might well be generated in marshes, but doesn't hang around in hollows or over water, to become marsh gas, like heavier than air Co2!

And just labelling something you don't like as BS, doesn't make it so. Nor does par for the course, abuse! Go read a book, (scientific tome) perhaps once this lifetime? As opposed to burning them or just hitting them with your BS stamp?
Alan B.

Very good Adian, and blood carries OXYGEN to all parts of the body!

Where more is usually better!

Ask any mountain climber!

Some countries use oxygen saturation to naturally disinfect town water supply. I prefer to include UV as part of that strategy.

And should you want to travel, there's a handy battery powered UV wand, you can buy online, that you can stir around in a jug of seemingly clear water for just a few minutes before you brush your teeth or drink as safe (when it stops fluorescing) to rehydrate, given tea, coffee and alcoholic beverages, are quite effective diuretics.

Failing that, boil your water if you actually can?

Diabetic and tropical ulcers can be notoriously difficult to cure! But may respond well to oxygen saturation in a hyperbaric chamber? And about as cheap as (the mortal enemy of big pharma) medicine gets!

And all manner of afflictions can be assisted by/respond to, the simple cost effective, (cheap as chips) (millionaire exclusive) preventative medicine therapy. Including strokes and paraplegia, always providing it happens extremely early in the management regime.

In the hospital bound ambulance/chopper, not too soon. And inflatable chambers accommodate that as stock standard trauma management!

Many viruses may be also killed by an atmosphere rich in oxygen, introduced into the host. Ancient 51 % ( a world almost coast to coast forest) being twice as good as modern day 25%! Where we clearfell a football field's worth of forest daily!?

In any event, oxygen is implicated in all healing, and we may well become dependant on it, ask anyone drowning, suffering emphysema, or cresting Mount everest, without some tanked supply.

Liquid nitrogen sprayed onto your birthday suit and inside a purpose built cabinet for a maximum 30 seconds, kills all manner of pathogens too numerous to mention? along with all evidence of libido, for at least several hours!
YYYYYIPE YYYYYYYIPE MMMMMMMUMMY!
Alan B.

A nuclear powered Bangladesh clearly has something we don't? A leadership that actually has a informed, erudite, thinking brain to share between them?

And possibly the source of that strange burning smell? Or is that the curry? I've heard the way to tell if it is a really good curry? It has to burn as much on the way out as it did on the way in?
Alan B.