Hydro: when, especially when used on rivers near coasts with migrating fish--isn't the panacea it was historically thought to be--it ruins the flow of nutrient-rich silt that feeds carbon-capturing flora and cuts off nutrients to small fish which hurts big fish and apex predators.
Tidal: though great in theory--can do a lot of harm when installed naively on the coast in the middle of sensitive ecosystems--though I think some of the experimental deeper, further-offshore installations might mitigate that.
Nuclear: I think we biffed this one for decades--and though the technology is there to make it work. There sadly just isn't enough political and public support anymore. Not to mention to scale up 100s of billions or trillions of dollars of nuclear plants could easily take 20-30 years--time that I don't think we have.
Geo: Works great but only in specific regions.
That leaves solar and wind as the biggest options that we can scale up quickly and can likely get political and public support for. N. Europe is killing it with its MASSIVE offshore wind installations and thank goodness solar continues to fall in price. In the US, anyway, I think the right liberal leadership could budget big for this and tackle a big chunk of the problem in 10 years. But, King Cheeto Fucktard is going to have to be out before that will happen meaningfully with Federal mondy. C'est la vie...
Solar and wind needs to be coupled with a miraculous improvement in energy storage to be feasible. Currently, solar energy would be better called "natural gas supplemented by solar".
Hydro: when, especially when used on rivers near coasts with migrating fish--isn't the panacea it was historically thought to be--it ruins the flow of nutrient-rich silt that feeds carbon-capturing flora and cuts off nutrients to small fish which hurts big fish and apex predators.
Tidal: though great in theory--can do a lot of harm when installed naively on the coast in the middle of sensitive ecosystems--though I think some of the experimental deeper, further-offshore installations might mitigate that.
Nuclear: I think we biffed this one for decades--and though the technology is there to make it work. There sadly just isn't enough political and public support anymore. Not to mention to scale up 100s of billions or trillions of dollars of nuclear plants could easily take 20-30 years--time that I don't think we have.
Geo: Works great but only in specific regions.
That leaves solar and wind as the biggest options that we can scale up quickly and can likely get political and public support for. N. Europe is killing it with its MASSIVE offshore wind installations and thank goodness solar continues to fall in price. In the US, anyway, I think the right liberal leadership could budget big for this and tackle a big chunk of the problem in 10 years. But, King Cheeto Fucktard is going to have to be out before that will happen meaningfully with Federal mondy. C'est la vie...