Metcalf Power Plant - 600-megawatt (MW), electrical output, natural-gas-fired, combined-cycle generating facility consisting of two modern combustion turbines and a condensing steam turbine.

What are our choices as energy sources? What are the differences in environmental impacts associated with these choices? What energy options and research should we be pursuing to obtain cheap energy in the future and to assure the least adverse impact on our environment?

Europa provides information regarding the objectives, activities and policies of the European Commission (EC) with respect to European Union (EU) Energy Research. The US Department of Energy presents energy options from the viewpoint of the American government. A summary of renewable energy options can be found at Wikipedia.

The Electric Power Research Institute does research financed by the power industry in the USA. Nuclear and fusion energy information and option comparison can be found at nuclearinfo.net (an Austalian site favorable to nuclear power) and fusedweb (fusion power information from the University of California Lawrence Livermore Laboratory).

Energy Options

Energy Options

Fossil Fuel

Efficiency & Conservation

Renewable

Nuclear Fission & Fusion

Exotic

Option Comparison Chart

Known energy options are described to the right. The chart - Energy Option Comparisons - compares the options in a number of ways, including their impact on the environment.

As a note of caution, options having the greatest potential as economical energy sources are the least feasible given the current state of knowledge.

If optimism on discovering the energy elixir is misplaced, many of the visions found on this website will remain a fantasy.

Two Energy Crisises

At this time in human history we face two crisises related to energy. One involves the pending exhaustion of cheap fossil fuel energy sources. The other relates to the impact on global climate and the environment arising from the consumption of these same energy sources. How we approach and work to solve these energy crisises will have an immense impact on the world of the future.

Much of the world's resources, especially those of the USA and China, seem to be directed toward controlling, extracting and obtaining more reserves of fossil fuel. Success here may put off the first crisis, but it will exacerbate the second.

Different Approach

An informed examination of our energy options and their differing impact upon the environment lead to the conclusion that our resources should be directed into different areas:

Establishing mandatory standards for energy efficiency in all products consuming energy, including vehicles and buildings, and
Research to attain feasible and economic (meaning cheap) energy production from essentially infinite energy sources having minimal to no impact upon the environment.

Our success in directing resources toward solving the world's energy crisis will be a major determinant of the world our children inhabit two centuries in the future. Organizations actively examining our options include the World Energy Council and the International Energy Agency.

Key Question

The key question is: Can we perfect new sources of energy faster than we deplete the current ones? In the past the answer to this question has always been yes. That doesn't mean it will be yes this time, but we can tilt the odds in our favor by accelerating our rate of innovation and slowing our rate of consumption.