Aha, Aussis go H2. !?!?
A continent which consists of about 90% of desert, which means the sun is shining almost the whole year has a solar energy production of not even 2% of total energy production.
In Australia everything goes well: A lot of tourism, a lot of commodities. Why to think further? Aussies prefer to join the US (how many billions cost this war?)in Irak in order to secure oil delivery. Or later in Iran...

Australia has significant natural gas reseves, relative to its size. Unfortunately, the biggest fields are located in the very sparsely populated Northwest:

http://www.chemlink.com.au/gas.htm

Steam reformers can be used to produce the relatively small amounts of hydrogen required for hythane, a fuel best used in vehicles that are often operated in urban areas in part load, i.e. buses, taxis, delivery vans etc.

In general, though, the effort involved in constructing pipelines across Australia would be enormous. A better way might be to construct a GTL plant or LNG terminal on the northwest coast.

The incremental CO2 emissions could be partially offset by covering large areas in Australia's flat interior desert with photovoltaic panels. Erected on top of appropriate scaffolding, these could do double duty by providing shade for vegetation and small livestock (sheep). Since Australia has few hydro dams, any excess electric power could be stored as hydrogen and either used in stationary SOFC fuel cells at night or combined with CO2 from coal power plants located away from the coast for hydrocarbon synthesis. This way, each carbon atom from coal is used twice.

Near the ocean, algal oil farms could be used to recycle the carbon. That product can be converted into biodiesel for local use or, exported just like the GTL and LNG from the northwest coast.

I for one would much rather buy my energy from a stable democracy like Australia than from a dictatorship elsewhere. And that would be doubly true if the country made an effort to reduce its own CO2 footprint in a way that e.g. Saudi Arabia, Iran or Venezuela are definitely not prepared to do.

Namibia and South Africa are in a similar position as Australia in terms of natural gas resources and solar/algal oil potential. Both are politically stable.

"Aha, Aussis go H2. !?!?
A continent which consists of about 90% of desert, which means the sun is shining almost the whole year has a solar energy production of not even 2% of total energy production."

However we have been in the grip for the last 10 years of a conservative government that want to mine coal and little else. The Howard government is pro mining and everything Bush and very anti renewable. At one time the Minister for Energy, Senator Parer, owned a coal mine and the Australian Chief Scientist also had a seat on the board of Rio Tinto.

Next election is still 2 years away.

The Western Australian state government should get Transperth to trial this hythane thing on the CNG buses. The're already going to start trials soon on some diesel buses with b5 then go up to b10 then b20 if succesful. This environmental record would look good alongside the Mercedes fuel cell bus trial, bio diesel trial and the continued ordering of Euro4 CNG buses to replace the older buses in the fleet.

"In general, though, the effort involved in constructing pipelines across Australia would be enormous. A better way might be to construct a GTL plant or LNG terminal on the northwest coast."

Rafeal if I understand you correctly you are saying it's not worth constructing pipelines to transport Natural Gas accross Australia. Well the thing is there already is. Northwest WA may be sparsely populated but Perth is a city of 1.5million people (out of a 2million state population) that requires Natural gas for power generation, cooking, heating etc. That's why we already have pipelines that are currently transporting gas from the north west all the way down here. There are also proposals to build a natural gas pipelink from WA and Northern Territory to the Eastern States.

And howard now wants to go nuclear. This 'debate' was supposed to be about alternative resources, but it is clear he has set his sight on nuclear.

Mango -

going from the northwest down to Perth is one thing, even if that market only has 1.5-2 million inhabitants. Going across the entire continent (the size of the continental US) seems expensive to me. Then again, you don't have foreign governments to deal with and the land is mostly flat.

Europe gets gas from Siberia through pipelines that are much longer, traversing multiple countries and much more difficult terrain. However, the potential market is 15x the size of Australia and, ocean transport is not an option. Plans to construct the Nabucco pipeline to Iraq and Iran are on hold for political reasons. After the Ukraine-related supply scare this winter, many EU governments are looking to expand LNG receiving capacity and imports of GTL fuels from firendly countries.

Well if the're willing to build all that pipeline for only 1.5million people (+ I think 100-200 thousand in the south west) then surely building the proposed gas pipelines to the east to service most of the Australian population would be worth it.

I am interested to see the outcomes over this proposal. I don't think the nuclear energy debate is going to help the cause.

Using non-renewable energy to make the renewable energy investments seems like a better way to go. You use what nature provides everyday and save a lot of the fossil fuel for later, to make more renewable facilities.