Movie Reflection

The first thought I had after seeing this movie was surprise, for once I had gotten all the hard hitting data and pure factual information without any of the fluff. The presenter had done an abundance of research and explained our possible paths in terms of energy generation for the future. One of the things that struck me was what he said about nuclear power, and if we were to be able to generate the extra thirteen or so Tera watts that we needed we would have to build 10,000 new nuclear plants, or one every other day for fifty years. What really surprised me was the data on solar power, the potential energy that is wasted every day is staggering, to think that there is so much of it, 600 Tera watts per day was the number I believe. And though it is obvious we do not have the technology to use it properly as no one has come up with a way to properly store it that is cost and energy effective. Even the cells themselves are currently a very expensive venture as you have to sell the energy at roughly seven to eight times the cost of fossil fuel energy to make a profit or simply break even. In the end I believe the most realistic outcome would be humanity relying on various forms of power from renewable sources like wind energy to whats left of our petroleum. Though this may be naive and optimistic but I hope and believe that we will in the near future be able to optimize the energy that bombards the earth everyday from the sun.