Just something I thought I'd toss out there.  Everyone's blabbering on about wave power, wind power, photovoltaic plants and occasionally, solar-thermal power plants.  Let me explain the concept of "base load".  There's a certain amount of power that we need...and we need it CONSTANTLY.  This is (more or less) our "base load".  This is an amount of power that we NEED to use, or else people and businesses will start losing power.  Now no matter how freaking windy a place is...no matter how many waves there are...no matter how much the sun shines...when that shit STOPS you need to have a normal power plant standing by.

This creates a teeny, weeny little problem.  First off...traditional versions of these plants really don't deal very well with cycling up and down.  Second, you're talking about paying almost as much to maintain this gigantic power plant (which will sit there doing nothing much of the time) ON TOP OF the more expensive "alternative" energy plant.  Oh, of course you could also use storage systems...which also double up on your costs.

There's really only one form of alternative energy (ie, one that isn't used much now) that makes a lot of sense.  You can build a solar-thermal plant...and just have a natural gas fired backup heat source or one that uses coal.  See the beauty in that?  At no time are you in danger of failing to meet base load but you're only paying to add an alternative heating system.  All the rest of the hardware just converts that heat (either from solar or natural gas/coal) into electricity.

The system isn't perfect...just PRACTICAL.  Of course, it's WAY easier to just build some of the newer nuclear plants that CAN'T melt down.