If our tax dollars are to serve us and our security they need focus exclusively on those outcomes! Not supporting a bickering body of fiefdoms largely controlled by warlords with blood on their hands and drug/organized crime money in their compromised pockets and the power of veto in their power addicted hands!?

We need to get back to a manufacturing economy that makes all we need right here at home, along with a price structure the importers cannot match! And very doable with the right (cooperative capitalism) policies that support just that, not quisling money grubbing fools that'll sell their souls (or the country) for an allegorical forty pieces of silver!

We need government money to replace entirely counterproductive, foreign investment! And all the nonsense idealogical imperitives, that alone, prevent just that!
Alan B.

Australia should be learning from the Ukraine invasion the same thing that Germany has already learned: home grown energy means security. Germany, reliant on Russia for a good part of its energy needs, is now saying that it will have to retain fossil fuels and hang onto the nuclear generation it had foolishly decided to phase out.

Australia should belatedly realise that our energy security equals national security, too, and do away with its green energy policies and ignore its woke green capitalists.

If China and Russia do decide that this is the time to enlarge their empires, we will not stop them with Net Zero energy, wind power, battery-powered tanks, a biofuel navy, or submarines on the never-never.

The policies adopted under the guise of the target for net-zero emissions by 2050, now pursued by all major political parties, represent an existential threat to Australia’s national security in a rapidly changing world.

Australia has limited domestic production of oil, rapidly falling refining capacity and only three to four weeks supply of fuels like diesel, petrol, and avgas.

Australia should be learning from the Ukraine invasion the same thing that Germany has already learned:
ttbn,
Alas ! The past 40 years have not provided any evidence.

If we're stupid enough to hitch our energy policy to coal then our energy supplies would be the first to be attacked, if we went to war! And all they would need would be, underground fires we cannot put out Or failing that, the coal trains would be ruthlessly targeted!

Whereas, nuclear doesn't have the same problems, especially MSR thorium, given the everywhere abundance of alluvial thorium! A kid with a bucket and spade could collect enough from certain beaches to power this nation for the next 1,000 years!

We need to be freed from any energy reliance from any overseas source or local oil or gas, given just how vulnerable the supporting infrastructure would be to locally based fifth column. And there is one, to be sure!

If we're to have nuclear subs? then there needs to be a local nuclear industry and trained tech-heads able to service reactors, unless of course, we opt for coal-fired subs firing coal-fired missiles?

Of course I'm not serious but you get the point and the ridiculous reliance we have on coal and just to suit a few foreign investors, who would have a few stranded assets if we abandoned coal!?

The future is electric! And we need to be at the forefront of this future, not dragging our heels at the rear, brown nosing our way forward!?

We cannot wait on the government but need to vote with our feet and future vehicle purchases/replacements! Plus send a message to every coal-fired stalwart currently in government, by replacing them at the very first opportunity, with someone else!

We need to get real about self-reliant defense! And what we need to do to get that! And if that includes buying submarines/nuclear capacity off the shelf, now today? Then let's not pretend there's a homemade solution or option?
Alan B.

MSR Thorium,
Alan B,
Would such plants require similar size/area/cooling water as traditional nuclear power plants ?
Could MSR plants be built in numbers rather than size ? Chernobyl & Fukushima were massive plants hence the massive problems. Would smaller plants not be a safer option in case of emergency ?
Why not deploy decommissioned nuclear ships as bridging power plants until new MSR setups are operable ?
Just a thought !