Anyone Cold Without Gas?

[Chip]

Nuclear energy is a good stopgap, but it's no more a permanent solution than fossil fuels. The total amount of fissionable material in the earth's crust is just as finite as fossil fuel deposits. More so actually, since natural processes continually produce more fossil fuels (albeit slowly) while the only way to get more uranium is to hope it falls from space. Estimates based on current technology and usage have us running out of economically attainable uranium in about 85 years, though expected advances in reactor technology extend that estimate quite a bit.

Barring revolutionary advances in fusion reactor technology (fingers crossed), it's going to take a lot of renewable energy of all types and a whole lot more general energy efficiency to prevent a catastrophic collapse at some point. Right now we're pretty much betting that technology will stay just ahead of rising energy demands and shrinking non-renewable energy supply. That's the sort of bet that it would really suck to lose.

 

[mali]

Tide generators are pretty much advancing recently. The oceans store most of the solar energy and that energy can relatively easy be converted into electricity. There are several different versions of tide generators and several large scale facilities are being installed. Some versions are used directly at the coast, some off shore. Nuklear power is pretty much a general failure. Long time hazards and costs are to high for the power the plants produce.