So if Fusion suddenly becomes viable, what changes?

[someone_else]

I don't understand why when everyone thinks of renewables they talk of photovoltaics and wind, traditionally the lower-efficiency renewables.

What about wave energy from the sea? Another article

That's where I'd put my chips on to save our ass from energy crisis.
A farm of goddamn floating buoys with generators. Is it so hard to do?

I think I need to state that there seems to exist alternatives to ITER-style, electromagnetically confined fusion reactor.

There are plenty of cheaper ways than ITER around. Polywells are my favourite.

Although cheaper does not mean that they will work, just that it will take less money to see if they are a dead end or not.

[Skgoa]

That's where I'd put my chips on to save our ass from energy crisis.

And thats the attitude that I can't understand. Why insist on a one-size-fits-all solution?

[Simon_Jester]

That's where I'd put my chips on to save our ass from energy crisis.

And thats the attitude that I can't understand. Why insist on a one-size-fits-all solution?

Yeah. I'll take what I can get, thankyouverymuch.

My point is that which solution(s) get(s) adopted as the main one(s)* is going to depend on a huge complex of factors, chief among them cost. If it costs a dollar per kilowatt-hour to generate the electricity, people will find ways to make do with a lot less electricity because it's just plain not worth the bother, no matter how impressive and shiny and advanced the power plant is. People will make do with one dim bulb instead of two brighter ones, power economy will be the killer app for computers, and so on. This is just common sense; it's the same thing that we see when gas prices hit four dollars a gallon.

The majority of the world's power will always be generated in the most cost-effective way possible. Which methods are most cost-effective is up in the air, and to really get the answer is a job for ten years' study of civil engineering and industrial considerations. Plus, the answers change over time.

Anyone who makes a fetish out of fission power or solar cells or wind turbines is just being silly.

*There are two forms of this sentence, with one and two S's respectively.

[Skgoa]

I agree, just one minor thing I would like to add:

Plus, the answers change over time.

They change with location, too.

[andrewgpaul]

Pumped storage runs straight into the problem of environmentalists refusing all new hydro projects

That is definitely a big problem, the only real way around it is to build your reservoirs inside a mountain like the Cruachan facility just opened in Scotland (and embarrassingly enough just shut again as one of the water flow tunnels collapsed) but that’s obviously hugely expensive and rather limited on where you can do it.

"Just opened"? It's been running for 45 years. Do you have any references for this tunnel collapse? I can't find anything via Google.

[Tolya]

Nuclear fission is a economic failure

Can you provide any verifiable grounds for your claims? Because the last time I checked EIA'a Annual Energy Outlook 2011, it said something exactly opposite.