Geothermal energy is a great idea... it has one main fault, one it is underdeveloped and the amount of energy loss from the technique itself would be a facet that needs to be greatly looked into.
Just so everyone else knows what geothermal energy is. Basically its pouring thousands and thousands of water on a granite beds in the MIDDLE of australia, these granite beds then super heat the water till it turns into steam, the steam then rises and subsequently turns a turbine. This turbine provides electricity.
Which brings me back to its main fault, these granite beds are in the middle of Australia, power has to be transported a VERY long distance to the "grid" (cities towns and such) which results in power loss, this is caused by the large amount of resistance provided by its means of transport (generally copper wire).
I would love to use geothermal energy its smart, clean and basically unlimited just not realistic though
Anyone saying that Nuclear power is dangerous is really a fool to the media hype created by Chernobyl and probably the link between nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons.
The disaster in Chernobyl was a result of a poor quality power plant. NO power plant in this day and age would use the same programs, safety schemes and techniques that Chernobyl used. That particular power plant used systems that were outdated even at the time.
Any way we are gonna be screwed for ages no matter what. If we keep using black coal for energy, its going to progress the same in regards to the environment. Using "cleaner" black coal techniques will just waste money and time and in the end result hurt us more because we spent to much time and energy integrating newer systems into society. SO when we have no chioce but to use a new source of energy we are going to have a LOT of infrastructure based on coal therefore loss in jobs, and money to keep us going and no coal to export.
If we change energy sources now we going have to change our infrastructure completely and it will extremely hard for a period of time but in the end run will be worth it. During that time we can jack up the prices (not sure on this) in coal ad export to countries that still need it
IMO Nuclear energy would great for a certain amount of time. (check out sweden), its waste will have many used when nuclear power isnt something to be afraid of or thought of negatively. Ask anyone in sweden about nuclear power, they'll tell you its awesome.
Geothermal has a lot of potential.
Most other renewable energy is fine in small doses I.E. couldn't realistically be used for the whole nation.
Brown coal i'm not to sure about sounds to similar to black coal and we would end up in the same place we are now eventually
But really we need to change now, prolonging the end of coal is just hurting the Earth more
This was based all on my year 12 report for physics (oh yer got an A
), which was yonks ago sorry if some bits are inaccurate.