Squilliam said:
HappySqurriel said:
I work in a company currently that is heavily related to both conventional and renewable energy and I'll let you in on something that is very well known ... Besides Fossil Fuels, Nuclear energy and Hydro-Electric we have no way to generate enough energy to meet our current energy consumption in a cost effective manner; and no matter how much money governments throw at it this is not likely to change for several decades.
At the same time, political resistance to the development of fossil fuel, nuclear and hydro-electric powerplants (and the growing environmental resistance to Wind, Solar, Geothermal and Tidal power) means that until we develop a magical energy source the world is only going to be able to increase supply by a tiny fraction of the increase in demand over the next half century.
I'm personally very afraid at what happens to the world when Oil starts to approach $500 a barrel ... People often don't realize how dependant the world is on inexpensive energy to provide the basic necessities of life. As people start being denied basic food, clothing, shelter and transportation because the cost of energy has become too high political instability will follow
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Lets see:
Wind: Kills birds, eyesore, noise, vibration.
Solar: Local heatbloom, covers acres of land, environmentally unfriendly production of panels.
Geothermal: Heavy metal discharge into local waterways
Tidal: Kills fish, probably some other gripes as well.
All: Not in my backyard!
The two important points for the next few years are to increase efficiency so every unit of energy does more work for us and to find non depletable sources of energy to slowly replace fossil fuels. Personally im a proponent of electric vehicles like the Volt, but not so expensive! 
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I like the idea of electric cars, but I don't think that anyone is prepared for the electric car which limits its viability ... The average household uses more energy in transportation than they do from all other sources, and we don't have the infastructure in place to increase electricity output to the level that would be required if a small portion of the population decided to switch over to electric vehicles.
