The best way to produce energy?

Question

The best way to produce energy?

Answer 1

I think the best answer is individual installations of a mix of solar, wind, and geothermal, for each house in any setting less populated than high urban areas. You can use solar panels on the roof, and a wind turbine in the yard, to power the geothermal system, as well as the rest of the house. When it's sunny, the solar panels produce electricity, and when it's rainy and windy, the wind turbine produces electricity, and the geothermal duct keeps the house air at a stable 50+ degrees Fahrenheit no matter the season.

Solar energy could further be divided into solar cell electricity production and solar thermal water heating. This would further assist in climate control energy costs by providing hot water for both household use (showers) and heating uses (forced hot water radiator heating). Solar panels can be mounted on the roof, or on other platforms, and can be stationary, or can track the sun for increased efficiency.

Wind turbines can be small enough to mount on a roof, or could be mounted on 100 to 200 foot poles for medium applications. Either way, they require a similar amount of time, and money to install, compared to solar electricity panels, but less space.

The geothermal system requires minimal equipment and power to run, and if temperatures other than 50 are desired, any HVAC system will have to use much less energy to modify 50 degree air than the current seasonal temperature air. Geothermal systems can be installed vertically or horizontally in the ground, or laid at the bottom of a medium to large pond.

A combination of thermal mass (such as concrete floors or walls) in the home (for further maintaining internal temperatures), high insulation in both windows and non-thermal-mass walls, low energy (Energy Star) appliances, water limiters, low flow, and water efficient (WaterSense) appliances, and general mindful eco-friendly habits (grow your own food anyone?), can all contribute to a completely self-contained, self-supporting, energy independent household. If that isn't one of the best ways to both produce and use energy, then I don't belong on Yahoo Green. :)

Obviously, there needs to be a slightly different approach for high population urban areas, since the space available per capita is too small for these methods. Geothermal and Wind have been scaled up in some applications, but solar just needs more room. In these situations, I like concentrated solar energy plants that use sunlight to heat molten salt in a tower, which in turn powers a steam generator. One of my favorite quotes in that respect is from issue 225 of Mother Earth News on page 8: "The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that installing CSP plants on 9 percent of the Southwestern deserts could produce enough electricity to meet the needs of the entire United States!"

And, before anyone starts complaining about taking 9% of the southwest away from its inhabitants - by my conservative estimates (with a 2001 dictionary and a calculator), counting Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah, as the Southwest:

Total Acres: 615 Million Acres

9% of total acres: 55 Million Acres

Total Population: 67 Million People

If each person have 2 acres*: 133 Million Acres

Remaining Acres: 482 Million Acres = 78.35% of total

They'll never miss it (especially since most people don't actually like to live in the desert), and even if only 20% to 40% of the total acreage is desert, the total population fits into 22% of the total acreage, and there's still plenty left over, so we might as well count the total population of the desert as 0.

Of course, that's just the human effect. The ecological effect of a construction project of that magnitude is something I cannot cover here, but it must be addressed, but, considering the vast tracts of land and amounts of natural resources that will be saved, it is a very very small price to pay (lose 9% of our desert to protect 100% of the country from oil drilling, coal mining, and a part of the total deforestation, and land devoted to additional power plant construction...). So, just build them, and we will all have free electricity forever (at least until the sun dies, but that's 5 billion years from now, and we'll have bigger problems than energy at that point...)

*Average city lot is 1 acre (Personal knowledge, cannot confirm, I've seen plenty of .2-.6, but let's just call it 1), average farm lot is 100 acres (total guess, cannot find info), farms make up 1% of population (from 2000 census of Texas, less than 1%)  = Average land holding per person is 1.99 acres.

Answer 2

How do you define best? As far as cost effectiveness goes, the best way to produce energy - depending on climate - at the moment is solar. With strides in conductivity and production cost, as well as (in most Western countries) hefty government rebates, a solar panel ends up paying itself off in between 2 - 5 years - purely with green energy. After that, the general life of a panel varies, but you could end up with something like 25 years of clean, green energy.

Again, depending on your climate, a wind turbine may be a better choice. They have the benefit of working day and night; however, are as a rule more costly, have less government incentives and can be impossible in suburban areas. As well as this, some (simple-minded) rural neighbours object to the impact on their skylines a turbine makes. They generally have no basis for legal recourse, but it can be an issue in your area just the same.

Of course, if you are talking in a larger, social sense, I believe a mixture of the already existing technologies can create a completely carbon-neutral society with a greater economic capacity (as we are not held back by oil). Greater use of hydroelectric schemes - whatever the negative environmental side effects, they are better than the melting of the ice caps - greater government incentives on solar panels, further development in geothermal, tidal, microbial and wind technologies and better regulation and spending coudl easily lead to a carbon-neutral society by 2030.

Answer 3

save energy then the least damaging method is Wind, followed by Solar power

Thermal, Nuclear are the dangerous ones...

Thermal due to its carbon emissions, Nuclear due to its radioactive wastes that last thousands of years...(in any case uses a lot of energy to produce nuclear energy), not to speak of the health impacts of Nuclear Energy on Mankind.

Water power is not clean power either because large dams have to be constructed in order to make the hydro electric projects - destroys lots of natural systems due to this...

Small localised hydro electric projects that work on natural running water are okay i think

Answer 4

No doubt - Nuclear

Answer 5

Cost of producing power:

Nuclear approx. $ 5.50/MW

Coal approx. $ 14.00/MW

Natural gas approx. $80 - $200/MW depending on method.

1 MW is the power required for approx. 1000 homes.

Wind and solar have a free fuel source but the cost of the generation equipment is very expensive and so far none are profitable without heavy taxpayer subsities, ratepayers will not willingly pay the additional expense when it is all apparent in their monthly bill.

As far as safety goes, the nuclear power industry is the only one in the U.S. that has never had a domestic fatality.

As a power plant engineer  I do get to see some of the costs that some others may not have access to.