first step towards the kitchen sink. 3. The alternative If a Carbon Tax is so appalling I have a better idea. Let's just NATIONALISE energy production and have the government build out a fleet of clean nukes! Professor Ergas (intentionally?) forgot to mention the ENORMOUS health cost of burning coal. There are so many ways coal kills, through various lung and throat disorders and cancers. Anyone realise the beautiful Hunter Valley hours and hours drive north of Sydney has a lung cancer rate 3 times higher than Sydney? Why? It's supposed to be a beautiful rural area? Burning coal releases harmful uranium and thorium and countless other poisons into the environment. But let's just ignore the economic and social burden of burning coal shall we Professor Ergas? Don't tally those costs, whatever you do, or a carbon tax or nationalised nukes might not look so bad! Fukishima were 40 year old worn out Gen2 reactors. We are now up to Gen3.5 reactors with passive safety systems that are self-cooling. In other words the Tsunami would not have been a big deal for these reactors -- as the moment they start to overheat the reactor core fuel rods expand, leak neutrons, and the reaction shuts down. Professor Barry Brook of the blog http://bravenewclimate.com/ has counted the cost of trying to power Australia with renewables, and says it simply can't be done. It would be far to expensive to compensate for wind and solar's intermittent supply. As we hit peak oil, we'll