OLO can be very informative at times, but as usual, when it comes "clean" energy or renewable energy the information content seems to evaporate. Facts are obviously not verified, sweeping statements are made and shining, isolated examples of failure are quoted as exemplars of why clean energy is never going to "work".

I am not going list the chapter and verse as to why it does present the way forward - anyone who wants the information can go and find it. But my main reason for making this comment is that one correspondent is maintaining that roof top solar waters are gravity fed and do not work well.

Let me describe one. Mains pressure, built to Australian Standards, highly efficient black chrome absorber panel coating (NOT brazed copper tubing), frost proofing if nec. Uses gas boosting as required.
Where I live in the south, the "on" time of a booster is less than 30%.

If you did not know it, the basic research was done in Australia in the 1960s and from then on, several firms refined their products and QC became a number 1 priority

A report was released today claiming that Australia could replace all
it's power generation needs (inc base load power) with renewable energy
sources by 2020. On the ABC morning news program this morning

This report also claims that twice the jobs that now exist in our existing
fossil fuel burning methods of generating power will be created in the same time.

The report also quantifies the cost to the consumer of this transition from fossil
fuels to renewable sources as $8 a week per household.

I think my local privatised electricity supplier has increased their profit margin by
more than that in recent years.

If this report stacks up then it's time for all the skeptics and conservatives to
move aside, because it is possible that progress can be made in our country
regarding our environment and the sustainability of our future.

Thinker2;
read the article you mention. The plan if I remember correctly was
to erect 30 large solar power stations in various parts of the
country. Part of the plan is to use melted salt for use at night.
They did not explain how they would use the salt heat.
I guess to generate steam for turbines at night.
There would be lots of energy loss in the various steps at night so
in the daytime the energy captured from the sunlight would have to be
many times the power generated for daytime use.

The loss of output on cloudy days would still have to supply the
daytime load plus the multiple output needed for the night time supply.
A major part of the project is a built up grid covering almost the
whole country. This would help out with cloudy days as other parts
of the grid would be in full sunlight.

However there is catch in this as the Germans found out.
The wind did stop at the same time over the whole of Northern Europe !
There is no guarentee that a significant number ofhe 30 stations
will not be in cloud for the whole day.

The article was published on the Australian Oil Drum.
I cannot access the url from here at present.

Thinker2

Here is the URL.

http://anz.theoildrum.com/

Is our addiction to jobs that bad?

If so, we can hire thugs to break people's legs, then hire surgeons to put those legs back together.

OTOH, if we are willing to stay home and face those inner monsters that are lurking in the dark to catch us un-busy, then we can save energy by not spending all those hours daily, driving to work bumper-to-bumper.

Thanks Bazz , I've checked your link.

Would be great if it was possible to be powered by renewables by 2020
Would work even better, as a goal.

One can hope.