Posters here on this subject have Nil to no idea of the real issues involved on this subject.
High prices for energy are a direct consequence of corruption.

Deal with corruption, and you deal with Australia's farcical position on pricing and availability of resources for domestic use.

Corruption here is on a par with political corruption in South Africa. In fact, if you are poor in Australia, you will be treated worse than the poor in South Africa, when it comes to electricity supply cost.

At the least, in South Africa, 50kw per month is supplied free to a targeted poor, by State supplier Escom.

This is the same Escom, deregistered from the African busness union, for corrupt dealings with the Gupta brothers.

The same Gupta brothers a few days ago, lost a SA high court challenge to maintain their bank accounts, against corruption charges, which includes money laundering and a smorgasbord of other criminal charges.

The same Gutha brothers now parading around with permanent smiles in Australia, where their corrupt business practices are unacceptable in South Africa, but acceptable for Australian standards apparently: and… now involved in renewable energy where they have recently taken a 51% stake in a solar power company.

Eventually uranium or thorium? Yes we have uranium, but around four times as much thorium already mined or in easily recover placer/alluvial deposits.

Finding it, is almost too easy. Just with aerial side looking radar!

Uranium?

Needs massive investment! Reactor vessel which needs to be nine inch single piece steel!

To cope with around 300 atmospheres of pressure!

After the containment vessel, the building needs to cope with the massive expansion, if and when a critical pipe shears!

This building needs to be massive with a reinforced concrete roof using hundreds of tons of concrete!

Then the rods need to be moved around the core every 18 months then completely changed every 4.5 years!

So as to avoid another chernobyl, and building xenon gas blowing the reactor core apart!

This is where big nuclear makes its cash flow/fuel fabrication profits. Because a heavy water reactor burns around 1% of the fuel rods. Light water reactors burn even less, around 0.5%?

Molten salt thorium on the other hand, operates at near normal atmospheric pressure. and therefore needs no humongous containment vessel, no special building.

So straight away the costs are way way down!

Secondly, the design allows the molten salt to circulate and safely release any and all xenon, which has a relatively short half life and goes away quite quickly.

In a molten salt, thorium fueled reactor, this process can continue until 99% of the fuel is consumed, with the remaining 1% eminently suitable for long life space batteries.

Moreover, if designed as a LFTR, a thorium reactor can be gradually and very safely fed nuclear waste, to consume the remaining fissionable fuel, which is most of it, even weapons grade plutonium!

Earning annual billions in the process!

Enough other folks cash to pay for a dozen or more, walk away safe, molten salt thorium reactors!

Only those folk, with a very bad dose of Serant Schulz syndrome. Who doggedly refuse to look at the evidence, would chose coal over nuclear and uranium over thorium! And therefore, enduring poverty over abundance and exponentially growing wealth!
Alan B.

We can declare solar the winner when it no longer needs 8.2c per kwh subsidy at the commercial level nor $100m grants from ARENA as in the case of Moree. A few solar panels outside our remaining aluminium smelters might add to the greenwash.

Let's also hope solar battery users shun the use of the coal tainted grid after a week of rain. If Australia had 15 GW of nuclear baseload we could meet the Paris emissions pledge and set the scene for overnight charging of millions of electric cars. Solar won't do either.

'Molten salt thorium on the other hand, operates at near normal atmospheric pressure. and therefore needs no humongous containment vessel, no special building.'
Agreed.....but Australians don't work that way
and you have to consider the criteria Australians work with being....

'I'm entitled and it's up to the govt. to provide'

which brings us to the dilemma at hand.....

Coal isn't dead....nothing with energy is dead....abused and misused more likely but nevva ded
and while free money is available....nothing will change...no reason to

Molten salt thorium sounds attractive, but it has problems, and is not working commercially anywhere in the world:

'There are still several problems that need solving before NRG’s thorium reactor designs will be scaled up to industrial levels. While the waste is safer, scientists still need to figure out how much of it there will be and what can be done with it. The environment inside a molten salt reactor is also extremely corrosive. So, some creative materials might be needed. If it works, we could generate more power without pumping more carbon into the atmosphere — a win for everyone.'

Doesn't seem a goer in Australia right now, where I am wondering about blackouts this and coming summers.

Don do you really believe pumping a bit of CO2 into the atmosphere is a problem?

If as we are told, coal is just dead trees & dinosaurs, surely we are just putting back into the atmosphere that which was in it when life was thriving much more than today.