Recently Obama has been pushing nuclear, which is quite the surprise, until you can tell someone finally gave the boy some cold hard facts.

A quick look at capacity by energy source at the US EIA shows there are 1445 coal plants with a capacity of 337,300 MW, whereas there are 104 nuclear stations with a capacity of 106,147 MW. About 50% of electricity comes from coal and about 20% from nuclear. It would take 4 to 5 coal plants to replace a nuclear plant. How many windmills would it take?

In one second of bright sunlight, a one square meter surface receives 1 kJ. A one square meter silicon photovoltaic cell is about 20% efficient, so would produce 200 W in continuous bright sunshine. So an active area 1 km wide and 5 km long could produce the equivalent of a nuclear plant when the Sun is shining brightly. Not that unthinkable until you consider that the entire World's production of silicon wafers is just over 5 square km. It would take over 300 years of the entire World's current silicon wafer production to replace the coal plants in just the US.

But that math is far from actually correct... we need to look at land space needed in full reality...

Taking a real world example of the 14 Megawatt photovoltaic installation at Nellis AFB which was completed 2 years ago.

Peak power output is 155.6 Watts / sq meter of collector area.
Average daily power output is only 31 Watts / sq meter of collector area.
It takes 6.33 sq meters of land for every square meter of collector.
Average power output per land area is only 5 W/ sq meter.

... When the sun is shining...

It's even worse than that, if you actually want power when the sun isn't shining. You then have to factor in conversion losses to store the energy in some form, and losses again to recover it.

High-efficiency batteries are far too expensive for such a task, and systems like molten-salt heat storage wind up wasting 50% or more the energy stored.

I'd also like to add that, each and every day, US  coal  plants release more radioactivity into the air and water than the combined total of all 'leaks' US reactors have had since 1950.

And they'll do it again tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that again. All from the uranium, radium, and thorium found naturally in coal ash.

Compared to nuclear, wind isn't even that clean. To build enough of these 30-story tall towers to power the nation would require diverting a majority of the entire world's steel production, as well as gargantuan amounts of concrete, copper, and other resources. Then do it all over again in 30 years, when the turbines wear out.

To construct, nuclear plants use about 1/5 the concrete and 1/10 the steel as wind, per MWh generated. Plus they last 2-3 times as long.

Worse for wind is the actual death statistics... Wind has killed about a half dozen people. Not one death has been done by US Nuclear power. The average 'leak' has been for far less radiation than you will find in your granite table top.

A wind farm kills birds also.. Lots of birds. A 'surprising cost' has been dead bird removal.

-Nuclear fusion will be the next generation of nuclear energy in that it is extremely efficient and clean, but suffers from drawbacks exclusive to itself. Unlike nuclear fission, nuclear fusion irradiates the components that contain the reaction. The reaction is also very delicate and requires enormous amounts of power to kick start, although that very same delicacy is highly advantageous in the event of an accident (the reaction immediately stops, unlike fission). Another unfortunate disadvantage is that you can expect fusion technology to be ridiculously expensive.

The answer's are easy.

We have an abundance of natural gas, oil, oil shale, coal, and nuclear fuels. We can use this in a large way for not decades as some would say, not a mere hundred years, but HUNDREDS of years. Just the United States alone has enough reserves to fuel the world for 300 years at current consumption. JUST THE UNITED STATES ALONE! And that's not including nuclear power... The United States has enough nuclear materials for a BILLION YEARS at DOUBLE the current power usage of the entire world.

Then there is the argument to fix our grid...

Line losses in the US average about 7.5%. Even if you could build a zero-cost superconducting grid, you couldn't save more than that. And the costs to the grid would be scary indeed.

So when you think of alternatives think this:

1) Wind
Kills birds
Needs to much metal and other materials
Not enough windy location for our needs anyhow

2) Solar
Not enough production until 300 years gone by...
Needs sunny locations
Takes up huge swaths of land

3) Fission
Cost effective
long lasting
Safe

4) Fusion
Expensive
not mastered yet
delicate
Safe

I would say, any investment in alternative power MUST go into nuclear power, and nothing else.