And let's not forget that we don't just have to address to power production, the biggest chance of making a change in our consumption is to find ways of reducing the power we need.
A classic example is the low-energy light bulb. My house now demands, in total, something like 250watt for lighting. A few years ago that would have been the energy demand for two rooms.
Also, heating will never be cheap (as Beeman pointed out), so why waste it by having a poorly insulated home? Less loss means less input is required (unless, like Mrs Onepot, you think the surface of the sun is a bit chilly).
GC
i was going to post, but you said pretty much what i would have said. im a heating engineer by trade, but it still amazes me that i look at houses where they will be prepared to spend a couple of grand on a heating upgrade, but not a couple of hundred on keeping all that expensive heat inside the place!!
there isnt a single solution to the energy debate, it has to be a large number of small solutions depending on local environment, im a big fan of hydro, but on smaller local scales, you dont get the transmission losses when the plant is in the back garden, i like the micro hydro at newmills in derbyshire, its in the remains of a victorian watr powered cotton mill, and uses an archimedes screw to generate power, it also works on very low water level differences and flows, theres only 6 foot or so difference between top and bottom of the unit. as well as this theres solar thermal, pv, wind tidal and wave as well as large scale offshore wind. the irony of all this in view of the developments in japan is that had the renewables industry had the same financial governmnet support and subsidy that the nuclear induistry has had this past 50 years, then we might not be needing to have this debate, and nuclear power plants could be mentioned in the same kind of 'what were we thinking' arguments as asbestos and thalidomide.
