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Originally Posted by Peter Ward
This is going to be hard to keep apolitical. Amid all the politik speak, I see that no new coal fired power plants are likely to be built in oz, and existing plants (like Latrobe ) will be shut down witin a decade.....begging the question with a rising population, where will the people of Oz get their electricity from?? Hot dry rocks? Gen V thorium nuke? ( yes Virginia, clean safe nuclear power, that you can't make bombs from does exist....it's just that they wanted to take the uranium option in the 1950's to, well, make bombs) Thermal solar? Funny I don't recall reading about any of these base load plants being constructed to date.....but would be interested to know if any progress is being made in these or other areas in Oz.
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Coal fired power stations can be converted to gas powered with a considerable reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.
Carbon dioxide emissions might also be sequestered thus enabling coal fired power stations to continue operating.
Thermal solar cannot be base load because the sun's intensity varies throughout the day and year and is zero at night.
Hydro power is available only in a few places and not in times of drought.
Wind power is variable and cannot supply base power.
So it looks like gas powered generation (GPG) but it will be dearer than Coal powered generation.