Some care needs to be taken when talking about "doubling of...

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.