The only to bring down energy costs is to create a surplus of energy and the only way to
create a surplus of energy is through nuclear power generation.
Its common sense.
But the our leader have got little of that.

Yeah, well, I don't know it looks like another version of the same old song.
One thing though Finkle does not understand company law or he would
never had advocated a three year notice of closing a coal fired power station.
A power station under this proposed regime is having its market being
cut away from under it, bit by bit.
It will reach a stage where the accountant will say,
"err we will be trading while insolvent from tomorrow/next week/nextmonth we must close the station immediately.

Foxy, watching Q&A tonight I do not think there will be a lot of change
but by the time it gets through the parliament it may be workable.
It is of course a solution looking for a problem.
There seems to be an enormous amount of trust put into batteries.
There is hope that everyone will connect batteries up to their solar.
I do not think that the people there had any idea what they were suggesting.

The cost of batteries will make our present bills look like petty cash.
It would be fine for someone like myself to get involved but with the
sort of voltages that float around these systems even when switched off
it would mean a few hundred thousand electricians doing the maintenance.
That is an overhead that no one is taking into account.
Also no one seems to understand that if you are to take into account
a series of overcast low wind days you need to install equipment
to generate and store the number of days plus 1 of the equipment for one day.
Another complication is that we are building high energy high rise
unit blocks as fast as we can none of which can be fitted with solar
panels for the units.
I would not put panels even on balconies, the risk of something
breaking and killing someone 20 floors below is too high.

The whole system should be removed from political control and passed
over to the engineers.

Dear Bazz,

I watched Q&A last night and listened very closely
to all the comments. What impressed me was the
civility of the debate between the panel members
and the fact that it seemed to be a very well
balanced panel representing a good mix of people.
It gave me some hope that if they can truly leave
politics out of solving our energy problems and
come together on finding the solutions things
just may work out in the long term for the country.

I didn't quite understand how a company could give
3 years notice of intent to close. If it did that and staff
began to leave looking for jobs elsewhere how would
the company function in the interim?

Also the problem of the jobless La Trobe Valley workers
was not answered. Where are they supposed to go?

could not believe how dumbed down we have become watching Q&A last night. Poor Josh selling his sane mind for the sake of Turnbull. Hopefully the rational ones in the Liberal party will have the integrity to expose this anti coal garbage. To think that the Chinese and Indians pay to be educated at our unis. They are laughing all the way to the bank as they watch the gullible and foolish think they can manipulate the temperature around the world.

On Q & A Alan Finkel referred in the vaguest way, as did Amanda McKenzie from the Climate Council, to energy storage.

Finkel believes future renewable generators should be required to package storage into their offerings, as if that will ever make them fully reliable, but doesn't go on with how they would then compete without enormous taxpayer subsidy. The cost of renewable power to the community goes way beyond the meters of consumers.

McKenzie harped on about renewable generation being cheaper than coal (especially with taxpayer subsidies/RET), but neglected to mention that was only when the sun shines or the wind blows. With a wafty wave she claimed the storage solutions are here, but she hasn't thought much about the scale of these.

There was reference to biomass, pumped hydro and overblown expectations over home batteries, energy mixes, and incentivizing folk to use power off peak, carbon capture, etc., but absolutely no recognition of the massive scale, expense, or practicalities.

Finkel is leading us towards gas replacing coal in "The Transition" (the sexy term so beloved of the renewablistas) which is where the whole thing gets stuck. Thereafter, everything rides on the wing and a prayer of viable storage, with a "she'll be right" and a wink of the eye.

For Finkel to say he left out the nuclear option because of community concern when he could have, at the very least, encouraged a sensible debate over it indicates he is not up to being Australia's chief-scientist.