In regards to the Time article, Lovins has no idea:

"solar for when the wind doesn't blow, and vice versa. He also wants to focus on energy efficiency and micropower, shifting away from the old model of the massive central plant sending out electricity — i.e., your local nuke — in favor of smaller plants, even residence-scale ones, built close to population centers."

Wind/solar - what a joke. And what happens to Europe in the middle of winter when they have a quiet week during which there's little to no sunlight and little to no wind.

You think you can store a week worth of baseload electricity? Take every single battery in the world and you can satisfy the world's electricity requirements for less than 10 minutes.

What's the alternative? Ensure you have sufficient backup generation capacity that presumably goes completely unutilised when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. You think energy is expensive now and nuclear isn't financially viable?

As far as subsidies go, oil/gas and coal industries receive billions of their own in subsidies. No doubt nuclear did and does receive a disproportionate amount given it only produces 15% of our power - it made sense in the 50s/60s as countries needed nuclear infrastructure for weapons programs. What people don't understand is it makes even more sense now. Energy security [and fresh water] are going to be the points of conflict around the world this century. Oh and guess how you get around the fresh water problem when you have no alternatives? Desalination plants - which need copious amounts of energy. There's a good reason we're building them in Australia and while the public is largely opposed to them, I bet they wouldn't be if the Murray Darling basin ran dry and there was no water coming out of their taps.

The problem with the public perception of nuclear is the unbelievably skewed perception of risk associated with nuclear energy.

This is a bit pithy, but not far from the truth:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html

Even if climate change/global warming is a monumental scam of almost inconceivable proportions [it isn't] we still need to do something radical about our energy supply. I encourage everyone to watch this:

@GH13Timelapser - thanks for your thoughts, and the video is useful in general, but just to be clear, efficiency means we're actually using less energy per person (at least in the US) now than in decades past, so the exponential function doesn't really apply to energy use.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100824092412.htm
http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/23017
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_energy_use

@jokieone - It's clear that you didn't actually watch the presentation - or you didn't understand it.

@cosimo_bullo - Assuming everyone can achieve a 50% reduction in energy consumption [which is EXTREMELY difficult given there are very few efficiency gains to be had in the fields of agriculture and transport] all you're doing is delaying the exponential function by one doubling time. The exponential function still applies and you're still going to have to choose something from the right side of the list, or nature will do it for you [anyone who's seen the presentation will know to what I am referring]

For anyone else that doesn't have their nuclear blinkers permanently attached or is at least open to new information on the subject, I encourage you to watch this presentation from Bill Gates on the issue:

http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates.html

Get educated:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/

If we want to develop "Green" technology for some time in the future I'm all for it, but govts shouldn't be involved other than to fund various research projects on a small scale.

I gotta agree with Vitaliy on this one.

The debate is far from over no matter what that flunky Al Gore or some guy from Berkeley, (A school with and agenda if ever there was one) says or anyone else with a green agenda.

"Man Made" and I quote Man Made, global warming is a hoax perpetrated by a few elites to seize the assets of those who have, filter it through their own pockets for a hefty profit, then pushed as fact and doled out to the useful idiots so they can keep their game going. It's basically a money laundering organization. Wall Street is all for it as well, as they can trade and carbon credits, creating money (Quite Literally) out of thin air . The first Green movement was started by the Nazis to help fund their cause, and I still find it amazing how many are still duped by it. It's become just another tool in the arsenal of Fascist Socialists everywhere.

If Man stopped existing tomorrow we could at best lower the temperature of the earth by 1/2 to 1 degree.