So what’s my point? Geof Gallop. Declares depression. The the reprise of WA Inc unfolds smashing the credibility of an otherwise clean skin premier who succeeds GG. Did he know? Derr. He may be sick but he’s not stupid.

Same with Robb. He may be sick and who wouldn’t be from the parliamentary rogues gallery of colleagues not govt AND govt. Funny how a big dose of green policy makes people sick of the mainstream. It’s all about the historic sleep walk to eco-cide. Or to quote Apocalypse Now - The Horror, The Horror. What’s taken 2 billion years to evolve, well we’re smashing it up like an ADHD in a china shop. Those ‘smart’ or ‘dumb’ enough to get this are bound to get depressed. Or as ecologists like to say - the best (most diverse) and worst (destruction of same) of times.

Sooo - after the Nats and Libs split, the greenhouse mafia in the Coalition are thrashed in a double dissolution over survival of humanity let alone the economy (you know like John Curtin in WW2) …. well Andrew Robb’s timing will be impeccable really. Last man standing even. Those last will be first ….

As I was saying before when Julia Gillard is PM it will be the worst job in the world to have. But that’s another story.

BHP Billiton and Blue Scope Steel have great profits, pay their CEO’s obscene amounts, and yet they probably get their electricity and water cheap as well. Subsidised by us again. Socialize the costs, and privatise the profits is how it works!

For example, the uranium mine in SA got its water for zilch from the SA govt. They’re going to build their own desalination plant so as to extend (forgot the name of the mine - Beverly? it’s a big one and going to be bigger soon) - SA is the driest state and yet the people subsidised this mining venture while their water was disappearing and they were on restricted use. Of course, the govt in SA like the NSW govt don’t tell us how much electricity will be required to operate the desalination plants? Like Ethanol? How much energy is required to make a litre of ethanol?

The name of the bloke re the solar plant is Dr? Prof? David Mills? He’s been on the 7.30 Report a couple of times. The transcript of his interview is still available. (October 2007?)

I suspect with the ‘thin panels’ you’re referring to Origin Energy’s ‘Sliver Technology’. They’ve been fiddling around with that for years. It’s supposed to be cheaper because they cut the slices of silicon very thinly, so less is used in each panel, and silicon is a major cost contributor to solar panel expenses. Problem here though, is there’s still a major labour component in their manufacture, and Good Aussie Labour is a lot more expensive than Chinese labour. They could be manufactured for s similar cost in Australia, but would need Government support. In which case, it’s hard to defend; are we better manufacturing in a protected market at home, or in an open market in china? I’ve got no idea.

The solar theremal company is Ausra, who are playing with Compact Linear Fresnell Arrays; just a type of solar thermal plant. There’s a few competing designs, all of which are relatively closely matched. Much as I’d like to bag the Govt over this one, but it’s hard to point the blame at them. Ausra have been fiddling around with the CLFR array at Liddell Power Station for years, and to the best of my knowledge still don’t have it working. It’s a pilot demonstration plant yet it doesn’t work! I think Liddell received Govt support, but can’t recall from what program, might even be State. Anyway, I personally doubt Ausra were ever serious about doing major business here; California is their big market, and Australia will never compete with that sort of scale. They might put in a couple of projects here and there, but they’ll mostly be manufactured in the States.

Any solar thermal plant should be capable of heat storage and therefore ‘base load’ generation. Which BTW is a term I despise that has virtually no value. I think ‘despatchable’ is more useful. There are a few spectacular energy storage projects under way in Australia, supported surprisingly by the Old Govt through the Advanced Energy Storage TEchnology program. There’s a couple of good solar thermal projects there.

Costs? Should already be cheaper than nuclear by a mile. WIll be cheaper than clean coal, but we’re a long way off being cheaper than thermal coal with no carbon capture or carbon penalties. It’s burning dirt! How can anything sophisticated compete with that?

What we need are politicians who are committed. Not to the fossil fuel industry and in particular the mining lobby. We need politicians who’ll stop stuffing around and get on with it, and people who are serious about alternate energy sources, and then putting serious money into it. The fossil fuel industry receives subsidies of about $10 billion at the moment. They should be told, that the party is over, and the money is no longer available - it’s just ridiculous. They’ve been making great profits that we are all subsidising via our taxes. It’s time it stopped! Our taxes are going towards the latest huge increase in the CEO of BHP Billiton - that’s obscene!

I wonder how many commenters will accuse you of blatant Labor bias over this one.