In the title.

I think solar power is. Specifically, using mirrors to gather the sun's power in places that are always sunny and scarcely inhabited, such as the Sahara.

jasonZed : as shown in japan and chernoybl, nuclear is exceptionaly dangerous,and the pollution very great.
The halflife of nuclear waste spans thousands of years,plus the stations need rebuilt so often.

I dont think there is any 1 solution,but the best are solar panels, windfarms and water turbines(placed at sea)

Gas would a good source mainly because of the fossil gas we get from digging.

thenumberone : True that things have happened in Japan and Chernobyl and that indirect pollution can be a great risk, but the point is how much energy that nuclear produces. The problem with things like geothermal, solar and wind power is how little energy they produce at a high cost.
You know what? I'm going to change my answer. Have you ever heard of cold fusion? This is when 2 Hydrogen atoms combine to create a Helium atom. Normally this needs extreme heat, for example in the sun where it happens millions of times a second, but the miracle of cold fusion uses a special chemical (as far as I know) to combine them in the cold. So, when we somehow figure out how to actually do it, cold fusion will probably not only be the future but the whole of energy in the future.

jasonZed : im holding out on an efficient form of fusion,but as a short term.
Im hoping renewable tech will improve to the point where it produces many times more energy,its still a new area
I wonder what they will figure out first,fusion or cold fusion...

I think we will have a system of wind/solar power, as the wind will keep the power running while the solar power was down.  We should stop with gas and oil because it is wasting our environment, so the solar and wind power will use natural occurrences to provide us with power.

I think Bio fuels are going to be good source of energy. The only problem is that you have to grow. Wind power is also good. wind turbines are very clean and efficient . 

I think geothermal is the safest and best way to get energy in the future.  It is basically using solar power that is stored in the earth and unlike conventional solar panels, it is effective both when it is night and cloudy. There is almost no environmental hazards involved, and significantly less when compared to any  other form of energy collection. They can be installed at almost any location, some even are used at the bottoms of lakes (not buried just absorbing from the water). Compared to hydro and wind turbines, which can only be utilized in rivers or highly windy areas, geothermal can be used at much more locations. You could put it in your back yard, and it would be practically unnoticable. 

The disruption they cause to the environment is similar to digging out a basement for a house (although geothermal requires significantly less material to be dug up). Depending on what type of geothermal conductors you use they may only need to be buried a few feet in the ground. There are two styles that I am aware of, the horizontally laid ones that are less efficient but only need to be a few feet in the ground, or the verticle ones that require a relatively shallow hole to be drilled out. The environmental hazards from the verticle ones is similar to installing a well, there is a potential for going into an aquafer.  There is more chance of a well contaminating the aquafer as the hole in the geothermal installation process are sealed up so contaminents are much less likely to get in to the aquafer. 


Some one mentioned fusion, and that might very well end up being a very effective and efficient way of harnessing energy. However we do not have that technology and may never have it. 

Steam!

varg : Please don't make posts with only one word. The thread asks why. So why do you think steam is the future of alternative energy?

tj4bigred : Its almost infinite and does not pollute 

I think the most important future energy we could ever have, if we ever figure out how to create it is Fission. Fission is practically perfect for anything, as once its created its self sustainable and only one plant could power the entire eastern seaboard of the United States. I mean I'm not going to lie, that's seriously impressive. The only downside I can see to it is how expensive it would be to research and to create a suitable housing plant and to actually power it and make the fission viable as an energy source for this world that's never ending.

Short of that though, I see bio fuels as being the next big thing. Ethanol is a fairly cheap and easy source for the market especially considering in the US almost 40% of the corn grown is now being used as Ethanol. The only way I don't see that working is vehicular companies not designing the engines of their cars to run on bio. But when they do I'm sure we'd be able to have an easy source of energy that would stop pollution from out cars. I can't say Bio-fuel would be good enough for home or electrical energy, and things like that as I do not know a ton about bio, but it certainly seems to be a better option then nuclear which can be disastrous if even one thing goes wrong.

Another viable option would be solar. But the amount of power it takes for anything solar to run for long times takes a huge field of shields. Just off what I know of solar energy it would take upwards of to ten thousands shields just to supply the north eastern section of USA. And that seems a bit much and not so cost effective in the long run. Considering they would have to constantly be cleaned and maintained. Even specs of dirt limit their collection input and what they can transfer to viable energy, and that seems like a huge waste of money in the actual long haul.

So comparing economic wise I would say Fission and Bio-fuels are the best option for anything of future energy. Fossil fuels are running out, and natural gas will eventually be out too. So we need to find a way to get ourselves to have fission and more advanced forms of Bio-fuel to run this world. At least, that's what I think.

DarkDragonBlade : ethanol isnt clean, its just a lot less polutant than petrol/diesel.
its also more explosive which can be a problem, it has lower gram energy yield and i believe it is corosive to the engine.

Well I believe we're in for a variety of "alternative" energy sources. As can already be seen, coal power use is WAY down these days in favor of cleaner burning natural gas and more sustainable sources of energy.

Unfortunately, I do not believe that solar power will be the wave of the future exactly. I think in the coming years we will see a huge boon in solar power, but I don't think that will be something that can last forever, because as society progresses, and populations increase, more space is required for living, and we may simply not have a lot of room for huge solar farms. That said, I do believe that in the future many buildings will contain their own solar panels to supplement the energy they receive from outside sources, and in the case of homes, maybe even make them completely self-reliant.

DarkDragonBlade : You're thinking about fusion--or more specifically, cold fusion. We already have fission technology running our current nuclear power plants, and whilst it is highly efficient it is not nearly "self sustainable". Fusion still requires an input of materials to be fused. The only reason it seems so easy for the sun is because the sun is HUGE. It has such large stores of materials that would just be impossible on Earth. However, fusion works best with light elements, like hydrogen which, luckily for us, just happens to be one of the most abundant resources in the universe--although it is a little bit more difficult to come by here on Earth.

I definitely think solar power will be the future to out energy sources in various cases, especially operating some vehicles. Using gasoline is not  a very good thing for the environment, so harnessing energy from the sun, which is pretty much unlimited during the day, would be a great way to not only stop some of the pollution, but also eliminated the money wasted on as for cars. Overall, even though it would require some space with solar panels and such, I think solar energy is the way to go for the future. I mean, in the places around the world that get no type of electrical power due to their location, harnessing the sun's energy over in those mostly desolate areas would help them thrive.

I'm hoping something comes along that does better than everything else and does awesome.


Though I'm hoping a space elevator becomes possible, and then superconductors. A solar farm out in space, where light is much more abundant (it's not filtered through an atmosphere first), and then piped down to Earth.
Seems good in my head; I'm not any kind of engineer or physicist to do the math and see if that's a viable solution or not, though.

Argus Swift : Uhm... Superconductors are already possible, they're just not very useful right now because they only work near absolute zero, and it currently takes more energy to create the superconductivity than they would produce.

I personally believe that we'll see a mixture of different alternative energy sources.

Solar, Wind, and Hydro is what the future of energy in my opinion.

I've always been a fan of increasing use of nuclear power. Its actually clean, and it supplies more power and lasts longer than gas at the same time.