The moderate view on all this is there will be a steady phasing out of the reliance on fossil fuels, Bazz commented on the report that "peak oil is well behind us", with the hope that this is wrong. Unfortunate the figures show that our ability to pull oil and coal out of the ground has peaked and will go future into decline.
I am realistic enough to say nuclear power will continue for some time to be an increasing component in the power generation mix. The contention from Joe that you should not produce componentry for renewable energy from fossil fuel produced energy, illogical. People like Foxy and I have legitimate concerns about the nuclear industry, and its safety record is not all that good, Joe assures that technology is winning through, on that score all will be well, not so sure. The proliferation of nuclear weapons as a by-product should not be discounted.
All in all, I think we are going to suffer some pain, as we adjust our energy production away from cheap fossil fuels, and towards a mix of renewable's and nuclear.

Dear Bazz and Paul,

Thanks for your insightful comments.

Who knows what the future will bring for
us. Hopefully, we'll get it right in the
end. I'm still grateful to be living in
this country then anywhere else in this
troubled world. Our science has always
been first-class and hopefully there won't
be too many cut-backs in that field.

Paul1405, yes peak conventional oil is well behind us.
The fill in, ie shale, is now just about in decline, certainly it is a
financial disaster.
I think the Finnish nuclear power station is a useful indicator for us.
It appears to have been a financial problem with delays and I have not
heard that it is operating yet.
To go nuclear we need to build a number of them, but it is difficult
to get the people trained, construction organised for just one so
much more difficult to build five all at the same time.
I suspect that time is the crucial parameter.
If we do not get moving then it will never happen, but it might
already be too late.
Perhaps thorium stations could be built quicker, but there is no
proven design.
In ten years time we will need to have decisions made and physical
construction well under way, if not, then give up now.

Correction, the Finns have a working station, but it is the next one
that has had such a lot of trouble.
Wikipedia has good info on it.
Starting from scratch as we would, do we have the time to make a smooth transition ?

Bazz, if you want people to be able to live off a veggie patch, you had better hope we still have plenty of fossil fuel. Without fossil fuel there is no, or at least stuff all, fertiliser. Without fertiliser you will need a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere than the starvation for flora percentage we currently have to grow anything.

I see Paul is indulging in greenie wishful thinking again. We have at least a hundred years of coal available, & over a hundred years, probably a couple of hundred years of shale oil, & a damn great pool under the southern reef. Don't kid yourself mate that all but the extreme ratbag fringe of your greenie mates will still want to protect the reef when their lights go out, or the car can't run.

I can't believe so many can still see CO2 as dangerous. For millennia the planet has been locking up the CO2 it had in so many ways. If it had gone much lower flora would have been in real trouble. No flora & the planet becomes a lifeless ball whizzing around the universe, like so many others.

Rather than reducing CO2 from fossil fuels, if we do run out of them, we are going to have to find some way of converting some of that locked up in stone, back to gas, to give the flora a chance of supporting.

Do try to open your eyes folks.

Foxy sweetie, you are obviously looking a bit further for your information, than the lefty sites you have previously preferred.

I suggest you try
JoNova,
Watts Up With That,
NoTricksZone.com,
Catallaxy Files,
TallBloke's Talkshop,
& see where they lead you, hopefully not up a blind alley.

You'll find some of this stuff can be a bit deep in math, particularly TallBloke, & some of it can give my slowing brain a bit of a head ache at times, but most of them are at least sometimes worth the effort.

Like any other site, don't take any of it as gospel, but I believe they are mostly honest.

Do hope you are continuing well, & getting better all the time. Give your mother a kiss for me.