NUCLEAR IS RELIABLE, EXTEND LIFE OF COAL
GEOFF Foster (GA, 29/4) thinks I failed to do my homework by favouring reliable nuclear power over renewables.
It is “out of reach” and depends on broad support from the public.
That support will be readily given when the public realises that nuclear is shown to be reliable (unlike solar and windmills) and, per the OECD, cheaper than coal or gas in all countries.
A more sensible approach would be to extend the life of our cheap brown coal stations to the maximum lifespan, followed by
new low-emissions black coal replacements. Why? Because these ruinous 2030 emission targets can’t be achieved against vehement public opposition.
Well before then we will realise how little China and the rest of the world are achieving, and propose to achieve: almost nothing!
We can therefore tailor the disruption to our living standards to doing only our tiny share, whether via nuclear or coal.
We would simply march in line with the world’s major emitters. John Calvert, Geelong
1429
Peasant girl St Joan of Arc, 17, leads French forces to lift the English siege of the city of Orleans, turning the Hundred Years War in favour of the French. 1815
Governor Lachlan Macquarie selects the site of a new inland settlement, naming it Bathurst after the British colonial secretary. 1908
King Edward VII grants the first official coat of arms to the Commonwealth of
Australia.
1915
The British passenger liner Lusitania is torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine off the Irish coast, at the cost of 1198 lives. The attack brings the US closer to joining World War I.
1919
The Allied Supreme Council grants Australia a League of Nations mandate over former German territory in the Pacific.
1945
A German delegation, including General Alfred Jodl, goes to US General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s headquarters in Reims, France, and signs the surrender documents that end the European phase of World War II.
1946
Sony Corporation, a major Japanese manufacturer of consumer electronics products, is founded by Ibuka Masaru and Morita Akio.
1952
Ten people die and 81 are injured when one train runs into the back of another in fog in the Sydney suburb of Berala.
1954
Viet Minh General Vo Nguyen Giap takes the French by surprise at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, surrounding their base with 40,000 men and employing heavy artillery to capture it during the First Indo-China War.
2001
Ronnie Biggs, 71, one of Britain’s 1963 Great Train Robbers, ends 35 years on the run by flying from Brazil to Britain and is arrested (above).