Have to agree that things are likely to go from bad to worse. We're talking ourselves into looming energy shortages. With 50C heatwaves and millions of electric cars needing a charge there will be days when fickle sources of energy just won't be enough. Meanwhile emissions both in Australia and globally keep rising despite what was hoped to be a decline.

Germany spends billions on renewables subsidies yet seems hooked on coal. In theory their remaining nukes are supposed to shut by 2022 and coal by 2038. In practice that will mean relying on Russian gas. Here in Oz we've had a renewable energy target since 2001 or nearly two decades yet we just had rolling blackouts. The answer must be hamsters on treadmills for politically acceptable power generation.

A well-argued case against current nuclear power/solid fuel models. Jim is a well know anti-nuclear campaigner. Who cherry picks his facts and science to support a very obvious confirmation bias!?

And adroitly avoids discussing some of the reasons for the lack of success of MSR thorium! The most obvious being a prohibition by the US government on thorium R+D.

Even so, we have a number of examples where thorium has been trialled. The most successful being The MSR thorium in Oak Ridge Tenessee. Over fifty years ago.

You'd think alleged environmentalists like Jim would get that MSR thorium is potentially the very best most affordable, reliable dispatchable endlessly sustainable, carbon-free, green energy that even impoverished third world countries, around two-thirds of the world's population can also afford.

Without question, they cannot afford Jim's preferred "renewables". Therefore, will continue to burn coal and their trees regardless of the endless advocation of Jim and his particular cohort that they simply give up cooking, eating and heating their humble hovels.

They might if Jim and his extremely vociferous minority would demonstrate with action how that ought to be done!

Over two-thirds of the homes on the planet are places where there is no washing machine. Jim should take out six months trying that on for size along with his anti-nuclear buddies!

If only to actually finally get their moribund minds to focus on the real problems of climate change and how to best address it with practical pragmatism!
TBC Alan B.

Two-thirds of the homes on the planet are places where there is no washing machine! Consequently, WOMEN spend half their lives from dawn to dusk washing the families clothes by hand and usually includes teenagers, some of who also hand carry/haul up by hand, all the family's water.

Obviously although not apparent to Jim and his endlessly blind vociferous anti-nuclear cohort, this means that these female populations are deprived of any meaningful semblance of an education and subsequently improved prospects/financial outcomes.

Demonstrably the only viable means to put a real brake on disastrous population growth!

Even so, Jim and his cohort will demand from the manifestly worse off, control they're are themselves completely incapable of!?

He doesn't like Nuclear reactors and nuclear power, regardless of improvement and a safety record vastly superior to coal.

Moreover, as usual, adroitly avoids acknowledging that only MSR has a capacity to burn up this planet's stockpile of nuclear waste and in comparative safety given the normal atmospheric pressure these reactors operate in. And the very reason why MSR thorium is walk away safe!

As for the radiation? Safely contained by the obligatory, but also unpressurised, water jacket! And concrete box. A traditional 350 MW enriched uranium solid fuelled reactor will require over a thirty-year operational life 2551 tons of solid fuel. And produce from that over 2550 tons of highly toxic nuclear waste with a half-life of thousands of years!

Whereas an MSR thorium, say a FUJI 350 MSR adapted to use fluoride salt instead of sodium, will require just one ton of thorium over the same period and create less than 1% of far less toxic waste, with a projected half-life of just 300 years. And eminently suitable as long life space batteries.

Thorium is the most energy dense material on the planet and so abundant, we can never run out of it and promises everything fusion promised but could never deliver. And only prevent by PROHIBITION and the antinuclear evocation of Jim and his extremely vociferous cohort with their ignorance personified, political machinations!? And only explainable, if protecting commercial interests!?
Alan B.

Quote, "Renewables accounted for 26.5 percent of global electricity generation in 2017".

Well Well, I suppose you are telling us they account for 26.5% of installed capacity. That sure shoots your argument down, when they account for less than 2% of the actually delivered power.

Obviously a very blind alley these renewables. About as useful as tits on a bull, except for the rip off merchants who profit from the rip off.

New energy storage technology such at that using molten silicon being successfully developed by Adelaide company 1414D will help to drive the nuclear energy generators into oblivion, but in the meantime we are going to wear power blackouts every time we have a hot day.

David

Don't worry folks, in a few years the waning spotless sun & the increasing cold will prove that CO2 has very little effect on the weather, as you would expect from a very minor trace gas.

Of course some of the gravy train riders will then switch back & blame it for the global cooling, as they tried in the 70s.

We can then of course ignore these clowns, & go back to our natural advantage, generating our power from our abundant cheap coal.

We have around 700 years of coal. And can, if so directed, cook it to release the methane content, which could and should be transmitted as the gas. To #1, eliminate current transmission and distribution losses, around 75% in total. Losses we the consumer pays for! #2, reduce power bills by the same 75%

At some point, we will have no other choice than build a national gas grid pipeline, and use compressed methane as transport fuel, as we can in all current internal combustion engines. And pay for all of it, the gas grid and refill stations etc with the annual 26 billion plus we now fork over to foreign price gouging, tax avoiding, profit repatriating multinationals, for fully imported fuel.

Moreover, with every decade of delay, the construction costs double!

[The Dutch have proved we can grow ready to use Jet fuel from algae. Some oil-rich algae are up to 60% oil and under optimised conditions will double their bodyweight and oil content every 24hours Using just 2% of the water of traditional irrigation.]

Methane will happily power up ceramic fuel cells to produce on demand 24/7 power and free hot water. Moreover, all the costs are upfront, so comparatively speaking, power costs can progressively get cheaper, but particularly with the automation of open pit mining.

Used a transition transport fuel and on farms, reduce transport/farm originated CO2 by much as 40%! And give diesel bills the flick!

That said, for mine, we should be building shipping container sized MSR's and using them as waste burners other nations would pay s annual billions to dispose of their's, and when completely burnt, reduce the half-life to just 300 years while producing a (waste) product eminently suitable as long life space batteries.

A win-win all round, for the environment, the economy and even ameliorate against manmade climate change.

The degassed carbon from cooked coal, possibly a source of highly profitable manmade graphene?
Alan B.

Well I don't know what you're so happy about, Jim. Until we figure out much better solutions for storage than are currently available, we'll still need constantly generated baseload power. And that means thermal or hydro, and if hydro was viable it would probably be already implemented, so that just leaves thermal.

So which is better, Jim? Coal or nuclear? I reckon you're so welded to your anti-nuclear position that you'd side with coal. But those of us who have actually studied the physics know that nuclear not only produces less CO2.... it's less radioactive. No, seriously, look it up. It's also a damn sight safer. In fact, it's pretty much a no-brainer unless your personal income or your local region's economy is based on coal-mining...

... Are you getting kick-backs from coal miners, Jim? It would explain a lot.

Jim, just a quick question. If renewables are giving cheaper and cheaper electricity why are my bills always increasing?
Another problem is the start of the black outs?
People like you tell me that is the fault of foreigners and coal but frankly I think it is crooks like you mate!

Jim Green thinks that by repeating bollocks often enough that people will believe you.

That there have been 59 connections and 50 disconnections in the past 10 years would tend to indicate that nuclear power is static. However, what the figures hide is that the new reactors being connected are typically twice the size of the older ones, and on top of that have longer life expectancies.

Secondly, while renewables have increased, the wind biomass and solar power is only about 9% the rest comes from hydro which is a limited resource that is unlikely to increase much.

The article that declares that Germany is going to phase out coal is a joke especially considering that Germany is now building new HELE coal power stations to compensate for the Nukes that they have closed.

Granted Jim Green speaks truth on the slow slide of nuclear power generation as we know it.

But I feel confident Green, as an Officer and Gentleman, would support the construction of Plutonium Production Reactors for a true Australian Nuclear Weapon Capability.

Australia can easily produce two essentials of nuclear weapons, ie:

- a gun-type nuclear warhead [1] and

- Tomahawk missile delivery system bought from the US, already cleared for use in Collins class submarine torpedo tubes, and Hobart class destroyer vertical launch systems [2]

But bomb grade Plutonium needs a longer lead time (10 years) to develop. It requires a specialised reactor (or 2) and a French built, Israeli Negev-Dimona type reprocessing facility. [3]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_design#Gun-type_assembly_weapon

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobart-class_destroyer#Armament

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Israel#Negotiation

So I'm confident that Jim Green, as a Patriot stout and true, would support bomb grade nuclear weapon reactors for Australia!

Isn't that right Jim?

I think 'friends of humans' rather than 'friends of the earth' is likely to give us a more honest and better outcome.

Hi Jim Green

Regarding http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=20138&page=0#356102 .

I'm sure all OLO are waiting for your fervent, feverish, reply.

Like Louis XIV, we demand satisfaction.

Yours

Poida

But the 26% of Green power is only 2ish% of generated power. It's not what goes in that counts, but what comes out. Look at the ongoing collapse of South Australia.