Bazz, as long as we have ignorance and greed around us we will never really progress.
The proposals that are and have been suggested and trialed are failures, and should never have been allowed to get beyond the mouths of ignorant people like politicians, led by an even more ignorant mob; The greens.
I have preached ad nauseum how the technology is NOT VIABLE.
As has been pointed out again and again, the land required to harvest the amount of power required is greater than the size of the urban area it is supposed to service.
So we replace one pollution for another.
Then there is the absolute and certain lack of reliability.
It is a fool who will promote something they know in advance will NOT do what it was meant to do and at a price worth doing it.
The words, 'duty cycle' come to mind.
These fantasies will not come close to the duty cycles of coal, hydro and nuclear.
Don't even bother to try to compare reliability.
Not even close.
Wind is proving to be an expensive and maintenance horror story.
Their duty cycle must be about 5%.
So run them long and hard enough to simply create low level power, and they will still crash and burn as regular as clockwork.
That's the only thing you CAN rely on.
FAILURE!
One of the regulars on OLO has been pushing thorium salt as a basis of power generation.
From the early details, it appears to be a win, win, win situation.
It ticks all the boxes in reliability, residual nasties, (there aren't any. It's salt) base load power, and the list goes on.
Being that my background is engineering, it angers me to see good ideas sidelined because of filthy ignorant scumbags pushing a failed agenda just so they can get wealthier at the expense of the consumers.

I don't think thorium is sidelined for nefarious reasons, I think it
is just a case of "Thorium ? what err is that, lets get back to discussing energy.
It is the pollies, I asked a minister how are you going to fuel diesel submarines ?
We import it all, what happens in a war.
Reply, "We have firm commercial arrangements for supply".
Duuhh !
And that was a minister of the Crown !

Bazz, this is what I speak of.
At best I call these people ministers of the 'Clown'.
It has always bugged me that these people know nothing about running a business, let alone running a huge business like a country.
The 'club' grooms them then puts them up for election.
Along come an even less informed and lax group of people, (the voters) and make completely un-informed decisions based on no actual solid criteria or experience even; and here we are today.
A bunch of mindless greedy criminals stealing and running amok with our money and all along with the consent of another mindless and lazy mob.
The consumer!

Altrav, I was just reading about the power problems in the US.
We seem to be having the same problems. They are in the situation
where no one is investing in new coal or gas power stations.
In California they are having six hour blackouts.
Imagine standing in a lift for six hours with 15 of your workmates at knockoff time !
If we continue down the same track and it looks very similar to here
we will be in the same boat.
I think I will start organising a 12 volt lighting system. At least I
would be able to get away from this m/c and catch up with my reading, hi !

Bazz, it saddens me to have to agree with you.
I wish I had the answers.
Having an ignorant public is bad enough, but couple that with a greedy self serving govt and you've got yourself chaos.
If only we could take a page out of China's history book, when the people rose up against the govt and academics.
Killed most of them, burned books, they simply had, had enough.
I'm not saying their any better off today but, at least they 'drained the swamp' and put the scum on notice.
I would wish that upon Australia.
Only something as decisive as attacking and killing the scum will it finally sink in.
At least for some time we would have some very scared pollies if anyone dared to take up the job knowing at any moment they could be extinguished.
I believe only action of this nature, will snap them back to reality and into doing their job.
If they have the courage of their convictions.

Well Altrav that is a dramatic solution.
I am hopeful that the blackouts will be so severe, as they must inevitably be, that the present parties will be overthrown.
When buildings above three floors are abandoned as homes and offices
there will be a real uproar.
As someone who has walked up 20 floors on a job in a new building
each morning and down each afternoon I can assure you it is no fun.