***
The most astonishing thing about Alan Finkel’s report on Australia’s electricity market calamity, is that the only stand-alone, CO2 emissions free generation source – nuclear power – barely rates a mention and gets dismissed as if it were some far fetched technology used by aliens.
Finkel, a climate alarmist if ever there was one, is yet to catch on to the fact that if you are among those who claim that CO2 gas is killing the planet then – to have any hope of being taken seriously – you also need to be among those pushing for a nuclear powered future.
As at April 2017 there were 449 nuclear reactors operating in 30 countries around the world, 15 countries are currently building another 60 reactors and their combined output accounts for over 11% of global electricity production – compared with total global output from wind which, to the nearest decimal point, is zero. And all without so much as a hiccup.
One of those who could never be challenged about a lack of zealotry when it comes to spreading fear and panic about climate change (previously known as global warming) is James Hansen.
However, the former NASA scientist and father of global warming alarmism, has at least one foot planted firmly on terra firma when it comes to understanding the pointless futility of attempting to rely on sunshine and breezes for CO2 free power.
After Trump’s Withdrawal from Paris, Nukes Are More Crucial Than Ever: Solar and wind cannot replace fossil fuels, making nuclear power an essential part of the fight against climate change
Scientific American
James Hansen and Michael Shellenberger
6 June 2017
In the wake of President Donald Trump’s announcement that he was withdrawing the United States from the international climate agreement, governors from over a dozen states immediately announced they would take climate action on their own.
There is much that governors and state legislators can do, but study after study finds that keeping existing nuclear plants—our largest and most reliable source of clean energy—operating is one of the most important and cost-effective ways to prevent carbon emissions from increasing.
Over the last three years five nuclear plants were closed prematurely in states including Vermont and California and were replaced almost entirely with natural gas, which increased emissions.
Now, half or more of all American nuclear plants are at risk of being closed prematurely over the next decade and a half, according to research by Bloomberg New Energy Finance and Environmental Progress.
The main reason is that the fracking revolution has delivered a surplus of cheap natural gas. That’s delivered cheaper electricity and lower emissions when it replaces coal plants. But it’s also made nuclear plants, particularly smaller ones in states that deregulated wholesale electricity markets, uncompetitive.
But another reason for nuclear’s woes is that it is excluded from most state and federal subsidies for clean energy, which is why solar and wind have boomed during a time of low natural gas prices.
A recent study by the nonpartisan federal Congressional Budget Office found that renewables received 114 times more than nuclear per unit electricity in 2016, and similarly high amounts since 2005.
And over 30 states, including those whose governors criticized Trump, have clean energy mandates that exclude nuclear.
Even today’s fracking revolution is a product of federal subsidies. Between 1978 and 2007, the federal government invested $24 billion on fossil energy research that led to the fracking revolution—including $10 billion in tax credit subsidy for “unconventional” oil and gas drilling.
Nuclear received funding for research and development in the 1950s, but solar, wind and fossil fuels received similar amounts in the decades since.
While solar and wind have expanded significantly in recent years, they still provide only six percent of total electricity compared to nuclear’s 20 percent, and they do so unreliably.
And where solar and wind only provide 10 to 30 percent of their rated power during the year, depending on location, nuclear reliably provides electricity day and night, rain or shine, for over 90 percent of the year.
Making matters worse, perverse incentives created by subsidies for wind have forced nuclear plants in states like Illinois to pay penalties for producing electricity at times when the grid is at risk of being overloaded by huge surges of electricity from wind, often in the middle of the night when it’s not needed.
And while batteries have become cheaper, they are still too scarce and expensive to back up solar and wind farms. Just to store 10 percent of the electricity created during the day by one of the largest solar farms in the world, Topaz, in California, would require 62,000 Tesla’s 6.4kWh Powerwall batteries. Tesla’s first quarter sales in 2016 totaled 2,500.
What that means is that solar and wind cannot replace fossil fuels and, worse, risk locking-in natural gas, which is needed to quickly replace lost solar and wind generation when the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining.
Over the long-term, Congress should implement a tax on carbon emissions, and return the money to ratepayers. Such an approach would create a strong incentive and level playing field for all forms of clean energy. And it would give all Americans, even ones skeptical of climate change, reason to support aggressive action.
In the meantime, governors who are outspoken advocates for climate action must act to protect nuclear plants which, once closed, cannot be started back up.
Last year, the two of us and dozens of other scholars and scientists urged the legislatures and governors of Illinois and New York to recognize nuclear plants for their environmental benefits. Both states eventually did so, and at a lower cost per unit of electricity than the subsidies given to wind and solar.
Now, it’s time for other states including California, Ohio, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey—whose governors have criticized President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement—to follow, and match their strong words with even stronger action.
Scientific American
***
Hansen’s assertions about subsidies for non-conventional gas extraction in the US, overlook the fact that it was the shale gas revolution that led to the biggest reduction in CO2 emissions in the American electricity generation sector, and also kickstarted the American economy after the sub-prime mortgage disaster and 2008 GFC.
And $34 billion (if indeed that represents the true figure) is peanuts compared to the total costs of subsidies thrown at wind and solar power in the US (see our post here), not to mention the $billions squandered on Elon Musk’s batteries and overpriced electric go-karts.
But Hansen’s attack on intermittent wind and solar is as sound as his advocacy for nuclear power. It’s just a pity he wasn’t on the Finkel review panel, which was, instead, packed with former wind industry rent-seekers, like Chloe Munro, who spent the last few years pushing wind power inside the tent, as the Clean Energy Regulator.
One of the arguments raised by anti-nuke, climate catastrophists in Australia is that nuclear power requires large volumes of water to operate.
That argument, if it could be called one, has been scotched with the latest modular reactors that either do not use water as a primary coolant (instead relying upon gas) or which do not use water at all. Such a system has obvious appeal in Australia’s outback, where our remaining miners and mineral processors need access to reliable and affordable power, but where water is almost always a scarce commodity.
Australia can play a big role in safer, cheap nuclear development
The Australian
Jessica Lovering
29 May 2017
A quiet revolution of innovators and entrepreneurs is working on the next generation of nuclear reactors, which won’t look like the gigantic light-water models of the 1970s and won’t be built by the same companies or in the same countries.
Advanced nuclear designs have the capability to be meltdown-proof, using a combination of coolants, fuels, and basic physics. Reactors that are intrinsically safe can also be radically cheaper, especially by making much smaller, modular reactors in factory settings.
Other energy generators, such as wind turbines and solar panels have fallen in price because they are mass-produced like cars or planes. Yet nuclear is still built as large, one-off infrastructure projects. For this reason, nuclear projects are famously over-budget and behind schedule, eventually costing billions of dollars and taking decades to complete.
Building modular reactors in factories makes a significant cost difference, but advanced reactors offer other benefits needed by modern energy markets. Most advanced nuclear designs don’t use water as primary coolant, and some don’t use any water, making them viable for power generation in arid or inland locations. China is now demonstrating a pair of high-temperature, modular, gas-cooled reactors.
Many of the companies making the fastest progress are small, nimble start-ups and university programs. More than 150 teams are working on advanced nuclear designs. NuScale Power has submitted a design licence for a 50MW small modular reactor in the US and plans its first project in the early 2020s — a 12-pack of modular reactors like a battery unit. Other designs range from lead-cooled fast reactors, high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, to a molten salt design.
Australia’s abundance of uranium, efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and diverse off-grid industries needing reliable power make it a perfect market for such reactors. But Canberra would first need to amend federal legislation to allow the construction of not just low-carbon nuclear plants, but fuel fabrication facilities, uranium enrichment plants, and reprocessing facilities.
It’s not just demand that will drive development and deployment of these new designs. Regional governments are also investing heavily in infrastructure that encourages and fosters such innovation. Rather than just export raw uranium to East Asia, Australia should invest in research and development across the fuel cycle and into novel fuel cycles and fuel reprocessing.
South Australia’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission concluded there was $6 billion in annual economic benefits from siting a global spent-fuel repository in the state. But those benefits could be greatly increased if the facility was also allowed and supported to conduct research and development on advanced fuels, fuel fabrication, and reprocessing. Many advanced reactor designs burn nuclear waste as fuel, so having a research and development facility alongside waste storage makes sense; it also increases employment at the site.
Australia is well-placed to be a major player in this nuclear future, if it takes the time now to pivot on legacy policies and invest in innovation.
Jessica Lovering is director of energy at The Breakthrough Institute, a US environmental and energy think tank. She is visiting Australia to discuss nuclear innovation with energy policy experts, parliamentarians and government agencies.
The Australian
STOP THESE THINGS 
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.
Lets turn on the lights; https://stopthesethings.com/2017/06/20/politics-of-power-federal-coalition-government-turns-on-subsidised-renewables/
Can I just add 2 words to this debate.
Lucas Heights.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Flux_Australian_Reactor
I agree with some of the other comments here that STT should stick to critiquing the stupidity of renewables and leave the engineering to the experts. As I see it there is a number of problems that would stop Australia from ever having nuclear power stations. The biggest problem is that Australia hasn’t got a nuclear industry to call on for the future maintenance and the engineering needed to run nuclear reactors. After years of down sizing and concentrating on doing the “core” work in most companies Australia now has one of the lowest rates of workers in industrial manufacturing in the developed world last put at 10%. Japan won’t even invest in a country with less than 17% of it’s work force working in industrial production and with Australian industry shrinking every year the future looks very very bleak indeed. This is what happens when you let lawyers and other half wits without any knowledge run a country.
STT taps into the combined experience of numerous engineers, including those who designed and ran the Eastern Grid.
So we’re fairly happy with our position on nuclear power; a source that has been the mainstay of French generation for over 60 years, providing more than 70% of its power demand today. We will hazard a guess that engineers designed, built and operate France’s 58 reactors and we’ll go out on a limb here and suggest that the other 29 countries with 390 reactors between them all used engineers to get there.
Because there are no reactors here now is no argument about building them in future. On your argument Australians wouldn’t have electricity at all; Victoria’s SEC bought in German machines and brought in German engineers to build the Latrobe Valley fleet (there were no engineers here who knew the first thing about burning brown coal or building the plant to build it). And John Monash, an engineer, oversaw it. As OIC of the AIF he sent officers into the Rhineland after the Armistice to inspect the German’s brown coal generators with a view to recreating the technology when he returned.
You might have heard of air travel and mobile workforces? If we wanted to we could enlist any number of French/German/Japanese/American engineers to build and run a fleet of reactors here. In the process we could readily have them train local undergraduates and have graduates work alongside them. Building a knowledge base locally, just as occurred with power generation using brown coal.
STT will keep advocating for nuclear power in Australia because it is tried and tested; we have the world’s largest reserves; we can set up as a reprocessor/waste handler and actually profit from the cycle while producing cheap and reliable power into the bargain. Don’t take our word for it, ask a nuclear engineer.
Dear “Stop these things”,
I most emphatically disagree with your characterisation of CO2.
Consider avian faeces, or horse dung. In moderate quantities, where it can be used, that stuff is “fertiliser”. Too much of it, more than can be used, is _*shit*_.
Genuine scientists like Hansen can show that any molecule which intercepts low energy infrared radiation on its way out, and shares that energy with its neighbours, upsets the delicate balance of incoming radiation energy = outgoing radiation energy. It is well established that both carbon dioxide and carbon tetrahydride (CO2 and CH4) do this. The latter is also called methane, and once upon a time there was a remarkably small amount of it that retained enough heat to keep the ocean surface liquid. When it was oxidised to an equal amount of CO2, and twice as much H2O, most ocean surfaces, perhaps all, froze. Nevertheless, it’s about 300 ppm of it that ran the world for ten millennia or more before the Industrial Revolution.
Now we definitely have too much, by at least 100 ppm, and going up.
That Has To Stop.
Which molecules? The ones you produce when you breath out or those that emanate from volcanoes/bogs/decaying trees? Can we tell them apart? Who will stop the volcanoes, bogs etc?
“Genuine scientists like Hansen…”
Heh!
You’re joking, right?
Anybody who, like Hansen, including this writer believes that the “renewables” of the eco-zealots are hopelessly inadequate, expects to convince the eco-zealots. It is their thinking followers, and thinking bystanders, that we hope to persuade.
Likewise I do not suppose that anybody with a financial reason for denying human-caused Global Warming will be persuaded that burning fossil carbon and the oxygen we breathe, has Got To Stop. I imagine that even Al Gore knows that.
There are aspects of our jointly acknowledged problem that are more menacing than the blindness and stubbornness of ecologists and that is the remarkable and continuing success of “divide and rule” scenarios. One such scenario kept the twentieth century wrapped up in pro- and anti-Communism. Its successors are in full application today on many fronts.
It does absolutely nothing to subvert “divide-and-rule” when people who characterize as fraud the hypothesis that CO2 emissions are prime driver of global warming try, through hesitancy about confronting “the rabid-Green Left”, to conduct oppositional policy (to wind turbines, to the “Clean Energy Target”) on the basis of the assumptions of the other side.
Quote: “Our position, which involves neither doublethink, nor trickiness is to challenge eco-zealots about their ‘belief’ (their term) in CAGW by pointing out that if they are seriously concerned about CO2 emissions in the electricity sector, then every one of them should be seen to be promoting nuclear energy. That they do not demonstrates that they are not primarily concerned with CO2 emissions.”
This is no way to “challenge eco-zealots”. The way to win is to hit the opponent where he is weak, not where he is strong. And opposition to nuclear fission for generating electricity is one of the points on which Greens are strong, on financial grounds (non viability without subsidies), on environmental grounds (Chernobyl, Fukushima). There is no need for me to recite their argumentation, which is familiar enough.
One of the places where they are weak, and weaker now because of Trump, is their reading of climate change. Not that they are on the wrong side of the climate debate. The climate change debate, both sides of it, is -, and always has been – a “divide and rule game”. To quote the young British researcher Dylan Jones: “Both the proponents of Anthropogenic Global warming and skeptics are funded and controlled in their upper echelons by the same source. Both sides are kept in perpetual conflict and ignorance of this inconvenient truth. Big Oil and the Climate Mafia are one and the same. When they call each other liars they are just being honest.” (http://enouranois.eu/?page_id=1338 )
I agree with Jackie Rovensky when she says that STT should “keep doing what you are doing. You are a voice at least coming out of the wilderness.”
One of the things that STT is doing is facilitating constructive debate. That is what this posting is intended to be part of.
We disagree with your take on the economics of nuclear. Figures released last week in Australia show wind power with battery backup to allow full time dispatch would cost between $300-700 per MWh, including the REC subsidy to wind. Nuclear power can be delivered all, day every day (CO2 free) for much less than that. LCOE for modern plant is in the order of $70 per MWh:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx
We will not stop pressing for nuclear power. It is the ‘now’ in 30 countries operating 449 reactors with 60 more being built in 15 countries (countries with big and noisy green groups, eg France) and it will be the future in Australia.
If you are simply anti-nuke, that’s a matter for you. But as a Greek, it’s a bit rich for you to be lecturing Australians about economic prosperity. Australia is in trouble, but we won’t be able to hold Germany to ransom to bail us out, as Greece did. If Australia continues on its present trajectory, we will cease hold any industrial businesses here and wipe out thousands of jobs in a few short years.
STT is not divided on the issue, we have pointed to a paradox which reveals faux environmentalists for hypocrites. Australia is an energy super power; harnessing nuclear power has the prospect of doing that again. Our aim is for all Australians to have reliable and affordable power and for energy hungry businesses employing 100s of thousands of Australians to stay in business. Nuclear power can satisfy those objectives and should satisfy climate alarmists, if they were not out to kill off industry and happy to sit back and watch the poorest and most vulnerable live without power. Power prices increased 20% year-on-year this week. There will be tens of thousands of households disconnected, unable to pay their bills. Our efforts are aimed at them and their wholly unnecessary suffering. Or do you think pandering to theories is more important?
I am not going to argue about nuclear power. I will leave that to the Greens, unfortunately, because it is not my preference to leave anything to them. On the subject of this blog they are definitely the other side and I want to see them discredited, effectively, not locked into bipolar conflict scenarios that give them credibility. Nor is there any point to embarking on discussion of the Greek economy. If Varoufakis’ “Adults in the Room” can’t dispel the media hype on that front, I don’t know what can. So let’s confine discussion to where we agree.
…overpriced electric go-karts
I can’t understand your dismissal of electric vehicles – they are surely the most feasible way of running road traffic on nuclear power (or coal power), since oil is not mentioned as one of your preferred energy sources.
Thanks for your comment, PhilH.
You are probably right about nuclear power being used to add power to the batteries of electric cars, but the economics of electric cars has never stacked up; subsidies are always required; recharging takes hours; and trip distances are limited. Fine for short daily commutes or trips to the shops but not for the type of driving most Australians engage in.
Even Californian rev heads think the Tesla is impractical:
http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/2015-tesla-model-s-p85d-ev-long-term-test-wrap-up
Elon Musk would not have built a single Tesla without $billions in taxpayer subsidies:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html
In Australia, the base model Tesla retails for $150,000, so we are happy with our charge of his vehicles being overpriced: a brand new Mazda 3 is less than $19,000 on the road. Tesla vehicles are beyond the reach of all but the most well-heeled vanity signaller.
And hardly the safest vehicle on the road.
We had a crack at $150,000 Teslas as overpriced go-karts, and still think that’s the case. An electric vehicle that was realistically priced, soundly built and designed for city commuting is a different story.
I understand Australia currently has only a poor range of EVs on the market, which I find odd as it seems to be one of the most urbanised of the major car-owning countries, and so there would be more than average potential market even for the current models with a relatively small range (eg, Nissan Leaf: 100mi/150km).
EVs typically have lower running & ‘fuel’ costs, so you need to look at the total cost of ownership, rather than be put off by the sticker prices.
Hopefully that will all improve as the prices fall with increasing production volumes and ranges increase.
As to Teslas bursting into flames, the Vauxhall Zafira presumably wasn’t sold in Australia:
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/vauxhall/zafira/93176/vauxhall-zafira-fires-manufacturer-showed-reckless-disregard-for-safety-say
Phil you say ‘Hopefully that [ie woeful range and exorbitant prices] will all improve as the prices fall with increasing production volumes and ranges increase.’
Wishful thinking isn’t economics and it won’t sell EVs. Deal with the facts at hand and base your argument on that, rather what might happen in future. EV peddlers have been using the same hopeful predictions for longer than the renewables rent-seekers have been using the same kind of ‘the technology is improving/costs are falling all the time’ ‘arguments’ (or rather propaganda/marketing) in relation to wind and solar. In both instances the problem is with the product: they are not true substitutes.
Phil, you mistake us for those who give a fig about EVs – we don’t. We put a throw away line in about Elon Musk as a ‘billionaire’ rent-seeker pandering to Hollywood virtue signallers with his expensive toys for millionaires.
Our focus is on killing off the subsidy soaked wind industry and getting to a point when all Australians can afford power once again, and back to an age when a blackout occurred only during thunderstorms and there were flashovers or lines down.
If you want to market EVs, that’s a matter for you. But we suggest you find a blog where the writers are interested in EVs.
Oh, and you might want to confront the issue of the need for subsidies to Nissan for its Leaf and Musk for his Teslas. If the products were really perfect substitutes for petrol/diesel powered vehicles then Australia would be awash with Leafs.
At $51,500 for a micro car (not suitable for beefy Aussie blokes and sheilas), the Leaf apparently didn’t jump off the shelves. Probably because the identically sized and appointed, and very fuel efficient Nissan Micra sells for $13,000 on the road. You can buy a lot of petrol for $38,500 and the Micra doesn’t use much.
In January this year Nissan withdrew the Leaf in Australia and it doesn’t appear to have plans of offering it in future: http://www.nissan.com.au/Leaf
“Thank you for expressing interest in the Nissan LEAF. Unfortunately the Nissan LEAF is currently not available for sale in Australia. Nissan continues to advance technologies that will be integrated into future electric vehicles, stay tuned for future local announcements in this space.”
In Australia, the cost of recharging your Leaf just increased 20% and retail power prices will continue to rise at double digit rates for the next decade. So you might also want to recalculate the ‘fuel’ cost if you are arguing that it’s cheap to run EVs. It might be now, but it won’t be for long.
We hope you can find a blog that is interested in your arguments for EVs. STT isn’t.
I can put enough fuel in my Mercedes to cover over 500 miles in abut two minutes.
Batteries will never approach that.
There are 2 problems with nuclear in Australia. Apart from it costing more than double coal fired.
1. The Greens will be hysterical and start scares to prevent it.
2. What technology should we adopt? There are at least 6 new processes being trialled which avoid the problem of usage for weapons. Wait 5-10 years (or even 40-50) and then make a choice.
Graeme No. 3, the only problem with ‘nuclear in Australia’ is that it is not ‘in Australia’.
The Greens are hysterical now, so nothing will change there. At least it will draw their fire from coal and gas for a while (they have short attention spans). The noisiest from GetUp and the like would be lucky to fill one of Julia Gillard’s BER school halls, and can be safely ignored as a minor irritant.
The best time to plant a tree was yesterday; the next best time is today. 2 small modular reactors of 300MW each placed at Port Augusta in SA would solve its problems.
The more populous states could easily support 1000MW plants. Units that can utilise spent fuel from plants overseas would also place Australia in the position of waste recycler, with both income and power generation. Something considered by the Scare Royal Commission in SA.
We can’t see this Country pulling out of the economy wrecking anti-fossil fuel policies which have been adopted; a CO2 tax of some description (RET/CET/EIS) will be with us for years to come. That means we will drive coal-fired plant out of business (as has happened), leaving us with rocketing prices and erratic supply.
Nuclear power can’t be challenged on the CO2 score and therefore offers the only way around the CO2 taxes, that delivers base-load power at long-run costs that Australian households and businesses could afford.
The term “Greens” is undeserved. Anybody that opposes civilian nuclear power is a traitor to the environment.
I’ve put in a fair bit of checking on this subject over the past few months, and can certainly bring you up-to-date on this research, as well as connecting you to a number of enthusiasts in the US. Should this be of interest, perhaps you might like to get in touch – 0407 559 344 and michaelspencer2@bigpond.com.
Cheers! And keep up the good work – the level of ideological ignorance at work is breathtaking!
The more “Stop These Things” gets into the habit of policy recommendations rather than critique, the more difficult it will be to persuade the average person that this initiative is not serving the agenda of a lobby. Particularly if nuclear power as “carbon free” is promoted by a group that rejects the notion of carbon dioxide as key driver of climate change. This trickiness or doublethink is reminiscent of Freeman Dyson and Edward Teller, both skeptics of anthropogenic climate change, who promoted “solar radiation management” as the best possible solution for (in their view non-existent) anthropogenic climate change. Ozzie Zehner’s “Green Illusions: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Evironmentalism” is a good guide for sensible and non-tricky policy-making, including a balanced discussion of nuclear energy.
STT is not an ‘initiative’ and we are most certainly not “serving the agenda of a lobby”.
Nor are we engaged in ‘trickiness’ or ‘doublethink’ of the kind described or at all.
Australia will be powered predominantly by coal, gas and hydro (in that order) for many decades to come.
If we are serving any agenda, it is to present facts, ideas and arguments which will allow Australia to enjoy its long-run of meaningful employment and prosperity; jobs and prosperity which are the direct product of our previously affordable and reliable electricity supplies.
Which, if you have been paying attention, will have noticed have been all but destroyed by people peddling ideological nonsense.
The destruction of Australia’s electricity market is the product of that ideology, the foundation of which is the theory (and it is a theory) that man-made (not naturally occurring) carbon dioxide gas, an odourless, colourless, naturally occurring, beneficial trace gas, essential for all life on earth is, in fact, a form of “pollution”.
And that the man-made proportion (minute) of CO2 gas (also minute in total proportion), as a ‘pollutant’, has set in train an irreversible, catastrophic process of global warming ‘CAGW’. There is, but one problem, with that theory: the evidence.
Climate alarmism is fully responsible for the attack made on fossil-fuel generation sources and it comes from people like James Hansen. What sets Hansen apart from his fellow eco-zealots is that he is not a closet Marxist, seeking to destroy the capitalist system and to keep the poorest billion on the planet in stone age poverty in perpetuity.
Remove the fevered hysteria surrounding CO2 gas and their ability to control and destroy markets is likewise removed.
STT is concerned with the maintenance (or more accurately, the restoration) of reliable, secure and affordable electricity supplies.
Anyone who understands Australia’s electricity market knows that means coal-fired power for generations to come.
Nuclear energy, a substantial contributor to global electricity generation, and the major contributor in countries such as France, Sweden and Czechoslovakia, satisfies the three essential elements referred to above.
Our position, which involves neither doublethink, nor trickiness is to challenge eco-zealots about their ‘belief’ (their term) in CAGW by pointing out that if they are seriously concerned about CO2 emissions in the electricity sector, then every one of them should be seen to be promoting nuclear energy. That they do not demonstrates that they are not primarily concerned with CO2 emissions, but rather are keen to destroy the prosperity enjoyed by Western democracies and to deprive that prosperity to hundreds of millions in China, India and Africa, whether through ignorance or malicious design.
As pointed out in our post below the only ‘doublethink’ is the nonsense that intermittent wind power is a means of obtaining substantial reductions in CO2 emissions – the only justification for wind power at all:
STT will continue to make ‘policy recommendations’ (as you call them), because we believe that a decent, ordered civil society depends upon jobs, growth in income and wealth; all of which in turn depend upon reliable and affordable supplies of energy. Nuclear power fits that bill and the sooner Australia joins the rest of the first world in that respect the better.
If you have another solution or agenda, let’s hear it.
STT keep doing what your doing, you are at least a voice coming out of the wilderness, and allowing the rest of us to have a voice.
Those who read this site and want to ‘chastise’ it, perhaps they should question their own motives and agenda’s.
STT has for sometime now been a voice of reason and has reported and commented on events rationally and comprehensively.
Thanks Jackie for your continued support. STT will keep on keeping on.