Pretty meaty topic here folks. And in the posts already you can see this could get really heated as there a LOT of aspects to the full topic of energy.
Production
Storage
Distribution
Each of these have impacts and with the inhabitable Earth now having some pretty scary timelines, the issue of how much impact does each type of production, each storage solution and what do we do the Earth to distribute the energy, carry, becomes paramount.
Worst overall is any production producing CO2. There is a potential for mitigation here in CO2 capture systems and there are some innovative technologies now that show promise of being scaled. Even a company based in Squamish has some leading innovation in the field. A solution that will be fought hard by any corporation or government relying on petro energy will be to mandate CO2 capture systems with every refinery, every power plant, every big consumer of fossil fuels ... pretty big ask and politically more than likely a non starter in the fossil fuel producing nations.
Solar, wind, tidal all have potential and all should be developed as best as possible for the region. FOR THE REGION. Iceland is a classic case of a small region taking full advantage of a natural energy source in geothermal. Tidal should be considered wherever there are protected shorelines, wind wherever there are natural winds. Hydro on a large region scale is by its nature a big project. With hindsight, hydro should have been developed a long time ago when the cost wasn't going to run in the many B$s but that is how it is. Quebec and BC have done pretty OK in hydro. Site C? I could never understand why that location was picked. Beyond my pay grade, but the province is already invested so do you fish or cut bait? We are going to need electricity so argue away as to whether this is good investment or not.
Nuclear - well when a fuck up happens, its big and there are arguments about the overall environmental and financial impact all along the chain from mining, processing to the final reactor. Traditionally these are big projects, many billions. Much more cost when you have a poorly managed facility (Chernobyl) or an incredibly stupid geographic choice (Fukushima). Think SMR's though for the future. A small modular reactor (about 1B$) could power a medium sized community and its supporting industry. Minimal maintenance of the order of 20 years before refueling. These are being built to be fail safe so putting one on the coast is not smart, but on bedrock or effectively stable ground is not a bad deal. Also a lot of work is being done such that these burn the big reactor waste. If one gets over the bogyman that is nuclear, these could be win-win's.
Then you have the topic of storing what has been produced. Obviously fossil fuel and nuclear are on demand but wind, solar, potentially tidal though lesser a deal all need a storage solution. Hydro is by its nature is a stored solution, ie the reservoir carries the potential energy so as long as it is reasonably full, no problem. So you get into the world of batteries, super capacitors, etc etc. As an aside I saw a very cool demo of a turbine with massive flywheel. Takes hours to get the flywheel up to speed, almost as long for it to wind down. Pretty cool energy storage solution.
And distribution. Brings up the whole pipeline argument which is the single best way to move oil and possibly other things if we can work out slurry tech. But locating a power plant hundreds of miles from the users just ups the problems, costs etc with more transmission lines, transformer stations, etc. Its my opinion that distribution may become one of the most important topics as we move forward.
Meaty, good topic.
Oh, and Happy Pooning!
