Whilst overall I aggree with Mr. Hooker's assessment concerning Australia's need to insure against changing energy patterns and any possible negative effect in relation to lifestyles, including health and employment, I do wish knowledgable people would drop this silly notion that hydrogen will play a substantial role in saving us. It's been demonstrated on many occasions on OLO and on many reputable scientific sites that hydrogen, whilst a lovely warm dream of energy security for many, is simply too impracticle to implement either now or in the near future. I won't re-bore you with reasons as to why hydrogen won't make any difference to our waning energy needs. I noted with interest yesterday that John Howard was on TV saying that he believes the nuclear energy debate is slowly swinging around to that of acceptance, but I very much doubt it's the Australian people who are shifting their opinion, more like big business is once again at the head of the push for nuclear energy and bully boy Howard will do their bidding whilst big business will win and the Australian public will lose. Mr. Hooker is right in saying that a shift from coal to nuclear will cost jobs. It's one of the reasons Howard once mentioned against an electric car industry....nothing to wear out, no need of people to repair things = higher unemployment and yet he's attempting to do the same with nuclear. Imagine how many production steps are missing in a nuclear energy system? Still, it will give Howard extreme pleasure in strolling through the great unwashed masses, whipping their bare backs whilst stripping them of unemployment benifits and all the while telling them to "get a job!"

I was surprised that Mr Hooker was lauding hydrogen. It has been
generally accepted for some time now that the costs of setting up to
distribute hydrogen plus the poor EROEI rules it out for widespread
transport fuel.
Until an efficient method of storing enormous amounts of energy can be
be engineered we are stuck with coal and nuclear as the base load options.
My understanding is that under Kyoto the country that digs up the coal
gets the CO2 debit and the country that burns it gets off scot free.
That really is weird, no wonder Howard didn't want a bar of it.
The government should set up a commission of power engineers with some
scientific backing to study the problem and come up in a years time with a
proposed path to energy sustainability.
Do we burn more coal in our power stations than we export ?

For transport fuels, there is not much choice for other than electric
cars. I went to the electric car ralley put on by an electric vehicle
club in Sydney. While the number of cars was small it has become
practical financially to have an electric car as the second car and
when fuel gets expensive have only the electric car for local
transport and use public transport for long distance travel.
The vast majority of commuter car travel should be on public transport
although probably well over half could use the electric car for the
daily commute to work. At about $1 a day charging cost who would
want to buy petrol ?

Wildcat,
You of course are completely correct, we have the technology, which is safe and proven, solar, wind turbines etc. Denmark harnesses 20% of their power from wind turbines, however with nuclear we can continue to mine, make the big players big bucks. There are none so blind as those who will not see.

Shonga;
To paraphrase; Please explain;
How do you produce the required power on a calm, overcast day, to say
nothing of a still night ?
Answer that question in the affirmative and the world will beat a path
to your doorstep !

Including the original author, it seems to me that Bazz is the only one still in the tree. We certainly need to spend a lot more money on developing clean coal technology, but we need to start now to build nuclear power stations which we know will work, as well as spending much more developing biofuels such as diesel and alcohol. All the above are much cheaper than the various solar and wind schemes which unfortunately cannot supply the base load requirements when there is neither wind or sun. Another area which probably has potential to supply base load power, is geothermal power. It gets mighty hot down there, so it should be possible to transfer the heat back up to the surface via pipes of molten sodium or something similar to produce electricity on demand in almost any location. Finally, we should also increase the amount of hydro-electricity that we generate. Even if we were to do nothing else with the water, the relatively small impact that even a relatively large dam would have on the river environment would be a small price to pay for the cheap power.

“a public national capacity to systematically evaluate potential technologies, including their wider societal impacts, together with the level of Australia’s technological capacity appropriate to each, and propose share-able national projects.”

That is an interesting turn of phrase.

It is a long way of suggesting “An academic talk fest”

I was talking to a colleague who was invited to Canberra for some academic soiree.
Of the 20 “renowned pillars of academia” only three said anything, most were there for the free feed and day out. My colleague, being a dynamic individual said his bit but was disheartened by what he saw, a bunch of bludgers sucking on the public teat, adding nothing except paper credentials to their burgeoning and illustrious academic status.

We could, alternatively, use the stock exchange to float proposal which investors could get behind, as in “putting money where mouth is” and those same entrepreneurial soles be blessed, or otherwise, with the fruits of their risk..

These proposals having being subjected to the usual “environmental impact tests” to appease those who think you can do anything with “wilderness”.

Australia has billions of dollars being tied up in superfunds. These funds are desperate for suitable investments in which to invest for future security.

We have the resources, we have the mechanisms to organize. We simply need the innovators. Universities were supposed to develop the thinking minds of the brightest. It seems to me they are crawling into the same foggy category of institution as a sheltered workshop if the best they can propose is another talkfest.

Some things are too important to be left to governments and academics.

Oh and the best thing is, if we leave the investing to the professionals, we as, tax payers do not get shafted with another bucket of dross as we have been served in the past.
I recall, of course, the Caine/Kirner / Victorian Government dabble into marginal lending with TriContinental = 3 billion dollars down the tubes and of course the "fire sale" of the State Bank of Victoria to try to cover some of the cash deficit