what is the best mix of energy generation to reduce CO2?

Concentrated solar thermal should be one of our main energy sources because it can provide baseload power at relatively low cost (as low as 10 cents per kWh within the next decade).

http://climateprogress.org/2008/04/14/concentrated...

Many solar thermal plants have been and are being built.

http://climateprogress.org/2009/02/11/southern-cal...

Wind is another big one. It's a very cheap technology (5-10 cents per kWh) and there's tons of land in the US midwest with strong winds.

http://climateprogress.org/2009/02/10/itc-to-build...

Geothermal and tidal also have big potential.

http://climateprogress.org/2008/05/23/hot-rocks-ar...

Coal with biomass cofiring plus carbon capture and storage could also be part of the mix.

A good summary in the link below.

Nuclear Fission is the only power source we have that can provide the energy we need when we need it (we haven't perfected energy storage technology to the level we'd need for renewables to be viable, the only utility scale energy storage system is pumped hydro which require a hydroelectricity dam and the developed world has used up about half the good hydro sites (with the others in national parks)), where we need it while not emit CO2 into the atmosphere.

Wind and terrestrial solar only help if you've got energy storage, without it all you are doing is causing a fossil fuel fired power plant to change output constantly (and if you don't keep enough spinning reserve the wind dying down can mean rolling blackouts).

Where hydroelectricity or geothermal power can be used then they'll play an important role, but the biggest part of solving global warming will be done by Uranium and Thorium.

Clean coal is very probably a waste of money (even if it works it'll have crappy economics unless you let it release CO2 into the atmosphere and it is by no means certain that it won't take more energy to pump the CO2 into the ground than you get from burning the coal). Basically it's PR nonsense to try to keep coal from being banned while they keep building more dirty coal plants.

Pretty obvious there that we should be putting most of our resources into Fission (but keep providing R&D money to the alternatives, especially fusion and space solar (which both show great promise) along with the sequestration part of clean coal to deal with the excess CO2 we've already put into the atmosphere).

Transportation fuels are also something that is going to be dealt with and which is going to be harder than electricity (where we've already got a viable fossil fuel replacement) although it's less of a problem. For railways just stringing up overhead lines will allow you to use clean electricity to run the trains (along with giving better performance and lower operational costs) and large ships could convert to nuclear power but everything else is probably going to have to use either batteries or synthetic fuels manufactured using clean energy (I could see the very dirty coal to oil process eventually becoming clean by replacing coal for energy input and then replacing coal with CO2 from the air as feedstock to give carbon neutral petrol).

Carbon capture and storage is clearly technologically viable. It's been done at Sliepner in Norway for ages, at In Salah (Algeria, iirc?) for a few years and both France and Germany either have operating test units or will soon.

Put a price on carbon and let the market decide the most efficient way IMO.

I'd imagine something like a mix of carbon capture, nuclear and renewables. Carbon capture would be used to meet peaks in demand. In the long run, cheaper renewables with energy storage or possibly even nuclear fusion (in the long long run...) would dominate.

40% renewable, 30% nuclear, 30% carbon capture coal would have average CO2 emissions of about 60g CO2/kWh. That compares with an average 430g in the UK and 660g or so in the US. A massive improvement!

Cars run on that electricity would have emissions of 12g CO2/km. That compares with a European average of about 150g (US average is higher)

Pros:

Wave, wind, solar and other water sources like HEP are all renewable therefore they have a minimal impact on the environment it also means that we can depend on them in the future because they will be available (unlike the fossil fuels like coal and gas).

Because they are renewable the costs also come down in the long run, we aren't paying to take away the effects of using them (like we are for carbon emissions).

Although the pollution, fossil fuels are quite effective as they are widely known about and can provide huge amounts of energy on demand.

Cons:

Wind turbines cause noise and they destroy landscapes which isn't good really. Wind and wave also destroy habitats so it would be difficult to get them going until animals are cleared away and this also might cost more.

These sources apart from fossil fuels have locational dependencies too.

Obviously fossil fuels cause pollution (greenhouse effect and acid rain etc) when they are burnt.

I think that solar has the best mix because it can be used by individuals on their houses etc. So they provide for personal needs of the household and they also don't produce pollution so they are environmentally friendly. And regarding costs, they are expensive but the will recover the individuals' costs once they are properly used for a period of time.

Hope I helped ;)

Carbon capture is totally unproven and stupid. So it is not economically going to work.

Wind is in use all over. In Spain they get like 16% of their energy from wind.

Solar is cool because in Germany it has a return at like .08 euro per kwh

Wave is pretty far out but has anyone built it yet?

What we need is more nukes too. Just like in France.

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Over the life of the power plant Nuclear, then wind.