a canny carbon calculation, page-5

Some care needs to be taken when talking about "doubling of electricity prices". Generation prices are indeed going to surge for a/ a carbon price and b/ to make less polluting energy sources than coal viable against coal. Generation prices are 20-25% of the retail electricity price, network costs 40-50% and retalers margin the rest.

In Qld that's about 4c-9c-7c/kWhr respectively.

I think the best we can hope for a BlueGen installed in Oz, and it's not our main market, would be an electricity cost to householders that matches existing tariffs with any exported power earning 4c/kWhr or so. A feed-in-tariff like in Victoria would be great for the individual but a dumb idea for the majority. My opinion (though PVs have high FITs thank-you very much).

Can't find a comprehensive answer to costs of installing baseload generators. My memory of a newspaper article is nuclear at US$5billion/GW and gas much less but the cost of generation flips. Nuclear needs 8c/kWhr and gas at least 8 but preferably more.

I would love an expert to give an appraisal of distributed networks. My suspicion is they aren't all that easy or cheap to construct and manage. There must be a reason they barely exist. And I don't accept conspiracy theories that "big coal" or incumbent businesses are stifling change.