LEGO,
>Net zero means net zero.
That statement of the obvious gives me no indication whatsoever of what you think it actually means.
But your earlier comments suggest you haven't a clue.

Like many, its good to see someone in the Nats who stands by his constituents, his values and Australia. He should read the article by Essery on the same day. While Essery is focussed on the tainted Greater Sydney Water Strategy, he touches on Net Zero Emissions and its newly born (at COP 26) Net Zero Finance who want to bludgeon us with their threats of with-drawing investment from fossil fuel, while creaming off lucrative fees and brokerage returns for establishing a carbon credit/trading scheme.

Reading between the lines Essery seems to be tagging a new term to fight these wacky globalists at IPCC/COP26 by coining the phrase "Net Zero Discharge", applied to waste water. Unlike NSE, his NZD can provide a valuable resource, namely safe, secure drinkable and profitable potable recycled water. In addition, Essery suggests that NZD can reduce NZ Emissions when compared to the ever popular desalination plants which have extremely large NZEs. He also argues that NZD can also reduce our waste water dumping of pollution into our rivers and coastal waters!

Perhaps Matt should do the same and use generate positive uses for NET ZERO... what about NZ Agricultural Production, Net Zero Resources, Net Zero Climate Change.... Lets face it given the last two decades of the stalled temperature rising may have achieved a NET ZERO Temperature change in the next decade.

Remember as the IPCC/WMO has defined climate as a period of 3 decades, it would be fair to claim Net Zero Temperature rise/Climate Change is the 2001-2031 Net temperature change turns out to have been zero for 3 decades

Its about time we had more people like Matt in our State and Federal parliaments. Many we could have NZGSK... Net Zero Green Scams and Kults

A J. We can do SFA about what financiers and banks will back! They in their turn are answerable to their shareholders, not the rum sodden wishes of this or that, totally out of touch pollie?

Moreover, it never ever was about climate change or CO@ emissions! To coin a phrase it's the economy stupid. And that means one chooses the cheapest power supply and the most effective efficient means of reticulating it around the nation!

Coal cannot in its wildest dreams get power prices, even with ROM coal, down below 3 cents PKWH! Whereas, MSR thorium can get as low as 1 cent PKWH!

And no business model can compete with, private enterprise, free-market co-ops a the lowest costing private enterprise business model doing it.

Unless you factor in a few intelligently led shire councils, reticulating it at cost! Tamworth, Banana,e.g. Whose sale of Australian white goods in Shire owned operations made enough profit to completely support the model!

Co-ops were the only private enterprise, free-market business model that survived the Great Depression, largely intact! And for the stated reasons, above!

Not for nothing Howard and cohorts dismantled as many as they could along with the guaranteed floor price, when what was required, was root and branch, modernisation! TBC.
Alan B.

Alan, you are a bit of a dreamer with your MSR Thorium power plants. The same sort of nuclear technology that is used in the Submarines is what we need to get us out of trouble, but it takes some effective action by our gutless pollies to bring it about, Unfortunately, our coal and gas fired power stations will have all gone into bankruptcy before any of that can happen and before the end of this decade we will be having blackouts when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow.
David

If thorium reactors in a few Chinese subs is good enough for them, then I see no reason why we should prefer the costlier model in the proposed Nuclear sub deal? Except, it's all that's offered!

I get that very few Australians know SFA about thorium, the most energy-dense material on the planet! And four times more abundant than uranium.

Moreover, we have around 40% of the world's known reserves. And it's one of a few sources of miracle cancer cure, the alpha particle, bismuth 213!

And abandoned over fifty years ago due to the extreme to impossible difficulty, of weaponising it!

The reactors in the "our" subs still need to run at extremely high pressure and the fuel enriched uranium or as plutonium.

Thorium can be used after spending a couple of weeks in a reactor blanket as is and then in molten salt reactors operating at ambient atmospheric pressure! And given the reprocessing plant is very adjacent, able to power whatever, for 100 years without refuelling.

I mean one needs just 8 grams to power both house and car for 100 years. Given the cost of mining and refining to the metal is around $100.00 for 8 grams, that's just one dollar a year to power both house and car! And no other energy source can equal that!

Uranium 235 is as rare as platinum. And consequently about as expensive. Who posting here would counsel we'd burn platinum for our preferred power source other than the real DREAMERS or the abysmally ignorant posting here?

IT'S ECONOMY, STUPID. QUOTE UNQUOTE.
Alan B.

Alan,
I was one of the ignorant multitude about thorium, I went with the attitude that “…if it was any good we’d be using it” but your posts caused me to look further into it and it’s become blindingly apparent that if they’d gone ahead with research all those years ago we’d be enjoying cheap fuel today instead of being ripped off by the power companies.

The last thing that we want is nuclear reactors just like the ones that boil the water in undersea steam ships.