So many insightful & intelligent comments re: 7:30pm Report....

So many insightful & intelligent comments re: 7:30pm Report. Great to see! How many times have AUSTRALIANS developed a high-tech business (fledgling business) which had ENORMOUS potential, but had to go OVERSEAS to get financial support & take-off?? The Australian Science community could give you numerous examples.

It's DISGRACEFUL that our Government is in bed with the Coal industry. Why doesn't Solar, Fuel Cells etc. get the financial backing it deserves? Hell, the American Gov't subsidises their own farmers of an enormous scale for God's sake. Why can't the Australian Gov't make INTELLIGENT INVESTMENTS instead of supporting a pre-historic fossil fuel industry? (pun intended!).

Look at the $$$ the Australian Gov't has invested in supporting "clean coal" Research & Development compared to the $$$ invested in rolling out Solar energy. The Age did reported these figures in an article somewhere. It's significantly biased to "clean coal" because our Gov't is in bed with the Coal industry.

Peak Oil will force a De-Centralisation of Energy across the entire world. If our Gov't doesn't start planning for an Inter-dependent Energy System, we will get hit by a Truck we never saw coming. The time to act is NOW. We HAVE the technologies NOW & Fuel Cells have the potential to provide a CONSTANT, reliable (and significant) proportion of our Electricity needs IF ADOPTED ACROSS MANY HOUSEHOLDS (with mains gas supply). We cannot allow world-class technologies like Ceramic Fuel Cells to NOT be utilised here in Australia. WE NEED TO EBRACE AN INTER-DEPENDENT ENERGY SYSTEM. Because the existing mains electricity grid (with 80% of our Electricity consumption coming from coal fired power stations) is unintelligent. It will not survive Post Peak Oil.

The efficiencies of scale is really what it's going to come down to Post Peak Oil.