What's Your Favorite Renewable Energy

No one type works for every area. They need to work in tandem if they're ever going to replace coal.

Burning [wikipedia.org] wood or crop waste is a renewable option.
Tidal power [wikipedia.org] is a perfectly good energy source as well.

I personally agree with one of the commentators above, all (or most) of the above should be an option. It depends on local conditions to a large degree. In the northern and southern most parts of the globe, solar power is not feasible for much of the year. In deserts hydro is unlikely to provide enough power. And I don't think I've ever even seen a hamster.

I'm currently in Japan, and the government is going on about increasing the use of solar and wind and other such. But I've never heard mention of geothermal power. Japan is in an excellent location for this, what with being on the border of three different continental plates and all. You'd think that in a country that has so many hot springs, the government would realize that it's possible to get power from the same source.

(Also, don't you love the misuse of words. Renewable, meaning it can be replaced (Wikipedia says "naturally replenished"), right? Except when it comes to energy, apparently. Because I can't see us replacing the sun when it runs out. I also have the same problem with the word "reclaimed" in relation to "reclaiming" swamps and other wetlands. The term really should just be "claimed".)

Given reprocessing tech, uranium reserves, vast amounts of unmined uranium, and the plethora of other fuels.... we'll probably get overrun by robot overlords before we have to worry about running out of fissile material.
We'll probably have solved fusion by then anyway.

I want a nuke plant in my backyard - if they give me free electricity.

Just remove the regulations that make it impossible to build.

Absolutely! We should leave it in the hands of negligent and corrupt CEOs.. the way god intended..

Then treat your hamster better!

What about Negawatts?

That's what he said.

"Hydrogen is easily produced by the same power sources that feed batteries"

Thermal reactors burn U-235, of which with complete burn, using current reactor tech that is only a few percent thermally efficient, we expect might last a couple hundred years. Fast reactors burn U-238, which we have two orders of magnitude greater supply than U-235. Fast reactors also burn Th-232, which is again many times (conservative estimates put 4-5x) more abundant than U-238.

If we decide to hide from technology, and continue using the same light water reactors designed in the 60s, we will be looking for a new fuel source in a hundred years or so. If instead we continue developing new technology (and not that new since we've been operating fast reactors since the 50s), we'll have fuel for several tens of thousands of years. That seems renewable enough considering we only started heavy use of fossil fuels a few hundred years ago.

There have been several prototype reactor approaches for breeder reactors and a couple of other reactor technology. The research on them has been funded for decades. And it is still funded far more than renewable energy. However, they never were able to come up with really save concepts which would really work and still be cheap enough to produce energy in a range around 3-8 cents. Further more all the discussed concept produce radioactive waste and there were not able to provide a save waste disposal technology. Japan which is a (or at least was until recently) pro nuclear power society, they were not able to come up with a solution even there was no anti-nuclear crowd. So it is save to say that all discussed concepts are not ready for production use. And the third argument is, that even if a disaster is very unlikely to happen. It is a) still possible and b) we are not able to handle the disaster. Therefor it is better to use a wide variety of collector and storage technologies to use the fusion power of the sun also called renewable energy.

And the estimate of those 100 years is based on the assumption that the number of reactors do not increase. However, if we want to replace our coal and gas plants with nuclear plants and also all our car fuel with electricity then we have to increase the number of plants by 6 or 7 times of the present. In France that might be 3-4 times.

In the end we would have around 80 plants in Germany, which would be difficult to find enough spots even ignoring potential protests.

In dense populated areas, low risk technologies is much better suited for energy supply.

Since all you guys want to be so fucking anal, nothing can create energy. Law of conservation of energy. Even from nuclear fission and fusion... that is just a transformation, nothing is created. What we have and all we will ever have all comes from the big bang. So if you want to be so fucking picky, why don't you all complain that the "Big Bang" is not an option?

This is the problem with people.

Note, while I am singling you out, it is only due to yours being the first post of this type. That said...

ALL FORMS OF POWER GENERATION HAVE DRAWBACKS! ALL OF THEM!

However, if you look at Hydro power -- it is the least damaging of all! There is, in reality, NO permanant destruction of wildlife habitat. The local edge of the river simply moves, and in a matter of a decade, wildlife has fully re-established on the new front. Considering that once a dam is in place, it can be used forever (as, it can be rebuild if need be), that new edge of the river will stay environmentally friendly forever!

Further, fish runs? There is tons of work done to provide alternate paths for fish, and to re-spawn fish along new fish-runs.

One needs to look at the big picture. I've seen so many crazy enviromentalists that fight against hydro projects, then turn around -- and with astonishment on their face, get upset at nuclear! Or COAL FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

I'm sorry, but everyone that cries out against hydro needs to be bitch slapped and thrown in a cell for 1000 years. It is the most environmentally friendly method of power generation available. People need to stop finding fault with every method of power generation. People need to shut up about conserving power (my Grandma, at 86, was convinced that she needed to live in 100F high humidty heat, because if she didn't, all the power she used for the air conditioner would be the end of everything!).

Frankly, Northern Canada should have 1000s of Hydro projects on smaller rivers, which then convert the power to H2, and ship it south via pipes...

Won't happen though -- the bleeding hearts will have us using Nuclear instead! THANK YOU ENVIRONMENTALISTS!