Partly agree, Ben. It's certainly true that Australia scarcely needed any more climate-change think tanks, leftish or rightish. Enough is enough. And now we have to put up with the climate preening of Pocock and the Teals.

But it is not true that TAI is "de-growth". Predictably, TAI is deliberately ignoring Australia's destructive and environmentally unsustainable mass immigration policy, and inviting us to "look over there" at United Nations net zero emissions. Just like our fake "Greens".

Thank you Steve S, that says it well!

Partly agree, Ben. It's certainly true that Australia scarcely needed any more climate-change think tanks, leftish or rightish. Enough is enough. And now we have to put up with the climate preening of Pocock and the Teals.

But it is not really true that TAI is "de-growth". What they are actually doing is deliberately ignoring Australia's destructive and environmentally unsustainable mass immigration policy, and inviting us to "look over there" at United Nations net zero emissions. Just like our fake "Greens".

It is climate change actually and addressing that is as simple as transitioning to carbon free energy as the best course of action. And the best source of carbon free energy is MSR thorium as being the cleanest, cheapest and the safest long-term base-load dispatchable power. With power prices as low as 1 cent PKWH. Nothing else comes close not coal or the green's renewables. We are not assisted by so-called think tanks with their own or hidden agendas or conflicts of interest, i.e., investments in renewables. And all made completely redundant by MSR thorium.

See LFTR in five minutes to understand why the above is fundamental and our only sane future that has a manufacturing industry as well!
Alan B.

LITHIUM REACTORS SUCK ALAN B.

Yep, if all of Europe is sh-t scared that a Uranium nuclear reactor with all its vulnerable technical safeguards, can be blown up by the Russians in Ukraine

then we may as well dot many Thorium nuclear reactor,s with all their equally vulnerable safeguards, around Australia.

Lets forget about the tried, tested, cheaper and safer option of harnessing the Sun's nuclear fusion energy by the simple method of combining solar cells with batteries.

Maverick. Lithium reactors? Clearly you haven't looked at LFTR (lithium, fluoride thorium reactor) nor have any concept of how safe they are.

A thorium reactor with lithium and fluoride (MSR) in a molten state inside said reactor cannot melt down given the contents are already molten and designed to function thus. And the sweet spot is around 700C.

Fluoride does not boil under 1400C! And as the material heats the material expands forcing the nuclei further apart and the reaction slows. As it cools the nuclei are drawn closer together thus increasing the neutron exchange and the reaction. A drain plug at the bottom has cool air blown over it and the salt solidifies in the drain plug.

So, if for any reason the power fails the blower stops blowing and the salt melts allowing the contents to drain safely into purpose-built tanks, where no reaction is possible! And means, these things can be left for months without human oversight.

Cost of power produced by MSR thorium can be as low as 1 cent PKWH! because they operate at ambient atmospheric pressure!

By comparison a conventional nuclear reactor needs a seven inches thick solid one-piece reactor vessel and a hugely expensive reinforced concrete containment building to contain the hydrogen oxygen explosion if these things crack.

Moreover, MSR burns nuclear waste which other folks pay us annual millions to take from them which in MSR is just unspent fuel, also burn weapons grade plutonium! With the half-life of nuclear waste reduced to just 300 years as the result! What battery dependent renewable does that or competes with the price!

Suggest you read a few textbooks before you open your tiny mind! "Genius"!
Alan B.

Solar voltaic need to be replaced every 25 years or so and batteries every 10 or sooner. while Recyling is possible, it requires so much energy that it's cheaper to buy new and just bury the above in landfill.

Even then the production of solar voltaic come with mountains of highly toxic waste, that have polluted our oceans to the point where wild fish come with enough toxic mercury to harm the cognitive ability of all. With a resulting lowering of the general IQ! Maverick?

MSR thorium has a useful life of as much as 100 years with the reactor vessel etc., being recycled as smelted metal, the graphite reuseable with some processing and the 5% final nuclear waste product being eminently suitable as long-life space batteries that burn up with reentry or add to the fuel of the sun.

The cheapest solar voltaic can do is a profit free 5 cents PKWH, add the usual profit and that's 15 cents PKWH And that is with huge broad scale acres of ground covered with panels! Adding battery backup at least triples that cost and makes manufacture, processing or value adding of anything here impossible on simple economic grounds! I mean, we had to subsidizes car manufacture here when coal-fired power was available at 3 cents PKWH!

At 45 cents PKWH we'd be back to lighting our homes with candles! And nobody would be able to cool or heat their homes or even run the fridge or electric cooker!

Only the most ignorant simpletons would back battery backed solar voltaic. Except as home owned systems that don't come with energy suppliers profit margins! And nowhere does that solve the endemic pollution of our oceans and wild fish stocks!

Even then any commercial Enterprise/venture would need something far less expensive and that cannot be fossil fueled! End of story! Only carbon -free nuclear fits that bill and that needs to be MSR thorium given the probs uranium comes with, the least of which is the 90+% nuclear waste product!
Alan B.

had a good old laugh

"TAI is supposedly overseen by trained economists, lawyers and journalists"

All three groups are now thought of as bigger Liars than used car sales people and Insurance floggers.

Sorry Alan B.

THORIUM Reactors suck Alan B.

You, over simplify in repeating a Thorium reactor's possible advantages. Your idea of dotting little Thorium Reactors all over Australia forgets intentional terrorist intervention that could come by way of blackmail and an inside job, towards a DIRTY BOMB. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_bomb

Each of your little reactors would need intensive and expensive armed security protection.

I won't go into further specifics except to say
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power#Disadvantages

Some experts note possible specific disadvantages of thorium nuclear power include:

- Breeding in a thermal neutron spectrum is slow and requires extensive reprocessing. The feasibility of reprocessing is still unverifed.[33]

- Significant and expensive testing, analysis and licensing work is first required, requiring business and government support. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists suggested that it would "require too great an investment and provide no clear payoff", and that "from the utilities' point of view, the only legitimate driver capable of motivating pursuit of thorium is economics".

- Fabrication and reprocessing is higher cost than using traditional solid fuel rods.

- Thorium, when irradiated for use in reactors, makes uranium-232, which emits gamma rays. This irradiation process may be altered slightly by removing protactinium-233. The decay of the protactinium-233 would then create uranium-233 in lieu of uranium-232 for use in nuclear weapons.

= Making Thorium into a dual purpose potential Nuclear Weapons fuel.