What is the best alternative energy source in your opinion?

Nuclear

methane count?

Solar. If we ever find a way to make huge solar collectors to put in orbit and transmit that energy down here - that may solve a lot of problems.

Wind and solar. The two combined would definitely ease the world energy crisis.

solar, hydro, tidal, wave, wind. Nuclear is good but what do you do with the waste? If I built a home it would be solar mostly with probably some sort of steam backup (for cloudy days).

Wind, and offshore wind mining is where the Investment world is going. I work at the third largest Investment Bank and yes off shore wind mining work because the wind speeds are generally about 20 percent higher off shore. BUY STOCKS NOW!

I think wind has the edge today. I read that a province in Germany gets 1/3 of its energy from wind.

However, solar seems to be on the edge of an efficiency breakthrough and has the potential to be much cheaper than wind.

Nonetheless, there are places where geothermal is the best and cheapest, even cheaper than coal or nuclear. All you need is proximity to volcanically active areas. Hawai, Alaska and Wyoming could easily get ALL their electricity from geothermal. In my country we get ALL our energy from geothermal and hydro-dams. In addition to the electicity you can use the high pressure warm water (almost boiling) to warm up the houses (not that you need that in Hawai I guess), so that also saves electricity. No recerch is needed, all the technology exists today and is being used.

Thus, geothermal is very cheap, effective and without any pollution at all, but only available in certain areas. Ok tecnically it is everywhere if you just drill deep enough. But places like the ones I mentioned are much more suitable than others, and for them geothermal is like an untapped goldmine. I am not exaggerating.

If you come from such a place geothermal is the best sorce of renewable energy.


Hydro. The amount of electricity depends on the size obviously so they vary greatly on that scale. They are relatively cost effective, but there might be limits to how many rivers or lakes can be utilized. There is a slight downside to. While hydro is "cleaner" than coal or nuclear, it is not without an environmental cost. Large dam projects, can take up considerable large areas of land and disturb wildlife to some extent. The environmental cost must be judged case by case and in relation to the alternatives.

GeoThermal....clean...unlimited and its everywhere.

The U.S. should become the world's leading producer of alternative energy technology. It could become our new and best manufacturing niche in the world--everyone needs it.

We got the brain power and the man power, but we need a government behind it. Not old men who still want to cling to their polluting oil and coal stocks.

I would have to say either Nucler Fusion or Solar Arrays in space.

Solar, if the technology can be made cheap and many more times efficient than now.
There is sunlight almost everywhere, especially in space and it just needs to be tapped into

Tidal/wave and wind.

Nuclear fusion. Not nuclear fission which we use today. Then use the profits combined with the space budget to ship the waste matter to the sun.

Wind

Fusion, if only they could crack containment - it's the Holy Grail of power generation. Clean, limitless power! I guess the only risk would be heat pollution. See fusion.org.uk.

Sun, in my opinion
or wind