A vegamite sandwich short of a picnic

It's no laughing matter - but to be honest I do have some difficulty in finding a lot of sympathy for the Australians at the moment. Most of you will know that as I am writing this they are in the midst of just about the worst drought they have ever experienced. Of course - like all evtreme weather events - you can never say that it has been caused by climate change, but the odds are that it has.

Unfortunately the Australians do not have a good record in this department. Since the colonisation of the area around 90% of its natural rainforest has been destroyed. Much of the remaining natural rainforest in Tasmania is due to become a victim of the the chainsaws of Forestry Tasmania in the next few years.

Nearly all of the country's electricity is generated by coal fired power stations, and they remain one of only two developed nations to refuse to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change. (The other being - wait for it - The Whitehouse Fuckwitt.) Their reaoning being that they do not want to harm their important coal mining industry - no matter if they make the planet uninhabintable in the process.

This is in spite of having more solar energy on tap than they could possibly know what to do with, more uninhabited deserts on which to build solar power stations than the eye can see, and an educated population who shoud be setting an example o the rest of the world.

This contrasts with the much maligned Chinese who have the world's biggest windfarm, and the prospect that every wind turbine and solar panel on hte planet will shortly have Made in China stamped on it.

On a brighter note - I see that the world's first commercial solar power station has now come into service in Saville in Spain at a cost of 36 million Euros. Which seems to me like a pretty good price for a power station.

Nuclear power or save the planet?

A recent feature in the Guardian raised some interesting points about renewable power.

A field of mirrors focussing the sun's energy on a furnace can be used to power conventional electricity turbines. Several of these power stations have been operating successfully in desert regions around the world for many years. Engineers have estimated that covering just 0.5% of the world's deserts with these ingenious devices would meet the entire planet's electricity demand with ease.

It seems like the ultimate answer - there's lots of sunshine in Africa so they can get rich selling their electricity to Europe and solve all their problems. We no longer need to buy oil from the late Saddam Hussein and other undesirables. Global warming will be halted in its tracks.

So what's the catch? Well part of the problem seems to be that somebody wants to invest billions and billions of our money in a new nuclear power programme which will generate about 3% of the world's electricity by 2050 - if ever - at many times the cost of these ingeneous solar powerstations. The other problem apparently is that we would need a new pan-Europe high voltage electricity grid to move the power around - and that requires those same people who want their nuclear power to dig into their budgets and build one.

No wonder you're not heard about Concentrated Solar Power before. Doesn't it just make you feel that the planet is safe in the hands of our elected leaders? Erm.... No!