There seems to be a contradiction when Australia is held out as both a leader in rooftop solar and a laggard in renewables generally. The evidence at present is that we will not achieve 80+% renewable electricity this decade nor will we go prime time on green steel, green cement and 50% EV sales. Some ideas like hydrogen export are simply daft to the point you have to wonder if lunatics have taken over the asylum.

I suspect we will have different forms of energy rationing by 2030, politely described as 'demand management'. When coal is gone I wonder if big users like aluminium will depart Australian. No problem just send the coal and alumina to China and the emissions will go on their books, along with jobs and profits. It would be great if two or three models of SMR went on sale by 2030 but the signs aren't there yet.

The “passion” they have is more about ripping us off financially and controlling our lives through fear and scarcity (of electricity).

Disagree, it's not renewables per se. but large project money making contracts/the profit curve.

If it was/were building and running SMRs or MSE thorium, the queue to participate could be larger and longer. Given the 61% and rising, Australian approval rate.

If councils and various conglomerates and or co-ops were invited to buy and operate, walk away safe, Chinese MSR thorium or MSR nuclear waste burning projects. We'd have to issue numbers and operate a first come, first served, queue.

Available at fully imported prices we never ever could possibly replicate as, Australian made. The Chinese have perfected walk away safe, MSR thorium and have hung the, for sale sign out!
Alan B.

It shouldn't be too long now before this furphy ends !

Nuclear waste is mostly harmless low rad uranium with a few nasty transgenics included. the latter able to be separated and used to kick start MSR thorium/ and or irradiate all manner of sealed/cryovaced fresh food staples.

Some of the sealing would need to be rigid or long-term store/shelf life. Eggs, bread, butter, bread, soft cake and what have you, fish, fowl, meat, veges, fruit, nuts, flour, etc., etc.

The author states:

" Every component exists for generating the huge quantities of clean electricity needed. Photovoltaic solar energy converters, huge wind turbines, hydroelectric dams for storage or generation, electrochemical batteries – these favoured elements of the transition are all known and are elegant examples of modern science and technology."

And: "This is an enormous technological challenge, too often trivialised by common misunderstandings of success rates in turning novel laboratory ideas into full scale commercial industrial processes."

The author was worked for CSIRO. This organisation is on the right-wing politicians hit list.

The right-wing politicians will do anything in their power to interfere with these "elegant examples of modern science and technology."

Battery or pumped hydro backed renewables will cost the energy consumer an arm and a leg. Whereas, carbon free, clean walk away safe MSR thorium will cost 3 cents PKWH or less. No renewable option is able to get below 6 cents PKWH. MSR thorium good for 100 years. renewables need to be replaced every 25 years. adding exponentially to the cost of domestic energy!
Alan B.

It's great to hear people speaking out against this insanity promoted but psychopathic con artists. All the catastrophist garbage used to sway kids and false claims like our energy problems being the fault of "expensive and unreliable" fossil fuel energy. The crisis in Victoria is a small taste of the calamity that would be faced without dispatchable power sources.

The mass of figures going around in my brain leaves me wondering how
many bureaucrats and politicians have any idea of the implications.
We can see how far out the governments plans are from reality.
Try and get an answer to how many of the 22,000 a day solar panels
have been installed to date. ditto for wind turbines.
139 years seems much more realistic to me.

However note the oil industry is planning how to close it all down !
In the wind so far;
Shell has sold its retail business in the UK and Germany.
Shell is making some arrangements for Ampol to take over.
Watch that space.

I have heard reports of the blackout being because the clapped out
coal fired power station could not cope.
All that such statements reveal is that person saying that have
net zero electrical knowledge.
The power station appears to have done exactly what its design required.
A dead short probably between all phases and to ground as well would
have required the isolating breakers to operate within a few milliseconds.
Whatever other transmission lines were also connected is irrelevant.
Just shed them all.
I did read that the trains stopped also. For how long ?
How many lifts called in on the emergency phones ?
Were people stuck in lifts for hours or days ? Are some still there ?
Must be a story there.
As a one time lift mechanic I would like to hear.
I am horrified to think that in a city hundreds of lifts would have
come to a stop between floors with 10 or 15 people in each at knockoff time.

Saw this earlier on the Net

A Lithium leach field is what your electric car batteries are made of. It is so neuro-toxic that a bird landing on this stuff dies in minutes. Take a guess what is does to your nervous system ?
Pat yourself on the back for saving the environment.

Don't forget that France built one and a half times it's power supply in fifteen years from the mid 1970s whilst the ideological clowns have a sixty-eight year plan to leave Australia destitute. Maybe there are good reasons why living organisms rely on hydrocarbons for energy storage?

Hello Indy, looks like the EV industry might change to Sodium batteries.
The new Ora will be supplied with Sodium batteries.

With all the funds wasted on these alternative experiments we could already have a fully functioning nuclear system in place, fewer wars & pollution due to more resources available for real education.
Every Nation needs to work on out-breeding its insipid & focus fully on common sense. Put the useless & interfering social experts to work on menial tasks so they can work off their Woke mentality quicker !