America's energy future?

Question

Currently, there are lots of objects powered by fuel from fossil fuels. The problem with that though is that fossil fuels are finite, and they pollute the environment. Do you people believe that the Hydrogen economy should be promoted and enacted more fully? Or do you people believe that solar and wind energy is a better choice? How about both of these?? And what are your thoughts on nuclear power?

Answer 1

Solar Power via beemed from Space solar panels.

Answer 2

I believe a combination of Solar, wind, Hydrogen and other renewable sources are our only hope.  Nuclear power is by far more dangerous than fossil fuels, the toxic waste is more deadly and will not degrade quickly enough to make it a viable option.

Answer 3

Unless you plan on traveling to the sun, Jupiter or Saturn to collect the hydrogen, the hydrogen economy is just a way of putting off what really needs to be done.   There are better ways of storing energy for night time use than converting electricity and water to hydrogen.    Sure, a fuel cell running on hydrogen extracted from methane gets twice the usable power from an amount of methane as burning it does, but its still a finite resource.

Solar is still pretty expensive, but getting cheaper and better all the time.   Wind is now cheaper than natural gas and Nuclear- getting close to being cheaper than coal.   Too bad there aren't enough locations spread throughout the country with a steady supply of wind to power everything.   The US power grid is mostly 50 years old and will need to be replaced before too long with either carbon nanotubes or superconductors of some type.   Then wind from Texas, Oklahoma or South Dakota can economically be sent to the rest of the country.   Its gonna cost over a hundred billion $ to redo the grid though, so no one is in a rush to start.

Answer 4

We burn a truly staggering amount of fossil fuels.  Replacing that will be difficult.

We'll need all our tools.  Energy conservation, nuclear, solar, wind, biofuels.  Hydrogen is not really a fuel, it's a way to make power from electric power plants useful in running cars.

We can't do this without nuclear right now, it's too big a job.  Most serious environmentalists recognize that.  We know how to build them safely and manage the waste.

When the nuclear plants reach the end of their lifetime, 30-50 years from now, we may be able to retire them and replace them with improved solar and wind.