I've written an article about this a while ago, funny to find this discussion going on while I was looking for something completely different.
First of all, I'm not a sceptic, nor a scientist, and my main language sure aint english. I'm just trying to be realistic a give my view on this matter, so bare with me.
In my opinion there are some mayor flaws in how the general public looks at alternative energy sources, which may very well be the result of our governments or the large oil companies behind them. A real soltion in my opinion lies in a Technique yet to be dicovered or perfected, while most of us think we can do it with the techniques we allready have. I'll elaborate on this later on.
We are never going to switch to a completely different source of energy in a realistic amount of time, without certains parties benefitting or at least not being disadvantaged by it. When a brilliant scientist finds a solution for all of our energy problems today (for example discovers some sort of perpetuum mobilae), he will be dead tomorrow. Such a solution would destroy our economies, which are driven by oil. Hence the need for a solution that doesn't disadvantage the oil-companies or at least tries to prevent them from going bust.
To cut things short, I believe a solution would be found in a combination of techniques over a period of time. In a first phase we would need to reduce our current trend in polluting our planet and reduce the trend of our energy consumption from materials that are bound to run out in a short period (oil, coal, gas, etc).
The second phase, which needs to run in parallel with all other phases, is looking for alternative power production methods. This should be a heavilly funded non-stop operation.
The third phase would consist of making the switch to these new techniques. From what is known to me today, I'd say a combination of nuclear Fusion together with Hydrogen is our best bet.
Phase 1: At the present we have a few alternative energy production methods at our disposal. The first step in a long term solution would be to use solutions more, and cut back in waste (both energy waste as waste products like CO2). This in a short term won't solve our problems, but would at atleast make them less pressing, giving us time to come up with a consturctive way of resolving these issues.
Phase 2: In this second stage, which should run parrelel to the other stages, we would need find an alternative energy production method which can sustain our growing energy consumption on the long term. The basic idea that seems to be running arround is that we will all use solar/wind/biomass/hydrogen power over 50 years instead of the conventional coal/nuclear power we use today. I believe this isn't true, I'll elaborate later on. The only viable solution for as far as I know of would be something in the means of Nuclear Fusion. Nuclear Fusion has great potential, and should be ready for use in a matter of years. But as stated before, we won't be able to make a switch any time soon. This in my opinion creates a lot of lag in the development of this technique, hence I must put allot of emphasis on this phase. Looking at the current state of politics (encouraging alternative power, but not putting enough emphasis on a real solution), I am convinced we will not make a shift towards an alternative power supply without certain parties benefitting from it.
In the Third stage we would implement all of the above. This is where things get critical. We need to solve our energy issues, without tearing down multiple economies. So, why not use a combination, like we are allready doing today. The oil companies provide us with the juice required to make our engines and factories work, including production of many oil-based products, while the power companies provide us with the electricity to power our homes and bussinesses. For the sake of our economies, let's try to keep it this way. Give the oil companies a free pass to become the only producers of Hydrogen, give the power companies a free pass to become the only producers of Fusion Power. Production of all other oil-based products can continue by the Oil companies (imo oil has a greater value to us as a raw material for plastics etc anyways compared to a raw material for energy production) The mayor benefit of having a renewable and pritty much unlimited power supply, such as Fusion Power, is it gives us the ability to create large quantaties of Hydrogen. All you need to make large quantaties of Hydrogen is electricity, and lots of it.
Oil companies will be satified since making Hydrogen with electricity is much more cost effective then mining for oil, and we'll just let them sell it from approximately the same price as gas for the starting period (to overcome the costs of making the shift). Power companies will need allot of Funding to make such a shift since constructing, perfecting and maintaining Nuclear Power plants is going to cost allot. But I feel if we would distribute this financial burden ammongst all the population benefitting from it we could make it. Or else the governments should put the taxes on gas to a good use.
Finally an elaboration why I think other techniques lack posibility to become our prime way of harvesting power:
- Solar power, lots of potential since it has a lot of yield, but did you ever think about the environmental issues? I mean, your taking energy out of the environment and returning it in a different state. Harmless on a small scale, but what about large scale implementation? Imo, a great addition to our current energy production methods, but no replacement. Also the storage and unreliability (called night or clouds) of this form of energy is a huge problem.
- Biomass Power, from waste: Excellent idea. From crops specificly grown to produce Biomass, TERRIBLE idea. We'd be better of sending those crops to parts of the world straving...
- Hydro Power, geographicly speaking there aren't enough places to build these power plants to sustain our power consumption in the long term, specially for the smaller flat countries (like the Netherlands where I'm from). Not to mention about their potential impact on the environment.. (Dam's build to create artificial lakes are known to have destroyed complete habbitats etc etc.) Again, a nice addition if the environment permits it.
- Wind Energy, if the wind stops blowing, then so does your energy supply. Basicly the same as Solar energy.
- Hydrogen Energy, has huge potential but should be seen (in my opinion) more as a medium to transport energy, rather then an energy source. The most common way to create Hydrogen resides on Electrolysis, which requires electricity. Any other method also requires energy to make Hydrogen. Theres no viable way of making Hydrogen a power supply at this moment, nor will there ever be because of this simple restraint. Even if microbes were to make hydrogen (the most viable solution imo as of today), it would still require huge microbe farms harvesting the power of the sun to make hydrogen.
I'm eager to hear your opinions and critics on this story, since I'm not in any position to share this story to anyone with ample knowledge. Hence I posted it here.