Vince wrote:

I believe that the only source of green energy comes from hydro electric facilities, where they use water flow to drive turbines to produce billions of little amp ants that run through the copper cables. This of course is after they have used a heap of power to produce the hydro plants. Paul, Airbus are currently researching/experimenting with concept planes that use electricity for short haul and hydrogen...stored as a liquid in the aircraft...for longer haul flights. However these are long term projects...well into the 30’s.

Tidal beats hydro in a lot of places matey - only the buggers won't spend what's needed, as the return takes longer than a couple of government terms.
Plus ewe need to stop building crap that only lasts a few years & go back to making our own, high quality goods, buildings & infrastructure.

Heck; they're building "green" homes here in the UK with a life of 30-40 years because they use half the energy of "old style" houses.
Those "old style" houses will still be around in 150 years, so which one is the most environmentally friendly...

IF all you did on a new build was install enough solar to heat your water...that saves something in vicinity of 60% off your normal power bill
dairy farms have huge roof area on sheds and normally use something like 800ltrs of hot water a day....
mate has small hydro system BUT its a dicky set up...makes 24volt,goes into 12volt battteries then converts to 240volt..so it looses ooomph each time it converts voltage.....IF they could run 12volt from start to finish it would solve a lot of the issues...
another friend has tiny solar panel...maybe 10"x4" it runs 3 led lights and has more than enough stored in small bank of batteries to last all night.
the 12volt battery hooked up to large panel is supposed to run wee fridge freezer...but it jumps voltage too much and wont switch back on...you need good sparky to set these types of system up...and maybe a health check every now and then to keep them going.

The long term endgame solution will be when they make a breakthrough and can transmit power wirelessly over long distances. Once you can pull that off, we can build infinitely scalable solar grids in orbit that face the sun 24/7... forever.

-DallanC

English Mike...tidal is an outstanding option for the UK with the way the North Sea is constantly rolling, but for other parts of the world, the tidal ebb and flow along with wave action is not as aggressive. Having said that, there are parts of north Western Australia where a tidal flow difference of metres between high and low, and the tides comes in almost faster than a man can run would be ideal for tidal generation of power. It all comes down to how much the power companies are willing to spend.

For anything to be adopted it must be better than what we have, both economically and functionally. A few years back I checked in to making my house totally solar powered. The expense was more than I paid for the house!

Electric cars are cool for commuting short distances but I really don't want to have to keep interrupting my vacation to spend a few hours recharging.

I think eventually the technology will get there but, for now, I'll just keep what I got.

The big down side of solar and wind is what do you do with products that age out? The parts can't be recycled except for the alternator in the wind turbines so it all goes into a land fill. THAT is a BIG waste of energy and materials. There are better PV units on the horizon that are more or less recyclable but look at the amount of panels that will be replaced or removed in the next 20 years...