The legal hurdles to nuclear power are total show stoppers under the Minority, temporary, Morrison Parliament. Those now in the Majority (Greens, Independents and Labor) will almost certainly vote against any pro-nuclear legislative change, now and after Labor wins power in 2019. The laws to overturn being the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act and the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

As well as Parliamentary votes to overturn the laws there will probably be demands for a Nuclear Power Referendum or two.

Guys, unfortunately you are all correct.
Those asking WHY, we are not, have not, done anything about our flailing energy situation, are not asking the right questions or looking in the right direction.
The answer is as follows, I know it will be taken as a cliche, but here goes anyway.
Ultimately it comes down to greed and avarice, by those who have the power and opportunity to do what they want, at our expense.
Put simply, govt ministers.
They have sold off nearly all of our public utilities, based on a contrived notion of saving money, when that has clearly never been true, as evidenced by the fact that the cost of living in this country has continually risen without any signs of abating.
Our energy suppliers or providers are no different.
When the time came to sell it, the buyers all turned their noses up and actually threatened the govt with words like, 'it's not profitable enough, call us when it's making enough money to make it viable for us'.
So it was, if you recall, that Canberra started saying, we were paying too little for our electricity and it could not go on, the price had to rise to a more realistic level.
Then the filthy scum did the deal, and we have been compromised once more.
We are NEVER going to see affordable energy, thorium or otherwise, as long as we have this 'dictatorship' attitude from Canberra.
They're looking after their mates, who in turn look after them.
Unless we somehow force all the pollies hands, and I don't care how, I believe the end justifies the means, we will never get rid of corruption and greed if we don't start trying.
Essential services should never be sold off, as there is and will never be a good enough reason to do so.
These services, like water, power and so many others are 'essential' to our everyday lives.
They are NOT LUXURIES!
I don't know how to get things back to where they should be, other than a public uprising.
No?
Another beer instead!

Good post. Well done.

If change is to happen, the message of cheaper, safer, more reliable, less land-hungry power generation must be repeated until it is understood.

The link to Dr Ben Heard's work is apt. I encourage readers who are not familiar with Ben's work to follow it.

One small quibble. The distinction between SMR's and conventional pressurised water reactors is much more than small and more expensive.

There are many different designs for nuclear plant, the older ones relying on human intervention and automated subsystems to ensure safety. SMR's, which are now becoming commercially available, are designed to be intrinsically walk-away safe. They cannot do as Chernobyl did, not now and not ever.

Meanwhile, our NSW State government, in its haste to flog assets, has not reserved any of the remaining salt water cooling sites permanently for power generation. SMR's are ideally suited to small harbourside or Lake Macquarie sites for cooling, with consequent minimal additional transmission and connection costs. Liddell and Hazelwood are only potential starting points.

There are those who say we should have done this twenty years ago, and now is too late!

Q: When is the best time to plant a tree?
A: twenty years ago. Failing that? Now!

China has wages inflation growing at were informed 30% PA. Now that wages inflation is certain to make everything dearer including the coal-fired power used to make solar voltaic panels or wind turbines or parts thereof.

We the people only have power over decision-making politicians a couple or three times a decade and the very reason we've had an energy crisis for at least the last decade!

It's time they stopped deciding what we think and stopped to listen to us their employer. Need to be called out for dog whistling or playing to an audience of bigots/numbskulls or playing the race card in order to divide and rule!

This divisive tactic on the part of mealy-mouthed pollies, clearly looking after themselves and their cronies say it's high time for a Federal ICAC! We need folk to interview each and every contending candidate to get their personal commitment to nuclear power as the only viable answer to affordable dispatchable carbon-free power everybody can actually afford and without tanking the economy o emasculating our manufacturing sector.

We opted for coal-fired power because it was cheaper than the nuclear option. this is no longer so, but may now be 3-4 times dearer.

And critical if we are to both decarb the economy as well as grow it! An absolute must! Otherwise, might as well sell up and go squat in a cave burning dung to cook our meals as we tell the grandkids, we tried but those with the power to make positive change wouldn't/weren't allowed to!

If there's another more credible explanation? I'm not seeing it!

Unless it a case of the inmates taking over and running the asylum?

Hasbeen: Suggest you get a copy of, thorium, cheaper than coal, by economist, Ivy-league professor Robert Hargreaves. Or just read, Super Fuel, subtitled, green energy, by prize-winning investigative Journalist and science writer Richard Martin.
Alan B.

Alan Bl,
Forget coal - that's too expensive now. The real competitor is solar power.

Twenty years ago, nuclear was much cheaper than solar. But technology has moved on.

Come off the raw prawn Aiden.

Solar power is only nearly competitive a couple of hours each side of mid day, on a sunny day. It is totally useless in the dark of night, as no suitable storage system is available, or likely.

Yes solar is great if you only want your lights on during the day.