Good to see Forrest around again.
King Hazza would be good if you did not put words in my mouth or thoughts I do not hold in print.
Little surprised you do not see the reason we are not as advanced as some with electric cars.
Time/Distance /costs forbid it yet.
See I get 1800 klm every week some times double that.
I could not do it in an electric car, it is hard enough to often to find LPG
Why in any case divert the thread.
We will go Nuclear, in my view it may well be Rudd who eats his words.
In the words of a going to be great young man, this country can meet its ETS target by just going Nuclear and sell uranium to others so they can too.
His words not mine, such action reduces not just our footprint but the worlds.

You think Garrett copped a reaming?. Imagine if there was a nuclear accident. All you people saying how much a of a great idea it all is will be first in the lynch mob.

I agree with StG.

The nuclear decision is one thing the Rudd Government has got right.

Kinda Hazza: "governments of other 'greening' countries are doing something useful and actually assisting in providing and investigating serious alternative power sources for consumers to offset any ETS some of them have or may not have forced on their public, Austrlia isn't doing jack."

You are dismissing the ETS because it doesn't directly tell anybody to do anything. At the same time you are praising countries that had electric cars and what not which you say they got because government's invested directly in them. Call it what you like, but it reeks of someone who has much more faith in centralised government than Adam Smith's invisible hand.

King Hazza: "Apparently, it's ok for government to interfere with our markets and pricing, but NOT ok for them to actually attempt to implement some infrastructure- or at least help someone else who is willing to do it."

Yep, that isn't a bad summary, but I'll add a few minor corrections.

Firstly, raising the price of competing products is helping someone willing to do it.

Secondly, the government actually controls a lot of infrastructure. Roads for example. Public transport is another. It is this way because we want roads and public transport, but haven't come up with a way to subject them to the disciplines of markets and competition. Without such disciplines, Adam Smith's invisible hand doesn't work. Obviously in such areas where government choose to invest makes a huge difference.

Sydney's transport system is a wonderful example. The NSW put all their money into road systems, and none into public transport like rail and buses. The net result is that people living in the cheaper suburbs are paying $6,000 in road tolls just to get to work, with no alternatives available. Add to that, that it is much easier to make trains and buses AGW and peak oil friendly, and you have a complete balls up.

However, you aren't referring to that are you King Hazza? You want the labour government to do something akin to building a electric car factory, market forces be dammed. Sorry, I think that is nuts.

Now we know for sure that there is no problem in burning coal, to produce our electricity, why are we even having this discussion? Do we still have some hang ups about CO2?

There is no requirement for nuclear in Oz, as we have the coal, the wealth of which is the only thing allowing our urbanised life style.

Rstuart, there are now quite a few studies showing that more fuel is consumed per passenger mile by public transport, than is consumed by private transport. This doesn't worry me at all, so long as we don't have the people of the bush subsidising city public servants transport. Charge the true cost of public transport, & that $6000 in tolls will look like a really good bargin.

Hasbeen: "Now we know for sure that there is no problem in burning coal, to produce our electricity, why are we even having this discussion? Do we still have some hang ups about CO2?"

That would be the royal "we" I presume. Obviously it can't be the inclusive "we" as there are people contributing here who don't agree. But yes your majesty, if you believe CO2 is not a problem this is a pointless discussion. And sorry, no, I don't know why you choose to join it if you considered it pointless. Maybe your real motivation was to was to discuss something else entirely, like whether AGW is real or not?

Hasbeen: "there are now quite a few studies showing that more fuel is consumed per passenger mile by public transport, than is consumed by private transport."

Please, if you are going to quote "studies", provide a link to what you are talking about. As far as I am aware those studies refer buses that are mostly empty. And as you say, it only covers fuel efficiency, not say capital costs that far outweigh the fuel. Well, it does for cars anyway. A new bus costs very roughly 10 times a new car, travels much further, and replaces a dammed sight more than 10 cars, and uses up less road space and less parking space.