I'm not opposed to nuclear power really, and I like the proposed idea that they're to be nationally owned and operated, but it won't be cheap or soon.

And a bit of a problem, anyone up to storing some drums of spent fuel rods in their back yard? Any takers?

If the fkn nimbys got upset about new power lines, how do you think they'll go with a nuclear waste dump?

Late edit. Looks like both sides of politics will announce a domestic gas reservation policy tomorrow, but probably only on new developments.

And I was out of date, Qld introduced its own on new developments in 2017. I think it's only on some small generators out near the gas fields so no real effect on wholesale price bidding. Will look into it a bit more.

Other countries are investing in research to miniaturise and speed up reactor building times, we were invited to join but declined, I know the government has committed to its renewables path but keeping abreast of and even hastening clean-ish alternatives can't be a bad thing surely! 

And the gas! Corporations have devious means to get things in their favour, the threat of them pulling out caves a lot of pollies resolve, got to get a pair and do what's right for us, there will be other investors. 

Queensland coal royalties are a good example, miners bleated like mad and flung millions into advertising campaigns to get it squashed claiming calamity would ensure, but, they are still digging coal, the campaign was in fact disinformation, not misinformation, never let the truth come before maximum profits.

Have a read here.

Hmmmmm

Some stuff from the 1980's

If we knew this then we could make an informed choice instead of just picking a team.

In a related matter, I visited a small scale sawmill operation about 25 years ago, 3 old blokes working with a traditional reciprocating steam engine, flat belt driving the saws, running on all offcuts. They even had an old lighting plant generator hooked up to give them lights and a small amount of power if needed. They reckoned total costs were 1 match a day, probably bullshit, they would have gone through a fair bit of grease on the shaft pillow blocks. It was a.nice operation. I'd be happy to see it running for the next 500 years.

They'd sold them off to private operators.

Starting in the 80s in SA, then NS W. Even QLD sold a few by the late 90s, but kept 7.

You've posted a link to a list of all generators, their owners are listed there, check online who these owners are, it's interesting reading.

It was a sale made mostly for ideological reasons, it was the Reagan-Thatcher years and privatisation was all the go. It was claimed that private enterprise would run them better than governments, how well has that turned out?

These owners have run them since, making a reasonable profit, and mostly sending it offshore, but not investing enough in repairs and preventative maintenance to keep them reliable as they age, and never budgetting to replace them. When the generators were sold, a market was set up to coordinate the supply, initially with generators bidding for 1/2 hour blocks of supply, but now for 5 minute blocks. This set up the situation that's made things worse now. As solar panels started appearing on roofs in ever increasing numbers, the power they supply became cheaper. It's now the cheapest power that can be supplied to the grid on sunny days between 10am and 2pm. Because the grid is run by a market, this cheap power under cuts the coal fired generators in that time period on sunny days, so they throttle back the generators to avoid losing money, which puts more thermal shock on the boilers, which increases their maintenance costs and downgrades their reliability and service life.

Never doubt it, the privately owned generators will shut down when the plant reaches an unprofitable point in its service life, which is why one of them is now screaming for the NSW govt to subsidise their operations to keep an essential service going for a few more years.

Reward them for their short sighted business practises and excessive profit taking in other words.

You don't need to conjure up rabid greenies to see why the power grid is facing problems. To me it mostly shows the foolishness of privatising the supply of an essential service and trying then to run it as a spot market controlled system.

But maybe I'm just an old Bolshy.

I do like your idea of voting for yourself.

Any boiler techs on the forum want to comment on what I've said?

Wind generation will benefit with new tech being applied in the manufacturing of the blades using recyclable materials that are stronger than what has been in use, whether or not this helps in the long run remains to be seen but the boffins are hard at work.