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[Vactor]

We have all the energy we could use right now blazing away in the sky.. and thats just the tiny portion of the sun's emissions that are hitting the pinhead that is our planet.. its sending out that much energy in a full 360x360 degrees.

Leaving the toxic scraps of our energy solutions laying around the planet is not a long term solution, nor is it a particularly inspired one...

1. mine coal
2. burn coal
3. dump toxic waste on the ground behind a wall
4. ??
5. Profit!

It really is a question of when.  Nothing lasts forever, and every civilization (barring the few current ones) has fallen.  it may be 4000 years from now, but there may come a point where there isn't the organization necessary to maintain the jerry-rigged solutions we have developed.

Theres more than cost that makes throwing nuclear waste on a rocket to the sun a bad idea.  It would only take one rubber valve to crack to spew all that waste out into the atmosphere. (space elevator would resolve that, or catapult)

I wouldn't mind nuclear if we could treat and truly dispose of the waste, not just hide it somewhere, but I think Fusion and solar are the future.  Solar panels can be made with a computer printer, with the right motivation it wouldn't be hard for our societies to begin harassing sunlight where ever it shines.  The siding on your house could have ingrained photo cells, your windows, your shingles.  In 50-100 years i'm guessing that household energy will largely be generated on location with large power plants (possibly fusion) only used for industry and to cover any gaps.  Power companies will be more brokers than producers.  Your car will act as a back up battery for your house.  People will be selling power to the grid, rather than buying from it.

One last thing before i stop rambling.  One of the biggest things that will need to be done to advance on energy is to make advances available everywhere on the globe as soon as possible.  If everyone who uses oil or coal now managed to move on to some other energy source, the same amount of oil and coal would be used, just by the people who couldn't afford it before.  Its like when locomotives were first developed some guy in the business speculated that the price of coal would plummet as they developed more efficient engines.  It actually turn out the other way, because as the engines became more efficient, people just ended up using the surplus coal in more ways.

[JoshuaFH]

I saw this crazy thing on a program called ecopolis, where they take trash, and blast plasma at it until it turns into something that turns into much more energy, with very little emissions.

I wish I could remember the details, besides the show's name.

[sneakey pete]

It turns it into gasses which can be cobusted for some of the energy back (that was used to turn it into plasma), and its likely that burning these gasses will be bad for the environment.

Re: "printing solar panels with a computer printer", i'm pretty sure that's just a misinterpretation, and that they have to be printed with a specalized device similar to a computer printer.

[Osmosis Jones]

You would be surprised what you can do with a humble printer. A mate of mine is using an old household printer to print Ion Selective Electrodes (ISEs) onto gold substrates (old CDs he's stripped the plastic off) for his honours.

Regarding solar power, while it's great in theory, current technology is pretty woeful when it comes to efficiency, and the production of the silicon wafers used is very energy intensive. I'd say a more cost effective route, at present would be either geothermal or wind, at least until solar technology catches up (cells using organic dyes show some promise).

[HAMMERMILL]

Yeah, coal is nasty to the enviroment. There are a LOT of these fly-ash pits in the coal-mining country and its just as unpleasant as it sounds.

The news story reminds me of that town in Pennsylvania that was abandoned because of a coal fire that is still raging outside of town.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

But what can you do? Coal is the only practical way to provide power considering the expense and difficulties with trying to completely replace it with alternatives.

[sneakey pete]

You can take some heart in the fact that we're likely to run out of economical coal within 60 years. I'm getting the feeling that its going to be an interesting 21st century, when it comes energy supply on the planet.

Also: holy heck that's interesting.

[Vactor]

here's a link to inkjets being used to create photo cells:  http://www.allbusiness.com/electronics/computer-equipment-computer-printers/10536651-1.html

[JoshuaFH]

Yeah, coal is nasty to the enviroment. There are a LOT of these fly-ash pits in the coal-mining country and its just as unpleasant as it sounds.

The news story reminds me of that town in Pennsylvania that was abandoned because of a coal fire that is still raging outside of town.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

But what can you do? Coal is the only practical way to provide power considering the expense and difficulties with trying to completely replace it with alternatives.

Wait, there's an underground fire that's been burning for over forty years?!

[kuro_suna]

I wouldn't mind nuclear if we could treat and truly dispose of the waste, not just hide it somewhere,

You could reprocess the waste, about 97% could be turned into more fuel and 3% into short lived waste that would only be dangerous for 50 years or so. Reprocessing still has some bugs to work out but I don't think we can get rid of fossil fuels without it, solar is good for rural areas but for big city's nuclear power is usually the only other option.
Fusion is interesting but it will probably be at least 50 years before it becomes a practical power source.

[Osmosis Jones]

Wait, there's an underground fire that's been burning for over forty years?!

Try 6000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Mountain

[JoshuaFH]

Coal seams must be pretty frickin huge to last that long...

[Osmosis Jones]

Well, they're big and have very low oxygen levels, so it's a very slow reaction.

[HAMMERMILL]

Nuclear energy isn't a perfect solution anyways, simply because the world's supply of uranium ore would be depleted in a a few decades if it started to take over for coal power. I personally think the issues of nuclear safety are moot. They've been proven to be very safe and modern reactions even more so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium

A perfectly safe breeder-reactor would be an awesome solution since it produces more fuel then it consumes and allows a hundredfold increase in the amount of energy to be produced per mass unit of uranium.

Fusion power would be interesting, but it always "20 years from now" when it will become viable.

[Aqizzar]

A perfectly safe breeder-reactor would be an awesome solution since it produces more fuel then it consumes and allows a hundredfold increase in the amount of energy to be produced per mass unit of uranium.

Produces more fuel than it consumes...  Run that by me again will you?

[HAMMERMILL]

Yeah it sounds like it breaks the laws of physics but... it just creates more fissile material then it consumes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor

A breeder reactor is a nuclear reactor that generates new fissile or fissionable material at a greater rate than it consumes such material... to directly qoute wikipedia.