One seriously challenged individual, apparently not able to get on U tube to check the relevant facts, suggested I should build a thorium powered reactor?

Well as stupid as that sounds and is. Not even remotely possible here, given our regulatory framework forbids any such activity, with the word nuclear anywhere in the title or heading!

And you guessed it those regulations were cunningly crafted in this nation's parliament by public servants or signing off pollies! And courtesy of big nuclear and the fossil fuel industry?

Even R+D thorium is forbidden by law, in the US?

What is it about thorium that those apparently opposed to it fear?

Perhaps having their current business models rendered completely obsolete might just have a little something to do with it?

As the price gouged energy market (business model) gradually and progressively kills our (insignificant) Australian economy!

How's that for shutting up about it old son?

Build one?

Well get the regulations changed that forbid it as a first step and I just might accept that challenge!
Alan B.

Alan B,

Don't shut up; thanks to you I've been reading up on Thorium Reactors and although I've a way to go, I'm in there and willing to learn even though I lean toward steam power and wood fuel (a renewable resource!).

I hold to the theory of burning it productively before the next bushfire wastes it.

Yes Is Mise, good enough, but why when you're wasting an endlessly sustainable resource currently flushed as millions of annual tons into already massively polluted oceans!

And I'll call as it is, human sourced sewerage. Waste wood, fallen timber, can be turned into wood chips, then feed into a digestor, to create, food and arable land free, ethanol!

Aussie innovators have developed a closed cycle, smell free, two tank system. One aerobic the other anaerobic, to treat and thoroughly sanitise this waste and turn it into bladder stored methane, which can then turn a diesel engine to power and heat your home electrically, and on demand 24/7!

Virtually every Australian domicile produces enough biological waste to completely power their homes 24/7!

Further, scrubbing this gas to remove a modest CO2 content, enables it to be used in methane consuming ceramic fuel cells! Where an 80% energy coefficient allows the sale of around about a 50% surplus!

And at today's and tomorrow's prices, able to completely draw down any borrowed money, used to build a complete system, in around a decade?

Moreover given all the costs are upfront, the power virtually for free, with a bonus of endless free hot water, reusable, recyclable nutrient loaded water and carbon rich soil improver! And carbon sequestered for hundreds, nay thousands of years!

And with realistic maintenance, still doing duty a hundred years from now? Given, we've eliminated most moving parts and their subsequent wear and tear!

And endlessly renewable, given it relies on something we're hardly ever likely to run out of? To be sure, until or unless the whole population develops an extreme, very full in the face, anal retention syndrome?
Alan B.

A few pointers on electric cars.
Firstly though, a friend has an electric car and it costs him $1.50
a week to drive to work, five days a week. Service is zero and one
day he will have to buy some tires and the wear on the brakes is very
low because of regenerative breaking.

Now, it has been reported that the energy efficiency of electric cars
from mine to power station to wheels is significantly better than
from well to refinery to service station to wheels.
Don't ask me for a reference as I read that some years ago.
Just had a thought that it might have come from RMIT.

The highest selling car in Norway is the Nissan Leaf electric car.
If you do daily long runs in the country then an electric car is
probably not for you.
In the UK the electric highway is being built with fast chargers
along all motorways.

However if you are are a two car family and one does short trips to
the shops, then across town to friends to work etc then an electric
car is a real proposition.

As far as price is concerned no country has a subsidy anywhere near 50%.
Not all countries have subsidies.
The price in Australia is TGARO !
The Great Australian Ripp Off !
The Nissan Leaf for example sells in the US just under $30,000.
In the UK it sells for about $40,000 and in Australia in 2012 it
sold for $51500 ! They couldn't sell them, so they changed the price
for the latest models to $57,500 !!
Says it all !