I have finished reading your book and have a few comments.

1. on P134 you write “… to cut emissions by 60 percent by 2050, some of the old coal power stations will need to be phased out …”
But given that the economic lifespan of a coal power station is 40-50 years, by 2050 they will be phased out anyway. It is poor economics to decommission these plants early (say less than 40 years). But by 2035 about 75% of existing coal plants will be 50+ years old and will have been progressively decommissioned. By then the share of the remaining coal stations in the larger electricity market will be in the order of only 10-15%.
By all means stop building new coal stations and instead provide gas co-gen and windfarms, as we have begun to do in recent years. Demand for electricity is growing fast and I predict it will make a quantum leap in the next decade as plug-in electric cars come onto the market. Can we build new clean power stations fast enough to meet demand let alone replace existing coal stations? I suspect not.
In the short to medium term those existing coal stations will help us substitute oil for our transportation needs.
2. The Snowy Mountains scheme (p121). For an alternative view of the economic and environmental worth of the Snowy, refer to “Disasters that changed Australia” by Richard Evans. (Victory Books)
3. Solar PV. On page 141 you write: “It [solar PV] decentralises power generation so that new billion-dollar power stations are … delayed” Hmmm. The economic advantages of solar PV are free fuel (the sun) and zero distribution costs, since the power is generated where it is consumed. Solar PV does not delay centralised power stations. It replaces them, in particular, peak load stations. My prediction (for what it is worth) is that by 2050 Australia will generate its electricity by solar (centralised and distributed) natural gas, wind and hydro, in that order of significance.

Other than those few gripes, an excellant book.