Alternative Forms of Energy???

When Oil and Gas eventually run out.

Nuclear, Wind, Waste, Solar, Wave, back to Coal, other?

I think it will be Solar.

Oxen.

Not really one for conspiracy theories, but I believe that the oil giants own nearly all the important sustainable energy patents.

That's why the investment in development of wind, solar, wave, geothermal, hydro, hydrogen and other technologies has been starved and that's why they're still so crap.

I guess the big boys will decide what they develop when they've finished squeezing out the last drop of carbon fuel they can get their hands on.

The stop gap will be nuclear and if that goes well it's likely that other sustainable forms of energy will never be developed.

Wind farms are a massive waste of money. They are incredibly inefficient and ugly. We still need nuclear but the future has to be reliable and sustainable; so solar, tidal and geo-thermal when we have sufficiently effective technology.

With the adage of 'Necessity is the mother of invention', I would go for cold fusion, or solar power on a much more industialised scale than now, i.e. solar farms, etc.

It currently costs more energy to physically produce a solar panel than the energy it produces.

Now that doesn't surprise me !

It does surprise me. How much energy does it take to make a solar panel and how much energy does a solar panel generate over it's full lifetime?

Alien intervention will show us the way.

It is worrying how the world will cope in terms of energy supplies in a hundred years time. I think the world will be ok for producing electricity due to Nuclear enegery, wind, tidal, solar, etc. Nuclear power is clearly the way forward.

But we're so reliant on oil for cars, lorries, planes, etc and how do you replace that? We all know that electric cars are like a laughing stock, you get about 100 miles and then need to charge it up for 6 hours - but if all cars and planes were electric, that would require them to produce so much more electricity.

I am glad I won't be about to see these problems when oil runs out.