Most of the nonsense is not going to happen. 'By 2050' is a long way off. The current jerks won't be in power. Nobody knows what anything will be like on 27 years. Emissions are still increasing in most of the world, and so what! Nobody has come up with solid proof that CO2 has anything to do with climate. Consensus is not science.

I am forced to agree with most of this, Viv. Nuclear power as MSR thorium will allow prices as low as 3 cents PKWH.

Moreover, MSR technology can be used to burn donated, we are paid millions to take, nuclear waste where it is mostly 90-95% unspent fuel.

MSR operates at ambient air pressure and in an engineered, designed molten state, and cannot therefore melt down or explode! It is walk away safe! MSR thorium delivers everything fusion promised but is yet to deliver/ may never deliver. Even though they may have managed to boil a couple of kettles to date, via mind blowing energy inputs.

Furthermore, power that cheap make hydrogen production much, much cheaper than the fossil fuel options.

Every internal combustion engine can be tweaked to run on hydrogen or methane and the referred to green fuels, can power ceramic fuel cells, in electric drive vehicles. That can be refueled in mere minutes on the go making the issue of range, redundant. Methane can be made on farm via the fermentation of organic waste in purpose-built tanks.

Solar cells to give them their due can also be tasked with the production of hydrogen which can be stored and used on demand during the night or day. Endlessly sustainable hydrogen is the fuel of the future!
Alan B.

The poms, Germans, & even the French are thanking their lucky stars that they didn't blow up, or otherwise destroy some of their old coal fired power stations. Re firing those is all that is saving them from the immediate fate that Viv describes for our future.

Power companies can make more profit from subsidised windmills than proper coal fired power, so are anxious to get rid of coal. The Oz population will deserve what it gets if we allow them to destroy these facilities.

Replacing coal fired furnaces with nuclear ones could be done at existing plants and utilize existing transmission lines, Hasbeen. At today's prices nuclear is vastly cheaper than thermal coal and if done under Sovietized public ownership and control. Power for less than 6 cents PKWH could be reticulated to all households and business enterprise.

We could even restart local manufacture and industry via cooperative capitalism, i.e., co-ops. Which would mean the profits and all tax liability remains here, where one dollar does the work of seven due to the usual economic flow through.

And so very important and cannot be understated, during the worst financial crisis we've ever known. Sitting hands as the current mediocre (just don't do something, stand there) Talkathon government is doing is not an option!
Alan B.

Alan B,
I suppose you're aware of that already.

Scientists studying fusion energy at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California said they produced the first fusion reaction in a laboratory that created more energy than it took to start it. https://nyti.ms/3FrgNWl

Yeah, Indy. Enough power to boil 2-3 jugs as return on the energy output of 500 Hiroshima's.

Simply put, and today, MSR thorium delivers all that fusion promised but is yet to fully deliver, may never fully deliver. And at the temperature and pressure required a massive hydrogen fueled, world killing explosion if one operational fusion reactor lets go. And continue until all the atmospheric/oceanic hydrogen is spent. Resulting in a small, short-lived star. That is rent asunder and hurled to all the corners of the universe.

[Only God can create a tree or a star! And men need stop playing at God!]

Not possible with MSR thorium which operates at current ambient air pressure. And cannot melt down given it operates in a designed molten state. If for any reason the power fails, the thing shuts down automatically, is walkaway safe.

Whereas with a power failure, a fully successful fusion reaction is liberated to kill the planet. And that particular power failure only needs to last as long as it takes light to travel one inch.

Imagine we were at war with a nuclear armed rogue nation armed with hypersonic cruise missiles. And some nut job with a death wish, thought that a fusion facility, would be a desirable target.
Alan B

"MSR thorium which operates at current ambient air pressure. "

Actually MSR thorium doesn't operate at ANY air pressure. There is no such thing as an MSR thorium plant. None currently exist.

ttbn. I cannot remember the last time I read anyone stating the extreme heretical concept that CO2 has little or nothing to do with climate temperatures (above 320ppm concentrations). I have searched and searched for scientific evidence (data) that ‘proves’ a doubling of current CO2 concentrations results in anything other than statistical irrelevancies. However, the benefits to the biota are a doubling of concentrations are well observed and documented.
Alan b.
Whilst the money to be extracted from the current paradigm is so huge, little (if any) money will be directed to the type of research (thorium) you identify. Bjorn Lomberg has advocated that at least a ‘portion’ of money’s be directed to ‘alternative’, even ‘blue sky’ projects. As it is, with all media, politics, academe, international business and ignorant interest groups are all blindly ‘banging the same drum’, You, Lomberg, and a scattering of others will be subject to the treatment of previous historical ‘heretics’. Good luck.

There was many years ago at White Sands a thorium reactor running as an
experimental project. The US went the uranium way because of the need of weapons.
I am sure Alan can give more on that.
The Indians had a Thorium project I believe.

Anyway to repeat myself because some here now might not have heard me
repeat the electric car is a great idea but our STUPID politicians
do not understand that the present course they have us on cannot
support electric cars.
However there is no choice except perhaps steam cars.
It is no accident that the car manufacturers are all changing to electric.
They took notice of what the oil companies have been saying;
The cost of finding new oil fields and developing them has become so
expensive that is no longer worth it in the longer term.
To burn oil for transport is too costly and will get even more so.
It is too valuable for other purposes.
A symptom of that is the stopgap of fracking.
Royal Dutch Shell as it was known until recently has made the most
deliberate moves. It has converted some Shell stations in the UK to
charging stations with multiple fast chargers.
They announced that all Shell stations world wide will have chargers.
The car manufacturers have got the message. Ampol garages will all
have chargers installed starting in 2023.

The car manufacturer have got the message, but the STUPID politicians
are not reading the tea leaves.

As an aside if anyone is interested and know where to collect the data
it would be possible to convert the daily sale of petrol and diesel
to KW/Hrs of equivalent daily demand on the grid.
As most would be an overnight charge, including trucks it would tell
us how many wind turbines would be devoted to the charging load.
As most people in Australia have driveway access to their home not
so many would use servo chargers as it is cheaper at home off peak.
That's a point, how long will we still have off peak ?
Any takers ?

"There was many years ago at White Sands a thorium reactor running as an
experimental project. The US went the uranium way because of the need of weapons."

The experimental reactor was at Oak Ridge. It ran between 1965 and 1969. It never generated any usable power - that wasn't its purpose. It was merely a proof of concept.

The reason to not proceed had nothing to do with weaponry. Thorium reactors can also be used to make nuclear bomb fuel. The reason it was closed is that it was decided that it wasn't as efficient as uranium.

The costs of decommissioning the plant were horrendous and extremely dangerous and was considered "the most technically challenging activity [undertaken by] the U.S. Department of Energy".

Indian has been promising to build a pilot thorium plant for over a decade. Its generated plenty of government subsidies but no power. China is promising to build one in 2024 but not expecting to have a full plant until at least 2035 at best. They've also been making promises on this for close on a decade eg the pilot plant was originally promised for 2020.

If the technology was a simple as suggested, why all the delays? I'd suggest many fall for the hype without checking the science.

As to the electric car mantra, its good to see that the peak oil hype survives. We've been told for a century that we're going to run out of oil soon. Like all such predictions, they are always wrong.

Oil will never run out ! Where did you hear that it would ?
No, it is becoming too expensive to use as a transport fuel.
It is too valuable except for producing chemicals for a multitude of purposes.
The oil companies have been mumbling for some years.
Read Twilight in the Desert that will tell you how long the Arabs have
been worrying about it.

Anyway, the car makers got the message.

Our best hope to get back to a sensible energy system and as a result
a more resilient economy is for blackouts to start as soon as possible.
It may not start before April but the sooner it does there will be an
uproar and problems with factories closing.
If it is only a marginal problem they might convince the mob that it is
only for a year or two.
I suspect the government may run out of borrowing power and nothing
like 22,000 solar panels will be installed each day.
It will get so bad that the government will collapse and the
replacement government will have to resort to very unpleasant means
to raise the money.
We could easily mimic Lebanon. Notice how no one is rushing to bail them out.
To play "look at me" with the power system is very dangerous.
They REALLY ARE VERY STUPID !

Bazz, your last comment was almost as deluded as the article itself!

Apart from your obvious dodgy assumption about what a sensible energy system is, you're greatly underestimating the size and resilience of the Aussie economy.

Lebanon's government fixed its currency value against the US dollar. Their currency was worth what the government said it was, until the government run out of the resources to guarantee it at that rate. Compare that to Australia, where the government has long had a policy of only borrowing in the currency it prints, and the market sets the currency value. There's literally no chance we could emulate them.