A good and timely article, Frank. And never mind the rent-a-diatribe mob. I would sooner bet my mortgage on clever men and women solving the key problems of geo-sequestration in the next two decades than I would bet a single dollar on global warming being able to forestall the next ice age. The fact that they attack the messenger is the clearest evidence that they lack the traction to grasp the issue.

Perseus -

Is it your view that all this "changing our lifestyles to live sustainably" stuff is just nonsense, and technology will fix everything just like it always has, or is there something else?

- Eric Claus

No, Eric, changing lifestyles is not nonsense. But sending the whole economy on a prozac holiday certainly is nonsense, especially when a mix of market solutions and science is likely to solve many of the issues anyway. Those who can, should, and usually do, but those who can't simply write regulations and delude themselves that they have done their bit

Perseus -

Can you outline those market solutions and science solutions, or do you just have confidence that good men and women will come up with those solutions in plenty of time, or something else?

Who is recommending a prozac holiday for the economy?

Would the construction of one geosequestration facility on one coal fired power plant in Australia send the whole economy on a prozac holiday?

- Eric Claus

Some questions: 50% more energy generated by 2030? What innovations can we expect in energy conservation, given that systemic changes in urban planning must happen in that timeframe to accomodate the economic transition to post-oil economies. No doubt socio-political demands for equity and sustainablity will constrain the diversion of scarce petro-"subsidised" turnaround resources into centralised coal-burners which all must be decommissioned after a quarter century or so of mechanical design life. It seems intuitively obvious that the "turnaround costs" of powering urbanlife with a petroleum alternative, whether or not this is buffered by coal, gas or oil-shale contributions to the convenience liquid hydrocarbon fuels, would be less economically dislocating to the extent that such a transition is "subsidised" by cheap petroleum. There are strategic options given the time-scale and the likelihood of system-wide intelligent responses to the increasing risks of a non-renewable hydrocarbon economy. As for the "500 years", well! If this presumed "inevitable" geometric growth in thermo-electric energy generation stations continued for even a hundred years, surely the post-petroluem fueling of an increasingly energy-intensive coalfuel industry and power station construction, operation and decommissioning could absorb more social, economic and environmental costs than more sustainability (and equity?) minded voters would tolerate for long. For example, how much of the "coal" quoted for the 500 years is really low-carbon brown coal, requiring the strip-mining disruption of rural comunities and the agricultural base of Australia's precious top-soil rich lands as in the La Trobe Valley of Victoria?

Sure, Ericc. The decline in sales of SUV's in response to the rise in petrol prices is a very good example of a market based solution. The switch to smaller cars produces lower emissions.

The increase in the price of oil has greatly improved the potential profitability of hotrock technology and has obviously increased the urgency with which development will take place. Ditto for tidal, wind and solar power.

As the price of oil has gone up, the price of coal has also gone up, and these increases have also improved the viability of power co-generation of sugar cane waste with wood chips. From a greenhouse accounting perspective it makes no difference whether the wood came from forest thinning, harvesting or from dead trees from past clearing. If the wood has been removed from a growing forest then the forest will re-absorb the same volume of CO2 to make it emission neutral. If it has come from dead trees that were cleared in the past then that emission has already been measured at the time clearing took place. Or it should have been if the IPCC was even vaguely interested in a true record of events.