@Shadow Minister: No body believes that Germany has a snowball's chance in hell of building sufficient renewable generation to replace nuclear by 2022.

I'd have to agree. The country with precious little wind, solar or anything else or note. 10 years isn't long. It will be interesting to see how far they get.

@Shadow Minister: If Angela Merkel acts like a populist pinhead, and implements bad policy to cling to power, then she does not deserve respect. (the same goes for Juliar).

Indeed Shadow. But as usual this would carry a lot more weight if you saw fit to put our other notable populist in that list, Abbott.

By the way, you have been right on NBN pricing. I may have been mislead by the current NBN pricing from ISP's (recall in some cases it is identical to their current ADSL prices - even though it gives you faster access). An ISP rep who should know told me this was an artefact of something I didn't understand about the state of the NBN right now. He said Telstra charges for a naked ADSL link (ie no analogue phone) is significantly lower than what the NBN will charge.

It's a pity I don't believe you were right for any good reason. I don't think you had a clue what the pricing would be. You were just parroting the Liberal line, which under Abbott's leadership seems to be made up as he goes along. His benchmark for "truth" seem to be whether it will be enthusiastically swallowed by his side. But as you say, Julia isn't much better.

Wind farms in Germany for that matter anywhere in Europe has no comparison to Australia. The land mass of Australia is twenty two times the size of Germany. All of Germany is developed and populated whereas most of the land mass of our country is wind-swept and barren.
An ideal location for wind-farms. So I think that the Greens have got it right this time.

Ammonite,

"Then I expect you to put your hand up for building Australia's nuclear reactors in your backyard.

With the resultant waste buried in your front-yard."

Are you 12 years old?

Nuclear has 1/2 the rate of fatalities of any other generation, even wind or solar. Look it up.

When a plane crashes it is a disaster, just that it happens so seldom that it is still the safest way to travel.

Rstuart.

I appreciate your acknowledgement. While I admit that I am biased against labor, I take pains not to write anything that is baseless. Perhaps my loathing of Labor is from these pinhead populist policies that are patently against the public interest. Similarly, promising to overcompensate their voter base is akin to buying votes.

Abbott is the master of the short slogan, and while I don't agree with everything he does, his techniques have very effectively kept the spotlight on Labor's failures. While I preferred Turnbull's more professional style, Abbott is undoubtedly effective.

PEST, sooner or later you are going to have to deal with fact rather than fiction. You suggest that Germany’s 4.3% contribution from Hydro can be “quickly increased”. The UK’s Hydro systems can run at peak for 2.2 days before its water supply would be exhausted. Sweden keep theirs topped up by using wind electricity from Denmark to pump back into the catchment. It’s free electricity because Denmark can’t sell it.

So how do you propose dialing up Germany’s Hydro?

Lexi,

Stuart Young Consulting on behalf of the John Muir Trust entitled “Analysis of Wind Power Generation, November 2008 to March 2010” (Actual data from wind generators grid connections)

1. Average output from wind was 27.18% of metered capacity in 2009, 21.14% in 2010, and 24.08% between November 2008 and December 2010 inclusive.
2. There were 124 separate occasions from November 2008 till December 2010 when total generation from the wind farms metered by National Grid was less than 20MW. (Average capacity over the period was in excess of 1600MW).
3. The average frequency and duration of a low wind event of 20MW or less between November 2008 and December 2010 was once every 6.38 days for a period of 4.93 hours.
4. At each of the four highest peak demands of 2010 wind output was low being respectively 4.72%, 5.51%, 2.59% and 2.51% of capacity at peak demand.
Also, during the study period, wind generation was:
• Below 20% of capacity more than half the time.
• Below 10% of capacity over one third of the time.
• Below 2.5% capacity for the equivalent of one day in twelve.
• Below 1.25% capacity for the equivalent of just under one day a month.
The discovery that for one third of the time wind output was less than 10% of capacity, and often significantly less than 10%, was an unexpected result of the analysis.
Coal, $68 per Kw/h, Wind, $1,456 per Kw/h, Solar, $4,482 per Kw/h.

Tell us again about this wind farm dream of yours? Or will you just give us a fresh one?

Wow, spindoc. At those prices, the energy companies must be on the brink of bankruptcy. Assuming an average household electricity consumption of 16 kWh per day (an old statistic, I know), and assuming that electricity comes only from coal, we are spending on average $1088 a day on electricity. And that's just household use. Now my power bill is quite high, but not that high ...

@Otokonoko: Wow, spindoc. At those prices, the energy companies must be on the brink of bankruptcy.

Yeah, and he's posted those exact figures twice now ... http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12277#212006

He meant MW/hr, I think. Even so $4,482 per MW/hr for solar translates to $4.48 per KW/hr. And what, is he claiming people actually pay this?

If spindoc can find someone, anyone, who will pay me that sort of money, I'm gonna be a billionaire. I don't care if they even demand 90% availability - at that price I could inflate a billion shopping bags under the sea to store it. Or I could level the snowies to put in pumped storage. The mind boggles at what you could do with that amount of money.