"closer to the edge"? 4,000kWh annually is "close to the edge"? Residential use is generally a third of all use, so that's 1,333kWh for domestic use, 3.7kWh a day each, so for the average Aussie household of 2.6 people that's 9.5kWh daily for the household... this is meant to represent being "on the edge"?

You're reminding me of when Boof tried to tell us that if you took the train instead of flying that was like cladding yourself in "sackcloth and ashes". Oh, the suffering one would have in the dining car of the Ghan!

Please describe a natural disaster any time in human history which was mitigated by having more electricity.

Radioisotopes are part of nature, too, and like fossil fuels, are finite. Of course pro-nuclear people are fond of telling us that they're so large in supply they may as well be infinite. But then, in 1880 Britain thought they had a 2,000 year supply of coal. We may or may not have a limited supply of radioisotopes, but we certainly shall not run into limits of sunshine, wind and wave in any reasonable timeframe. So we can bet on something which may or may not run out, or something which we know definitely won't.

So whether we choose nuclear, wind, hydro, geothermal or whatever, we are going to face at some point resource constraints and have to learn to restrain our appetites to merely fill ourselves to bursting, rather than filling ourselves to vomiting. I believe we can manage this difficult task, as onerous a burden as it may seem to some of us.

I'd be glad to take the offer of renewables and conservation to the polls, especially if we were offering nuclear as the alternative. I know of only a few occasions in history where the public was actually asked if they wanted nuclear power in their country or area. I list only the binding votes, as opposed to local council resolutions as gestures, etc.

- Austria, 1978 - NO
- Sweden, 1980 - NO - only semi-binding in that it required the government to get rid of the plants as soon as possible if it wouldn't cause any problems to anyone
- Italy, 1987 - NO
- Switzerland, 1990 - this was two votes, the first to have nuclear power at all - YES - and the second whether to build any new plants in the next decade - NO
- Japan, Maki, 1996 - NO - this was on having a plant in their area, two other areas whose names I forget had a similar vote the same year and also voted no.

What the referenda results show us is that once people have nuclear, they accept its presence but don't welcome its expansion; but if they don't have nuclear, they don't want to start with it.

Nuclear, then, would be an excellent stick to offer with the renewable and conservation carrot; if we simply offer renewables and conservation, people may reject them in favour of burgers and SUVs. But if it's a choice between renewables with conservation and nuclear, I've no doubt what the majority would choose.

I would, then, be very comfortable in taking to the polls a question something like,

"choose one of the following:- (a) renewables with heavy energy conservation, or (b) nuclear with no energy conservation"