A normal or low energy light bulb? Probably not, but an LED version of a light bulb probably. Most laptop mains adapters are below 100 watts or if they're above it not by much, and they offer more power than the laptop needs to run itself so you can run it and charge it at the same time. I personally don't see why we're pushing for low energy light bulbs and not LED light bulbs which are lower energy as well as lasting far longer, though of course they would require adaptation to direct current not alternating.

I know there used to be "kinetic" watches advertised that were powered by you moving them as you went about your day so that is possible, though it'd take a lot more oomph to power or charge an iPod I think. Being able to plug your devices into your clothes for power is something I'm all for though so long as the clothes have the right connectors, that's always a pain.

I, for one, am hoping to see the world collapse due to lack of fuels, global plague, or zombie invasion.  I love thinking out of the box to solve problems, inventing things to make my life easier, and survival situations.  I believe it would be terribly exciting trying to survive, or even thrive, in the collapsing world before I finally starved to death or was killed.  It would make the end exciting, more so than having a heart attack in my bed as an old man.

Dunno, I'm all for the heart attack as an old man so long as it was in company

Honestly as things are solar just isn't viable most of the time, the panels need a lot more work to develop them. I'm not saying it can't be done but the panels just aren't good enough presently, combined with variable weather conditions and limited collection periods. Unless you're in a sun soaked region like Africa or California it is just pretty impractical large scale, I'm not sure they would even generate as much power as it took to manufacture them in a moderate to cool climate. Wind by all accounts is even worse, I definitely heard it takes more power to make the turbine than they produce, even without that though they're a very clumsy solution. Too many complicated moving parts out in the open where they can damage other objects or be damaged by them, and having safety mechanisms to turn themselves off if it gets too windy. Plus they have all the intermittent issues of solar.

Hydro power is definitely interesting but again is intermittent, though at least you can predict the tides and work out how much power you're likely to get. Hydro and geothermal are very much dependant on geography though, if you don't have a conveniently located body of water with sufficient flow or some kind of geothermal activity going on nearby they're no help.

I wouldn't dismiss renewables entirely but honestly I'm not sure we can rely on them completely, or even predominantly, unless we get much cheaper and much more effective ways to store power.

I'd be all for using domestic waste to produce power though, that makes a lot of sense frankly.

Hmmm, "not shit energy! ---- who run barta town!"

sorry, madmax moment ;D. of course in mad max you have a post apocalyptic world where people do use the methane produced by pig faeces as a power source, hence the quote.

Myself, I've read a few too neuclear many war survival horror stories, right back to the original I am legend (which is very different from the film), to want to see that happen in my lifetime, particularly as mot advantages I myself and anyoe else with disabilities have would vanish in such a world due to lack of technology.

Besides i see a period of governmental nastiness and naziism before hand, and I'd hope that I would myself attempt to do something about that.

Actually, I don't particularly care when I die, or even about dying generally, sinse if there is an afterlife, ---- well I'll find out when i get there, and if there isn't, ---- well I won't be around to worry about it ;D.

sorry, fear of death is something of one of my main philosophical interests and indeed one thing I wrote a major essay on during my masters and will probably write on later, sinse I'm very much of the opinion that fear of death is utterly pointless and not inevitable.

For me, I'm more concerned how I die, ie, how much pain and unpleasantness are involved, than when.

getting back to energy though, Actually Cx2, geo thermal isn't particularly terain dependent, other than the practical question of being able to sink a very deep shaft to where the there is a lot of heat underground, enough to heat water and create steem to push a turbine and run a generator.

Though there are considderations, you don't realy need say a waterfall for this.

The main issue is the setup cost is pretty huge, however I wouldn't be at all surprised if we see more stations like this popping up when the oil starts to run out and the price goes up.

Snse the basic idea of generatint electricity is just to get a couple of magnets and wire coils spinning fast enough, there are los of inventive ways you could do it theoreticaly.

I recently heard a doctor who audio drama that had the great idea of experimental rats growing hyper inteligent and deciding to get their own back on humans.

As well as various germ warfare experiments, one interesting idea they had was sticking someone in a tredmill used to generate the electricity needed to power their base. If he stopped, he got an electric shock ;D.

Now there's a fun idea! get fit, and generate electricity at the same time, I can just imagine it "don't stop running now, I want to see the end of my favourite soap opera!" ;D.

potentially couch potatoes could be uba fit!

Btw, not a serious suggestion, i just liked the idea.

most hydro electric as far as I know actually takes advantage not of the tide, but of specific waterfalls, like the aswan dam in egypt (which i've stood on top of myself). 

wile creating these artificially is hugely expensive, they do have the advantage of being fairly symple and easy to maintain, and not tied to time or anything else.

Once earthquakes hit 8.0 on the richter scale, pretty much nothing close to the epicenter will remain standing. The fact that Japan is made up of islands and therefore more vulnerable to tsunamis from something like that only made things worse. Generally speaking, more people die from coal-related issues than have died because of nuclear power plant accidents. It's similar to how more people die via car crashes or bicycle accidents than in planes, but planes scare people more.

Unless I'm forgetting an incident, we've only ever had three fatal disasters related to spacecraft--the Apollo 1 fire, Challenger, and Columbia. These apparently receive much less hype than plane crashes or nuclear power plants, since I was in a French class shortly after Columbia disintegrated, and there was actually a exercise that asked the student to describe where they were at the time of the accident... absolutely noone in the class realized that they weren't talking about Challenger.

Well when i was thinking about nuclear appocalypse, I was thinking more of the classic nuclear war, everything goes to pot situation.

Probably the best book for this is Robert swindles brother in the land, which is quite disturbing in how realistic it is, then there is the famous drama documentary threads made in the late 90's that is probably one of the most horrific things i kno sinse it concentrates on all levels from governmental structures just not being able to cope and their methods of maintaining order being overwhelmed, to people's individual tragedy, whether killed in the initial attack or even 13 years later.

As to tidal again I'm not sure, sinse you'd need somewhere where the land facilitated a strong undertoe on the tide, though this could be theoretically possible, however as I said I'm fairly convinced we will see all of these things being more prominant in the next 20-40 years as getting oil from the ground become increasingly less viable.

As to mad max and language, well it's not a word I'd use, though unlike certain other words I don't regret quoting it if the context is specifically write, and mad max wasn't known for it's gentility.

As per the rather major discussion, I've set forum language to what I believe is a pg 13 wrating in an attempt to be flexible without getting us in trouble with kid's parents, and said word would indeed count in that context hence my use of it in this specific instance.

I don't think unpredictability applies half as much to tidal and geo thermal, sinse the earth's temperature isn't really going to fluctuate too much, and while weather conditions can affect the tide, if it was the overall underto that was used, ie, the movement of water caused by the moon's gravitation, then it would be pretty constant anyway.

Then again, those methods are probably the hardest to setup.

I do thinnk renewable energy is a viable option, but it will take more of a reason to change to it than just "the environment" ie, the economic.

In fact I stil wouldn't be overly surprised if that conspiracy theory about oil companies buying out and ciezing research into renewable sources of energy production turns out to be perfectly true, and we don't find renewable sources of power simply being refitted when it becomes more economical to do so.

We'll just have to wait and see though.

My concern over bio mass would be what waste products, as well as carbon dioxide happened once you'd finished with the bio mass, though as I'm not sure about the chemistry involved this might not be as much of an issue.

As regards neuclear and decomissioning, actually a chap I know who was chief manager of a neuclear station once said that the crytical problem in setting up, or pulling down any power station is that it ultimately costs far more.

he actually said that in converting some of the output of his own station to the government required renewable energy, they caused more destruction of the environment and overal confusion through the building, setup and demolishing than his neuclear station did.

Given how utterly idiotic our government is about finance (look at the way they give public money to private banks!), I wouldn't be surprised if they simply extend the working life of existing power stations instead of trying to change them, simply to preserve what money they have.

Then again as I said earlier in this topic, I'm very scheptical of the governments' ability to administrate any overall change to dayly life, look at what they did with plastic bags!