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Originally Posted by XabbaRus
Nuclear power, the only realistic alternative in my mind.
Yes wind power, solar power and wave power are great in theory but each on their own can't provide the amount of energy currently supplied by conventional power stations.
Even a mix of the technologies.
Nuclear power stations provide the power wihtout the emissions.
Now I haven't forgotten about the waste issue. Well you plan for that. Disposal has to be built into the plan. Hopefully progress will be made with fusion technology.
There is also the net carbon saving to be taken into account when building these things. If more CO2 is going to be generated building a powerplant than will be saved over the lifetime of its operations then is it worth it?
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Probably also a reason why Europe has lower CO2 emissions. The US has a lot of the dirtier coal-burning plants (which spit out much worse stuff in addition to CO2), while clean nuclear is more common in Europe. Of course, our eco-nuts are hard at work to outlaw nuclear power, after their previous success: stopping fast breeder reactors which would have created less waste and be more efficient than the reactors currently in use. Their approach makes sense if they want total energy reduction: getting the cleanest technology banned is easier when there are still alternatives, so they do that first, and at the end when the only tech left is very dirty, they can still oppose that because the flaws are obvious. And then we can go back to the stone age.