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The Dutton federal Coalition's announcement to move Australia to nuclear energy has immediately defaulted to a political rather than policy debate with an inevitable pile on by the government, various interests and experts.
The elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss is that crude oil is the foundation of our materialistic society as it is the basis of all products and fuels demanded by the 8 billion on this planet.
We are treated on an almost continuous basis to justifiable complaints from the public education lobby about the underfunding of government schools. Yet, no one in that lobby even put a funding model to the Gonski panel.
Australia's official power generation statistics make it obvious that we have no chance of meeting the clean energy needs of an all-electric fossil-fuel-free modern industrialised economy.
The MMRs offer a combination of power for propulsion and shore powering, which for very remote nations is highly attractive. The highest national cost component of remote nations even with some hydro and renewables, is imported diesel.
The more fruitful option is to concentrate one's efforts on prodding the present system to do a far better job of decoupling our increasing economic activity from undesirable environmental impacts.
Although solar and wind are cheap to operate, per se, their total costs are not cheap and they are not fit for purpose alone. World experience to date confirms this.
