People are jolly good at looking at ways of possible power generation, I would suggest that a more sensible way to tackle the problem is to "start at the other end"
If you take an average household for instance, and look at their energy usage as it stands, and then look to provide that power renewably, we are probably looking at considerable expenditure (and likely inconvenience) - I think what we should be looking at far more is "consumption".......... my informal experimentation suggests that you can shower squeaky clean (including hair) in around 5 litres of water at 38 degrees - so anything more than that is sheer profligacy (many people think nothing of taking power showers using hundreds of litres of water).
Do you actually NEED a fridge/freezer? - granny's generation didn't, so why do we? Do we actually NEED a five-foot wide plasma TV? - A small "camping" lcd TV using circa 12 watts is more than adequate........ do we need to change them every few years, when the technology will last well over 20 years?.....
I think the time has come that we should have a campaign to teach people to see through the advertising hype, and looking towards bringing our consumption of energy WAY down, and only then worry about generating the (much-reduced) power that we will then need...........
Thought for the day - a great deal of expense is incurred by giving us perpetually available power - loads of generating capacity has to be left on standby - if we took a leaf from the book of the old millers, -windy day, grind the flour - nowadays, - windy day, wind turbines going like the clappers - washday!
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