Thanks, everyone, for your comments.

Foyle - my feelings too.

Taswegian - thanks for pointing out my misunderstanding of China's relative (un)importance in the list of customers for our coal: an interesting example of how easy it is to be mislead by mainstream media hype - I found the actual figures at the Australian Coal Association's website http://www.australiancoal.com.au/exports0607.htm . I disagree with your statement that Natural Gas is the only quickly constructible source of baseload power producing less CO2 - I think if current geothermal energy developers were to receive a fraction of the government largesse that the coal / nuclear industries have seen, we could have totally emission-free electricity in significant quantities within five years. (But yes, I have some shares in Geodynamics - because I believe it's the right way to go and they may produce a return eventually). As for nuclear, I recommend you read the recent article What Nuclear Renaissance, in The Nation, at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080512/parenti .

Bernie - I'm not jumping up and down, honest, and I'm not condemning CCS, either - just the government directing its scarce resources towards it while using it as a mantra to excuse its continued subsidies ("corporate welfare") to the coal industry, and WWF's support of that approach, because (as others have commented) the indications are that CCS is nothing but an expensive pipe-dream. The volumes of CO2 involved are simply huge, as gusi explained. Coal is better than any carbon sink we could invent - we should leave the stuff in the ground where it belongs, and use the genuinely sustainable sources of energy that we now know we can access, without further harming the world our kids and theirs will inherit from us.

Gusi, Jack and roama - my thanks.

Regards to all
Tony Troughton-Smith

I think I should (belatedly) point out here that there is no such thing as 'clean natural gas'. Burning a ton of gas will release roughly the same amount of CO2 as burning a ton of coal.

The advantages of gas over coal are that it has twice the energy density, ie burn a ton of gas and you get twice the energy as burning a ton of coal and it contains less contaminants (the stuff that causes acid rain).

From a CO2 point of view carbon sequestration is just as hard with gas as with coal.

Absolutely, gusi. Coal, and natural gas, can indeed be 100% totally clean, but only while they remain undisturbed where they are - safely buried underground.

Unfortunately one can't help feeling that the understanding of almost all politicians lags behind that of many ordinary citizens, in this respect and on other similarly crucial contemporary issues. I just heard the deputy leader of the UK Labour party, answering curly questions in the wake of her party's drubbing in the UK's local elections yesterday, say all the government can do is assure people that economic growth will continue: "We're driving you over a cliff, but don't worry - we'll keep our foot on the gas"! It's damned difficult staying positive when despair sometimes seems the only rational response :(

tt-s

It doesn't need to be all that hard.

If we put solar cells on every roof we won't need to build any new power stations for a while. In Perth peak power happens during heat waves when solar cells are most effective. The billion dollar state surplus projected for this year could provide a massive subsidy on roof units.

Why didn't that get suggested at the ideas summit.

In Holland hybrid cars are eligible for a 6k euro subsidy and there is a huge demand. Car dealers can't ship them in fast enough.

The mind boggles;
Going backwards; Hybrid cars are a nonsense.
In Europe those Dutchmen can buy diesel cars that use less fuel than
the hybrids that are available.
That illustrates how stupid politicians can be.

I think that if we had a corner on the solar cell market we would be
pushed to install systems faster than the demand is going up.
Also there are some supply difficulties with the required manufacturing
materials at the rate your suggestion would demand.

The next question is where are all the technically trained installation
and maintenance people coming from ? China perhaps ?
Has anyone else noticed how slow this site gets ?

China's demand on coal is increasing fast as they have arrived at peak
coal and all increased demand must be met by imports.

All makes me think that coal will be mined and burnt for a long time
yet. Solar thermal is the great hope and if better located hot rocks
could be found that would help a lot. Did you see the steam coming
out of the ground at the Innaminka site ?

Hi Bazz
When I came to stay in the UK for a while at the start of this year I bought a 2nd-hand Prius, and have to say I disagree with you on hybrids. I agree that the latest generation of efficient small diesels deliver similar economy, but there seems to be a slight trade-off on emissions. And after all, the Prius is 'old' technology now - a hybrid using the new diesel technology would presumably be a further significant improvement.

No-one is claiming hybrids are the ultimate answer to the transport problem - just a useful stop-gap measure. I get just shy of 50mpg (5.65lt/100km) driving absolutely normally with no attempt at economy. However, if I drive conscientiously *and* keep my top speed down to 50mph/80kph, this improves by over 20%, giving me at least 63mpg (4.48lt/100k) - this is my observed consumption doing a mix of highway and suburban driving (the Prius excels in really heavy rush-hour traffic as it turns itself off when stationary and crawls on electric power, but my figures don't include this kind of driving). I have to say I'm really pleased with the Prius - as you might expect with UK fuel prices now around AUD$2.32/lt, they're significantly more common here than in Aus.

You'll get no argument from me re: politicians, though. Their reluctance to bite the bullet and take the hard decisions will be our undoing.

I don't believe Innaminka's remoteness poses insurmountable problems for transmission to the grid, but it will be interesting to see if, for example, they find usable geothermal resources near Perth.

Regards

Tony