Why are you guys even going on about this?
You make it sound like the Rudd government introduced the ETS in a sincere attempt to tackle global warming, and definitely not a bit a posturing to score points to the lobbyists while having a new excuse to boost taxes.

Shadow Minister and others have not taken into account two rather
important things.
Peak Coal will occur around 2025 for the world.
Peak Oil has occurred and the cost of fuel for ships will go that
high that the cost of shipping coal to China, India and Japan will be
more than the customer will pay and indeed need.
Unless of course, greenies permitting, they build coal fired steamships.

Therefore we will have a lot more coal than is being put into the
calculations of the government and others.
They have got themselves into this bind because peak oil is a non-subject.

We may not need nuclear power for a considerable time if we are not
exporting coal.
However at some time in the future the lights will go out and the
public will want a nuclear power station next morning.

Shadow Minister: "China and India are of CANDU type format"

No, not in China. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China#Major_nuclear_power_plants_under_construction

They are a mixture of AP-1000's and CPR-1000's. AP-1000 is Gen III, CPR-1000 is Gen II (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressurized_water_reactor ).

Yes, some are in India. But if you look at the planned new reactors, all are conventional PWR designs. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_India

This is hardly surprising, given the CANDU is very expensive design.

With respect to it being cheaper to build plants in India and China. It may be so, I could not find anything convincing one way of the other. But it probably isn't relevant to Australia, as our costs are likely to higher than the US is anything, given we have no expertise in the area.

This is an interesting table:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_VyTCyizqrHs/SkVXM9-1qQI/AAAAAAAAELc/CGg-1b2uivs/s1600-h/Levelized_Cost_Table_for_Electric_Generating_Technologies-EIA.png

I have no idea how accurate it is, except it does have the right feel to it. For example, the 400% price of Solar Photo Voltaics versus conventional power is about right. You will be happy to see it says wind is 40% more expensive than nuclear. The downside for nuclear is the capital risk is much higher, and while wind generation prices are still declining whereas nuclear power plant prices have been on a trend upwards. Anyway, it wasn't wind I wanted to draw your attention to. Geothermal can do base load. Look at its line.

Kinga Hazza: "Why are you guys even going on about this?"

People go on and on about AGW. But AGW is a minor side issue compared to energy and population. I don't think it is possible to discuss energy topics "too much".

As for the ETS being an excuse to introduce a new tax - swallowed Abbott's posturing on the issue hook, line and sinker, have you? Pity. Whatever Rudd's reasons for introducing the ETS, wanting to introduce a new tax wasn't one of them. I am sure if there was some way to do something about AGW without imposing an impost on the voters, he would leap at it.

Rstuart,

Sorry, I misread. China has only 2 CANDU reactors whereas India has many more.

Whether they are used as primary reactors or as "trash" spent fuel reactors, they are more expensive to build. Their main advantage is that they can burn very low enriched uranium or other fissile material. (which is why Canada and India are very interested)

However, given the very low cost of uranium presently the cost of capital in building a power station far outwieghs the cost of fuel and waste handling, and the APR 1000 (gen II+) or CPR 1000 is likely to dominate for the next half century.

The main reason the French reactors (based on a US design) were so cheap is that there was only a couple of reactor designs approved, and the plants were largely photo copies of each other, which avoided the repeated costs of one off design, review, testing (each with different state laws) etc that nearly doubles the costs and construction time in the USA.

Any sane Aus government would not choose to follow the US model, and I doubt that labour and construction cost deviate much from Europe. Probably not as cheap as France, but probably in the $4000/w range.

As far as geothermal is concerned, while the "hot rocks" technology is yet to provide a single commercially viable plant world wide, there is a little publicized achillies heel that has the potential to torpedo its use in Aus. That is the high level of water leakage into the rocks (about 10-15%) per cycle, which makes it several times more water hungry than any other power plant. Given the desert situation of the hot rocks sites this is a potential deal breaker.

As far as the ETS is concerned, my way to sell it to the public is not to tax and spend the same amount, but to use the revenue to replace say GST (which is another tax on everything)

If the man on the street gets an effective ETS for free, I personally would go for it. I also think that Abbott's plan is rubbish.

We will go Nuclear, and we will sell our uranium to more too.
Worth looking at the words of Paul Howe's on AWU web page.
Rudd seemingly fears the greens, and does not want to chase more ALP voters into their camp.
He must take them on, increasingly they are failing conservation movements.
King Hazza would do well to consider this, why is most of Europe and much of the world going for ETS?
And why are so very many countrys now using or planing to use Nuclear power.
Fact is Rudd may well be concerned, and should be, at decreasing demand for coal in the next few decades.
We know nuclear is coming to more of the world every year.

I think rstuart is missing some rather important angle to Australia's ETS vs the European version (Belly you might also be interested):

Simply compare the amount of access and promotion of alternate power sources and fully-electric vehicles in, say, Sweden vs here.
You might find the difference is substantial attempts to promote these sources of energy and convert to them- with even the car-recharge infrastructure ALREADY INSTALLED, with the other country (ours) doing close to bugger all to actually implement the alternatives the public are SUPPOSED to be converting to as being the justification of increasing the cost of dirty fuels.

In other words, one country actually raising the cost of dirty fuels and also implementing the alternatives for the consumers to switch to, the other simply raising costs and actually doing little else.
You do realize that all of northern Europe are actively converting their power sources to green energy, both on the governent and domestic consumer market level?
Yet- where exactly is Australia in Solar Power generation compared to other countries- particularly ones that don't get half the sunshine we do?

And don't forget the rather generous compensation to the coal industry, for um, what?

And don't try to paint some 'Liberal propaganda' garbage on me- as I never read a Liberal member's speech as it would also avoid the important points, and if they were in government- would have done the same thing.
It may be hard to try to actually analyze a situation outside what TWO political parties have to say about it, but do try.
I don't think *I'M* the one who was caught "hook line and sinker" at all.

But if you think Australia is joining the world on cleaning up our energy industry- you're a LONG way off.