Interesting poll subject VK. Do you think adding a time frame would be useful?

Are solar and wind scalable? On a side note some possible progress with regards to thorium power here

New Delhi, Dec 4 (PTI) Engineering and construction firm Punj Lloyd and U.S.-based Thorium Power would form a JV company by March 2009 to provide consultancy service for setting up nuclear power plants in India, Southeast Asia and other regions and operating them.

India has the second largest thorium reserves in the world and the successful launch of thorium technology would make the country self reliant.

I'm guessing that one of the main drawbacks of thorium power is that it is still largely untested, the question of scalability and how much water it uses as well?

Yet there are a lot of people out there working on it. Most of the stories in the news talk about open-pond types of systems, and they just let native species grow in it instead of trying to optimize for oil producing algae. What this means I don't know - one would presume that there is some subsequent step to convert the algae into something fuel-like, but I haven't seen enough details about any of them to say more than that.

Agreed...POWER DOWN !!!

Stop the waste. There must be an end to the MORE, MORE, MORE attitudes.

POWER DOWN.

I've been reading a bit of Overshoot by William Catton, still on the first chapter but it seems that humanity is well over its carrying capacity and we are drawing down more resources than over before and we are basically going to systematically exclude more and more people from access to resources by virtue of increased competition.

The Problem with growth and consumption is that they have essentially become religion and dogma. How do we circumvent this desire for more (of which I am guilty of as well) as it appears to be genetic? We are on a hedonic treadmill where enough is never enough!

Mahatma Gandhi came close when he said that "there is enough in this world to meet everyone's need but not everyone's greed". He should have put "probably" in there as well.

BAU will kill us.

Srivathsa

Some of the possibilities in ocean power look very hopeful, and in the UK distances are less to transmit the power.
Thorium reactors are also very exciting.
Unfortunately, I don't think we have the time to roll either out on a large scale for many years at best.

So my answer would be d)None of the above.

What will work in my view is aggressive conservation, wind power, some solar power in very sunny locations, the amount to be determined by the early solar thermal plants being tested, and air source heat pumps.

The critical reason for this approach is the difficulty of finance for the long term in the current climate.

Longer term, I don't think we have a real choice in the UK save to go to nuclear, off shore wind is nice and can supplement but I don't think we will be able to afford much of it.

The US in reality will probably burn more coal, but I would hope that this can be mitigated by conservation - not being able to afford it does wonders for that!

plenty of land in the Amazon.

Get a clue.

Rainforest Destruction Speeds Up

The people who monitor forest clearance say more than 4,500 square miles of Brazil's tropical woodland were chopped down from August 2007 to July 2008. That's an area more than half the size of Wales and nearly four per cent bigger than in the previous 12 months.

The lush forest is known as "the lungs of the world" because the trees breathe in gases like carbon dioxide - which are harmful to us - and breathe out oxygen, cleaning the air for us.

But, forget about alternative fuels for the next several years. Financing is gone; the public doesn't care. Oil headed for $10 a barrel.

... Kinda like the last time, at the end of the 1970s, and the "Limits to Growth" movement.

What is your point? What is palm oil if not alternative fuel? How can a credit collapse be anything other than what it is, a calamity?

I don't think any business or industry - and few individuals - would agree the current credit failure extending perpetually into the future as having many compensating benefits, certainly not as a leading condition to keeping energy prices low. If your desire is to have a growing economy with low prices, it is not realistic.

Any racheting upward of economic growth here in the US would have energy prices hiking upward ... and dramatically, too. At the same time, government actions to end the credit crisis are making more likely a payment- centered energy shortage is in the near future:

"There is a lot more money to be spent and it is not clear how it is going to be financed,” said Tim Brunne, a Munich-based credit strategist at UniCredit SpA. “Credit spreads don’t reflect expectation of default, just the uncertainty over the enormous cost to the government.”

The Fed’s new plan to kick-start markets for loans to students, car buyers, credit-card borrowers and small businesses means it will be taking on credit risk by buying debt. The central bank pledged to purchase as much as $500 billion in mortgage-backed securities as well as up to $100 billion in direct debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the world’s two largest mortgage buyers, and Federal Home Loan Banks.

“They are loading their balance sheet with credit risk,” Brunne said in a phone interview. “Where does all the money come from?”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=abQebPN6cIlg

In case you haven't noticed, the auto industry is standing at the edge of the abyss. I suppose if all the car makers go out of business, there will be a lot less demand for fuel, which would certainly keep prices down.

Something to look forward to ...