Whether humans cause global warming or not, world is going to have to adapt as indicated by the approach that insurance companies will take with regard to not insuring new areas of risk.

that we can all agree on.

Hasbeen: Coal (@ 3 cents PKWH [not here]) is cheaper than, wait for it, Genius, CONVENTIONAL NUCLEAR POWER! As is gas. ( 5 cents PKWH, [not here])

A conventional 350 MW, light water reactor will need 2551 tons of fuel, over 30 years. And that even before it goes through the expensive enrichment/ceramic pelletising, is as rare as platinum.

And produce as much as 2550 tons of nuclear waste.

Of course, ROM coal is going to be cheaper than that? If you exclude the cost of not decarbonising our economy as a global community! The trillion it could cost today? Would be four trillion twenty years from now! And that's just here!

MSR thorium as a FUJI 359 MW rejigged for fluoride salt, not sodium, will require just a single ton of thorium over 30 years, and extrapolating from Oak Ridge's consumption, of four times more abundant Thorium from which it will produce around 1% as waste. Waste which still has an end-use as long life space batteries.

Thorium needs only to be smelted as the metal MSR expands as it acquires more heat via the reaction, thereby automatically slowing the reaction and cooling. Whereupon the nuclei draw closer speeding the reaction/heat production. without any human intervention or observation.

And given the boiling point of fluoride is 1400C. And the hottest MSR is 1200C, it does not need to operate at any pressure other than the ambient! Shuts itself down automatically with loss of power for any reason! Hence the walkaway safety!

We know this from the notes of Alvin Weinberg, the inventor and patent holder of the first CONVENTIONAL NUCLEAR REACTOR. who got it immediately when he was asked to head up the experimental MSR thorium at Oak Ridge, which ran between the 50s and the70s, without accident or incident!

Yes, I know as soon as one of these carbon-free power sources is up and running coal however cheap, will be priced out of the market!

As for the jobs? The mining robots they're replacing people with can be deployed elsewhere!
Alan B.

Alan if it can be actually proved that CO2 has any effect on the planet temperature, & does not actually cool the planet in higher concentrations, I believe that we will shortly be burning the low grade non economic seams of coal, in situ underground top increase the percentage in the atmosphere.

There is absolutely no reason to destroy the best form of civilisation yet devised to "decarbonise" the planet.

It's about time the troglobites looked at the facts and through eyes that see the better safety record and huge economic advantageous o MSR thorium and burning nuclear waste as a paid-for in annual billions, service, where nuclear waste simply becomes unspent fuel that will keep the lights of for as long as planet earth remains habitable. And for the world's safest repository, us, for virtually free!

Burning itas fuel or MSR's until the still available energy potential is completely depleted, will reduce the half-life to just 300 years and a worthy goal in its own right!

On one other point, a well known recalcitrant has suggested, if we produced enough coal dust and pollution in the atmosphere we'd coo the planet? At least I thought that was his/her rationale?

However, given the likely death toll from that insanity? I think we'd achieve a similar outcome, via a shorter-lived, nuclear winter and a lower death toll?

Radioactive ground can be cleaned up and reclaimed for agriculture with a few crops of robotically sown and harvested hemp!
Alan B.

Energy exports and the hydrogen economy?

Firstly, given absolute control and my druthers! I could double the kilojoules of hydrogen production via electrolysis for the same energy input! And under my patent!

[Tick, tick, tick, time is of the essence!. You've wasted far too much of it already on patently puerile, political points scoring, and I don't grow any younger!]

Albeit, to be economic and compete freely on the world market that energy source has to be nuclear waste burning, MSR technology!

From which given a sizable domestic surplus, we could export to anywhere there was a market as carbon-free power vis undersea graphene cored cables.

Graphene is both a superconductor and the strongest material on the planet! Reportedly, 200 times stronger than steel.

Money earned in annual billions for becoming the world's safest repository for its nuclear waste would pay for all the above and more. And the income from the energy sales would do no harm to our energy export-oriented economy. Where we would be the price-makers, indefinitely

Neither would liquified hydrogen that cost less by far than petrol! But only if Australian nuclear waste burning MSR's are the energy generation source! Nothing else comes close or is doable! And a massive export income earner for a long a is possible to foresee

(MONEY HAS NEVER BEEN CHEAPER, NOR MORE AVAILABLE!)

It's a once-only one-time chance and that window grows smaller daily as virtually useless politicians blameshift and endless, eternally prevaricate and to the point where the hot air coming out of Canberra, if harnessed in hot air turbines? Would alone, power the entire nation!?
Alan B.

Chris Lewis, Just to clarify, as it appears you are not yet aware of the facts Surrounding GW.
To put it simply, the planet has been cycling from hot to cold since it was formed.
It's temperature cycles run in hundreds of years.
Right now we are in a heating cycle, which it has been for many years.
It happens too slow to be noticed.
So when the planet heats up the oceans give off CO2, when it cools down it takes it back.
There's been a couple of know-nothing know-all idiots who won't accept the science, and like the science, of rain, it too like CO2 comes from a warming body of water.
So you see Chris, FIRST you get the heating/warming, THEN you get the release of CO2.
Not the other way round.
That was the jist of the "big con"!
What these bastards did was take a truth and attach a lie to it so as to make it more frightening, in doing so they can much easier push their "trust me" lie.
So don't be taken in by the sheeple, who are always looking for the next tragedy to worship and follow.