And what happens to the 10,12,11 & 40MW plants at sundown or when it rains (which is at least 50% of the year from my experience of Germany)?

Solar proponents are like 5 year old kids in superman costumes who REALLY think they can fly.

We need nuclear power as a bridge over PeakOil. Nuclear Power is essential for this already overpopulated nation if we are not to sytematically start killing each other within two decades or when gas becomes around 10$/litre.

Sex kills people not Nuclear power!

And Remember ... If its not PBR ... its not ON!

.
public servant :
someone not involved in primary or secondary production ,
who ,with politicians live in a mutual parasitic symbiosis on the extraction of wealth from the above mentioned productors

On Germany
http://www.solarbuzz.com/FastFactsGermany.htm
968 Megawatts of photo voltaic cells installed

German domestic energy sources in 1998 were: Coal: 46%, Nuclear power: 31%, Natural Gas: 14%,
Renewable Energy: 6% and Oil: 3%. In consumption terms, though, oil accounted for 44%, or 2.8 million barrels per day.

Of the renewables, wind energy accounts for about 58%, Hydro power 30%, Biomass 12%,
and solar and other source for the balance.
( my note ...it's 58 +30+12 = 100% ..solar balance = 0% measured production, so much nominal production ,so little juice in the cables)
Under the new tariff structure introduced in 2004, the base level of compensation for ground-mounted systems can be up
to 45.7 euro cents/kWh. PV installations on buildings receive higher rates of up to 57.4 euro cents/kWh.
The Feed-in Law fixes tariffs for approved renewable energy projects for a 20-year period from the plant commissioning
and will apply incremental price cuts. Tariffs were initially set at
48.1 cents per kilowatt hour for solar energy,
8.6 cents per kWh for wind,
9.6 to 8.2 cents per kWh for biomass,
8.4 to 6.7 cents per kWh for geothermal and
7.2 to 6.3 cents per kWh for hydropower, waste and sewage gas.

The world's largest PV installation is in Germany, at Hemau in Bavaria. with a combined peak power output of 4 Megawatts.
Waldpolenz Solar Park is at the stage of project

.

continued

On Portugal

the Serpa plant has been finished in January 2007 , it doesn't have operational data as yet
it was build with money from the European Union ,also
from http://www.azobuild.com/news.asp?newsID=3344
The Serpa project relies on a preferential tariff mandated by the Portuguese government
......At today's ceremony, a 3.7 million euro (US $4.8 million) contract was signed for a grant to the project
under the Portuguese government's Economic Modernization Program.

In brief all those projects are subventionned political floozies who couldn't pay their way out of a paper bag !

as for cost from the Californian energy authority
http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/comparative_costs.html

solar cost is a guesstimate based on Stirling engines ,by far the least ridiculous way of producing solar electricity
further
http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/levelized_cost.html
that's the killer !
Pho-vo is three times more expensive still ,
or simply ,
Your 100$ electricity bill will rise to 2000$ with no guaranty you would have it in a winter morning

Even then ,those numbers are grossly optimistic , the making of photo cells is very energy intensive ,
they are build now with cheap fossil and nuclear energy .

read and think carefully about this ... it take more energy to make a photo cell that the photocell will produce usefully

the anti-nuclear arguments of cost and inefficiency are not really serious
France at 80% nuclear has the cheapest electricity in Europe and export it at a profit

. THERE IS NO CHEAP ALTERNATIVE POWER , IT'S A FANTASY

.

Randwick's a dag! 1998 statistics on Germany? Obsolete, my boy, obsolete!

KAEP, like a drunken sailor, lurches from one topic to another, failing to address any questions posed.

Salivating over the prospect of nuclear energy whilst lacking the lateral thinking of other posters, their obsession remains with this redundant technology which instills a barrier to the real question: How to eliminate greenhouse gases.

Whilst nuclear energy may reduce GHG from the operations of the coal industry, they have completely ignored the drastic emissions from other pollutant industries, or offered any urgently required solutions on how those emissions are to be reduced.

An example of only a few of the current annual organic and non-organic emissions from the National Pollutant Industry reveals:

COAL MINING AUSTRALIA:

CO = 24,000,000kgs, Chlorine = 8,400kgs,

Fluoride compounds = 130,000kgs, Formaldehye = 11,000kgs,

Oxides of Nitrogen = 42,000,000kgs,

Particulate Matter = 180,000,000, Sulfur dioxide = 1,900,000, Total

Volatile Organic Compounds = 4,500,000kgs, Xylenes = 4,800.

METAL ORE INDUSTRY AUSTRALIA:

CO = 51,000,000, Chlorine = 130,000,

Fluoride compounds = 2,500,000kgs, Formaldehyde = 140,000kgs,

Oxides of Nitrogen = 65,000,000, Particulate Matter = 190,000,000,

Sulfur dioxide = 250,000,000, VOC's = 4,600,000kgs, Xylenes = 42,000kgs.

MOTOR VEHICLES AUSTRALIA:

CO = 2,200,000,000kgs, Oxides of Nitrogen = 370,000,000kgs,

VOC's = 260,000,000kgs, Xylenes = 14,000,000kgs.

Therefore other environmentally-destructive industries' hazardous emissions will remain unsolved (particularly Uranium mining) whilst you debate your silly arguments on nuclear.

Release of carbon from fossil fuel burning = 4 - 5 gigatons/year

Release of carbon from soil organic matter from oxidation and soil erosion = 61 - 62 gigatons/year

Carbon emissions occur from mining, deforestation, tillage and other agricultural practices.

I would hazard a guess that if Mother Nature chose to inter elemental carbon into the earth's crust, she had not planned on feeding the greed of humans digging holes, delirious over the prospects of pillaging and plundering her waste repositories.

Furthermore, solar will eventually cover any wind-related shortfalls and wind power will be able to cover solar related shortfalls. I await the futuristic advent of a solar-wind hybrid to eliminate current problems for tomorrow's clean energy supplies.

Dear Dickie I must admit your arguments do seem plausable. But I have always campaigned for Nuclear Power within my own party and it has not been easy. Now that we are all convinced that Al Gore was right anyway this now is the fundamental argument that Nuclear Power is now inevitable. The scare mongererers do not scare me or my family. I would want a Nuclear Power Station at the bottom of my road if that is what it takes to not be addicted to oil. Lancelin would be a fine site and Bunbury would be perfect after all they are now proven safe. Radiation is all around us and it is acceptable this would be far better than breathing in smog fumes and contaminating our lungs. Three cheers for Peter Costello, Alexander Downer, Malcolm Turnbull in standing up and promoting Nuclear Power it is great that they are now taking this stand.

Reading a Julie Vickers’s message is worth time spent on exercising English in this topic.