To Aiden: "More solar panels means less in the way of electricity bills - so if anything, the prices would go down." I don't know what world you live in but, in my world, solar panels cost money to buy, install and maintain. Payback period for most domestic installations is 5 or so years and maybe economies of scale might give supermarkets payback periods of 2 to 3 or 4 years. But the bottom line is that the supermarkets would need to find the large sums of money to pay for solar panels on the roofs of their leased buildings and this money either has to be borrowed at a cost or taken out of profits.

Every Australian family produces enough biological waste to power their domiciles.

And passed through two-tank Aerobic and anaerobic closed-cycle smell free digestor will produce enough methane gas to power their homes 24/7!

Replacing the stationary engine with a ceramic cell creates more than a 50% salable energy surplus. Byproducts include, sanitised high carbon soil improver reusable sanitized nutrient-loaded reusable irrigation water and endless, free, domestic hot water!

Yes, systems like this are pricy, but if funded by a government plan, could be paid off over time by a quarterly payment equal to the average power bill, and by the sale of the surplus energy into microgrids?

If this material is not treated as proposed it goes on to break down naturally and like compost or worm farms becomes a source of greenhouse gases.

And if the water used to flush it is not recycled, then it flows down to the sea as millions of annual litres of wasted irrigation water.

Other sources of CARBON FREE energy include nuclear. Where some of the nuclear waste product could be used in breeder reactors that allow as much as a total 5% of the potential energy locked up in nuclear waste to be liberated, or in MSR, as much as 98%?

Given sanity, rare common sense and pragmatism prevail, we will become the world's safest repository for stored nuclear waste and earn annual billons for providing the service!

But before we bury it? We should reprocess it through (walk away safe) MSR's To liberate the available energy in MSR by a further 98% of the unspent energy!

And provide all but free power for the nation for thousands of years as we reduce the half-life of this material from thousands of years to just 300!

And a worthy goal in its own right! As would be implementing and rolling out cooperative capitalism as the economic paradigms to run them!

But only if you want maximised productivity and efficiency, along with the most affordable production paradigm!
Alan B.

Bernie Masters,
Our big supermarket chains have no problem getting credit, and in the current economic climate practically all big businesses would jump at the chance to invest in something that pays for itself in as little as four years.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Yuyutsu,
Of course there's such a thing as renewable energy. It's renewed by nature (mostly the sun, though for some geothermal energy the source is radioactive decay). Nobody said the energy had to come from an unlimited source. Trying to redefine well used expressions gives pedants a bad name!

As for the second law of thermodynamics, we just don't know. It seems inconsistent with observations on a cosmic scale, though there's no theoretical reason for it to be.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

ttbn,
> It does. Unlike you, they have kept up with events.
That's one possible explanation. A highly unlikely one considering how illogical the claim appeared to be, but rather than dismissing it outright I tried a quick Google search and after that proved fruitless, I asked if you had a reference.

And of course you didn't. Instead I saw an extremely accurate criticism of yourself, misdirected at me.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Galen,
The reputability of a site does not depend on whether you agree with its conclusions. Do you have any objective criticism of it?
BTW it has a page which might help you understand that graph you linked to:
http://skepticalscience.com/co2-higher-in-past-intermediate.htm

But since you asked me for an explanation I'll provide one too:
Atmospheric CO2 is only one factor affecting climate. Others include albedo, vulcanism and solar strength.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

runner,
Unfortunately in the NT there was a huge procedural failure - they didn't know when to switch their power station on!

And you're wrong about nobody having thought of the disposal of solar panels. See http://reneweconomy.com.au/arena-targets-solar-panel-recycling-in-new-15m-funding-round-28956/

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Raycom,
Gas power from renewable sources (as Alan also suggested) certainly is renewable energy. But you're missing my main point: The objective of reaching 100% renewable energy is to remove the need to ever resort to using fossil fuels, not the ability to do so in an emergency.

I wish I was Hasbeen. sailing around the Pacific in a 40 foot yacht with a dozen handpicked virgins as crew.

Way to go, Hasbeen! Rockerfeller set the standard on how all men want to die.

Aiden,
The problem I am talking about is the mantra which includes the false narrative that more CO2 the higher the temperature. It is scientifically untrue. Notwithstanding all the other factors, we are in a natural climate warming phase, it has very little to do with anthropogenic impacts.

Galen,
>The problem I am talking about is the mantra which includes the false narrative
> that more CO2 the higher the temperature. It is scientifically untrue.
That depends what you mean. If you mean that CO2 is the only factor determining temperature, or that it will always override all other factors, then of course that's untrue. But scientists aren't so stupid that they can't account for other variables. And when they do, the narrative becomes true. More CO2 will always have a warming effect on climate.

>Notwithstanding all the other factors, we are in a natural climate warming phase,
> it has very little to do with anthropogenic impacts.
There is in a natural climate warming phase. I think you might have misread someone else on this board who said the sun was in a waning phase!