Bazz, are you against new industry, more jobs and skills training, reduction in energy costs for households and business, reduction in high carrying detrimental power lines. No power failures when you supplement the system with small wind generators.

Sure it would be a major task but we have all the resources and materials to do it. The new solar cube technology and massive advance in ceramic fuel cells, vanadium bromide redox flow batteries, that have tens of thousands of charge cycles and available in the next two years. They would be available now but the federal government only give token grants for alternative energy, whilst it give hundreds of millions to fossil and nuclear fuel companies.

Presently we have gel batteries available which last more than 25 years, considerable time to establish better technology. If you add small biodiesel powered generators (24v) as backup to supply business. You would create more small business and add other forms of cropping for farmers, that only require low input costs.

Training to install these low voltage systems would be easy,

Whats stopping changes is the ignorance and closed minds of many people who constantly repeat the unsustainable rhetoric put out by the political slaves of the corporate monopolies.

What makes me laugh is people knock renewable energy, yet have no experience or useful knowledge about it. I can assure you it works wonderfully well, it not only makes you independent, but gives you security against losing your ability to function as a business or household. It would also allow a very quick recovery time for natural disaster, as power would be still available to most premises via their own systems.

There are many time when inclement weather knocks out power in the area. Our premises continues without interruption, unlike others who have to close, losing custom and their frozen goods.

Grid connected solar power does not have battries. The excess power generated through out the day is returned to the grid so that businesses etc can withdraw it. At night the household draws it's
power back from the grid.. This is what is needed on a large scale. Also all houses and businesses should have water tanks.

The generation requirement is set by peak hour demand.
The problem with unreliable renewable resources is that they are not reliable and hence cannot be depended on to meet peak hour demand.
Wind and solar power can charge the "hydro" battery up to about 10%-15% but beyond that all such renewables must be backed up by some generating source which has an on and off switch and control knob.

Or they must store power in some form on site.

Fact is we are going to require all forms of available energy be it renewable or nuclear.

If we have to compromise on the side of nuclear why isn't Thorium being promoted over uranium?

It is a safer option and doesn't pose the risk of providing materials for weapons.

Please check out the following:

"Thorium oxide, which is three times more abundant than uranium, is also a radioactive material.

But senior research scientist Dr Hashemi-Nezhad, from Sydney University, says it is safe to hold in your hand.

"This is the future of the energy in the world - energy without green, without greenhouse gas production," he said.

Dr Hashemi-Nezhad says thorium has all of the benefits of uranium as a nuclear fuel but none of the drawbacks. "

read on at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200604/s1616391.htm

No single energy source should be favoured other the others.

Howard is once again limiting options with his 'nuclear debate'. I really have to wonder why. The only conclusion I can reach is his affliation with business interests in uranium and of course, Bush.

We need an energy debate, not a nuclear debate.

We may need an "energy debate". but in a world of specialisation we should not be surprised if nuclear engineers focus on nuclear power and wind turbine engineers focus on wind energy and tidal power experts focus on the tides.

The only 'generalist' debate can come from the economists and others who understand pricing and the design of markets within a sector in which it is so easy to create pseudo markets.

And plenty of people are promoting the thorium technology just as many are promoting fusion technology. The reason why we hear most about current uranium fission is that it in operation and provides a huge percentage of the world's energy. It has been tried and tested. Pebble bed is another option.

There are also problems in chasing "dual solutions". Present fission technology requires large units running at near capacity to be economic. If you develop an energy economy half dependent on windmills and half on nuclear fission then you run the risk of both being business disasters. If the windmills are allowed to survive then you have to subsidise the reactors. If the reactors run full tilt you have to subisidise the windmills.
These are real choices which must be made.

It's like rail vs buses. Those US cities which have invested in both rail and buses have seen the overall market share of public transport decline because the inefficient trains are propped up by draining the bus systems. The "balanced" approach proves to be unbalanced.

Thorium - "safe to hold in your hand" - maybe.
That did not stop the locals at Byron Bay from getting excited some years back when they found that they had been living, vacationing, relaxing among radioactivity resulting from the concentrated dregs of beach-sand mining.
Rutile, Ilmenite, Zircon, and Monazite are common beach-sand minerals. Of these, Monazite is a variable source of radioactive Thorium: some Monazite is hot, some is not. Travencore, India, has a resource renowned for being rich in Thorium (up to 14%) - no wonder the Indians are investigating nuclear reactors based upon it.
The Boys from Brazil could very likely get in on that act, having plenty of such beach-sands at about 5%.
Australia has great wallops of beach sands - Queensland, NSW, WA, and the venerable Murray River. These have been mined to provide enormous quantities of the economically useful Titanium-bearing minerals Rutile and Ilmenite. Monazite was a waste-product, as Byron Bay denizens found out.
Thorium-chasing could re-start the communtty aggravation which was associated with the "regeneration to better-than-original" of mined beaches.
The fixes for the energy needs of ever-increasing populations are irritatingly complex.