Bazz I think you will find the CSRIO are hopelessly compromised with the Global Warming Climate Change nonsense. They are cheer leaders for it and we can rely on them to falsify the whole shebang because they get more money. There is never any risk in telling lies when you are a public servant.
Evidence, the UK chief scientist who opined that UK has to go to diesel cars because less pollution. Peer review? Probably charged for it and trousered the funds for himself! When the car companies admitted they had falsified figures and it was a huge mistake Chief Scientist claims he just copied and pasted what they said and it was "Their" fault. Kept his pension and his knighthood, the filthy fraud!

JBowyer,
The CSIRO told the truth on climate change, and it resulted in a large cut to their funding because it wasn't what denialists like Abbott wanted to hear!

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Bazz,
When the running cost is taken into account, wind and solar are now cheaper than coal and nuclear, however much you claim otherwise. What you don't seem to understand is that much of the transmission infrastructure already exists, and most of the upgrades to the grid would need to be made anyway regardless of the source of the power.

Only up to a point Aiden.
A 100% system will require wind & solar farms spread all over the
country and the grid taken to areas where it has never existed.
I saw some figures on transmission loss that I found hard to believe
but if so it could rule out any such grid. The article did not say if
such losses applied to mega volt systems.
It might mean that line voltages about 5 million volt might be needed.

Aidan we can agree to differ on the CSRIO and time prove one of us right or half right.
No word from you on the Chief UK scientist? Lying, cheating fraudster?

JBowyer,
Your claim about the money was baseless, and the facts showed the exact opposite. Time has already proven you wrong, so suggesting we agree to differ is intellectually dishonest.

As for the UK's chief scientist, obviously he made a bad call. I'm pretty sure he wasn't the only one to do so, as the chief scientists's opinion doesn't automatically become government policy!

But that's not evidence of corruption. Nobody stood to gain much from it – the car companies would have sold their products regardless.

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Bazz,

5MV systems would, with current technology, create more problems than they solve, as leakage to ground would be a lot higher. Transmission losses are generally not a problem despite the wild claims that some people make about them.

You seem to be under the impression that we need to put solar and wind farms far from the grid then spend a lot of money extending the grid to them. But in reality that wasn't the case in the past and it won't be the case in the future. There are plenty of available sites near where the grid already is, and plenty more where it's being extended for other reasons.

Aiden I am not letting you get away with that. The Chief Scientist was guilty of fraud and has "Got away" with it. A clear indication of the basic dishonesty in our institutions with all the kick backs, subsidies and jobs for their mates.
One quick reminder here! The price of electricity continues to go up and up! The real world is building coal plants because they do not need the empty posturing we so love in Australia but do need economic electricity. We also have the most expensive and erratic electricity which will be exposed when we drop more coal power stations. Then the brown stuff will hit the oscillating blades, big time!
Renewables, ha! Success has many fathers but failiure always dies an orphan.
Wilson Tuckey offered up a scheme (Provided by Alsthom) where power would be generated by tides in NT and the electricity sent by DC (Little loss over big distances) to the Southern States. They thought loss of power was significant and I think Alsthom would know.