moosey, I agree that Australia should be prepared to look at...

moosey, I agree that Australia should be prepared to look at nuclear power. But coal-fired power stations aren't quite the pollution-belching monsters that you portray them to be. That's greenie propaganda. In advanced countries, they use scrubbers and filters for NOx, SOx, particulates, etc. Not perfect, but pretty good. They used to be bad, as did fossil-fuelled vehicles for example, but governments have mandated environmental improvements which have been very effective and are on-going. (A good move by govts IMHO).

I would like to see all the various sources of energy compete on a reasonably level playing field, with govts putting some funding into research and pushing along controls on things like pollution and landscape degradation. NB. The latter includes removing some wind farms.

However, on a reasonably level playing field, nuclear power for domestic consumption might not get up. It's possible that it may in a decade or so be uncompetitive with rooftop solar PV. Looking a bit further ahead, wouldn't it be nice to get rid of all those ugly power poles and cables, and use local solar instead of a national grid!