Necessity is the mother of invention or discovery. I have every confidence that we will find viable, alternative energy sources, but it will come at a price, as everything else does.

ian cheese, london, uk

Thomas Malthus identified the problem
Gerard K O'Neil offered a solution 33 years ago
Vested interests have chosen to bury it.
The window for its application is closing fast, through greed and avarice.

Dave, Chorley, UK

Chesterton said that the phrase "as dull as ditch water" is a misnomer, that it is teeming with fascinating life.

Christopher Hawtree, Hove, England

Mike, Sydney, Australia
You KNOW the IPCC’s wrong? Amazing. Just like that. You studied the IPCC report and state “that atmospheric CO2 is not at all bad”. OK cobber let’s see your peer-reviewed study showing where the climatologists got it wrong. Don’t the Aussies play a game called two-up? My thoughts entirely…

Mike Donald, Aberdeen, Scotland

Algae: The New Biofuel

www.nationalalgaeassociation.com

b cole, the woodlands, texas, usa

Carbon taxes don't make technologies comnpetitive. They just penalize corporations and most of all consumers, especailly lower and middle class people. Alternate energy sources are good since oil has better uses as plastics or chemicals than fuel. Carbon is essentail to life not a pollutant.

james krog, memphis,tn, USA

Carbon accounts for 3% of "manmade" "green house gases" "Manmade" greenhouse gases account for 3% of all the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gas is water vapor. So manmade carbon accounts for .09% of the green house effect. "Global warming" is also occurring on Mars Mercury, Saturn.

james krog, memphis,tn, USA

That's all good, if only because we get a lot of oil from some very distasteful regimes and bio-fuels create as much CO2 (including production) as oil. However, your initial premise is highly likely to be wrong: that man-made CO2 is the primary driver of climate variability. So it goes.

Dr Robert Laundon, London, UK

Global warming is a farce, and famine in Africa is most often due to geographic position (1/3 of the continent is desert) or despotic political regimes (Somalia, etc.). That said, it is imperative that we seek alternative energy sources for reasons of global security. Sorry, out of characters.

Trey Westcot, Houston, TX, USA

High oil prices is actually a Godsend, it will help us to develop other, more cleaner, environment friendly sources of energy as until now the costs were too high compared to fossil fuel.

Naushad Haque, New York, USA

I am liking the idea of countries coming together to stay alive on earth, it makes sense. Instead of fighting each other, help each other. Solar power comes everday, we will not have a shortage on solar rays thats for sure. The algea idea is pure genious since it counteracts against carbon.

Cory, Dallas, United States

The author states " It's utterly irresponsible to burn food to make fuel."

Is it any less irresponsible to use barley and rice to make beer?

Is it any less irresponsible to use wheat to make Grey Goose vodka?

Michael Kohout, Metter, Georgia, USA

The problem is, as it has always been for years, the lack of urgency on the part of all the governments of the world. Now, instead of acting a stroke before midnight we are half-heartedly acting at half an hour past midnight. The technology is here now; it's past time to act to avert disaster.

Daniel A. Donnellan, Chester, United States

Here is a story on algae-to-fuel science being done in Minnesota (Land of 10,000 Lakes)
http://wcco.com/energy/algae.energy.independence.2.731183.html

James, Saint Paul, MN, USA

Has any of you ever heard of OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion). It is simple, and there was a successful test plant in Kona, Hawaii, which was shut down after the tests were successful. The only by products from the process are electricity, drinking water, and table salt! web search it!

Jack , london, england

Solar storage is not such a problem but it's exponential to the size of the project. Think of how long a pressure cooker takes to stop issuing steam and then imagine a pressure cooker containing a thousand times that volume. It would still be releasing steam powwr many hours after sundown.

fred keeling, almunecar, spain

As you imply, the matter of the future supply of energy is no real problem. The problem is that the supply of energy is tied up with the reins of power and some basic politics which we don t discuss.

Henry Percy, London, UK

Mike Donald - I assure you I'm not insane! Yes, we 've had droughts, but we've always had them. No reason to think they're all now caused by CO2. The past 10yrs shows that natural forces override CO2 quite easily, a fact denied in the IPCC report. I've read it and checked it. I know it's wrong.

Mike, Sydney, Australia

Yes, making ethanol from corn is stupid and inefficient. But making ethanol from sugarcane is not. Don't write off all biofuels because of crazy American subsidies to their whining farmers.

Rowan, Oxford,

Why do people in the UK want to drive about so much? In my youth I drove everywhere there is to drive to discover that non of it is any more interesting than where I had just been. Having done all that I no longer drive anywhere because I know now that most places in UK are just really rather boring

Colin, Carmarthen, UK

Mike, Sydney, Australia

Mike - Your remarks are just plain insane. You noticed the rivers in Australia? Sorry - streams, no make that brooks, no try rivulets...

Mike Donald, Aberdeen, Scotland

Ten years ago or so we learned about very promising researchs with Algae: some species when performing photo synthesis split water and releases HYDROGEN, clean energy, for free! Where are the results? The word can afford more time for new developments? Known solutions must be applies now!

P. AZEVEDO, SAO PAULO, BRAZIL

With so many experts about I'm amazed we have an energy crisis.

Ian Burgess, Bristol,

Comments about whether this or that technology is superior miss the main point of Camilla's article, which was that what politicians need to do is set up a real commercial incentive to reduce carbon emissions; leaving technicalities to people who understand thermodynamics

Lucy, London,

Soylent Green

Steve S., Hershey, PA, USA

Lets just go nuclear and dump the radioactive waste on the moon.

Pete, Cov,

Look - if someone thinks they can make algae, methanol (in a 'shift' reaction?? more details please!!) or any other technology work, great, please do it! However as an engineer with a physics education, I know for a fact that there is only one PRACTICAL alternative to fossil fuels and its nuclear.

Pete, London, UK

The article said "Everyone wants to clean up on carbon". Not true. Those of us who have studied the IPCC report and understood where it goes wrong, realise that atmospheric CO2 is not at all bad. Clean - yes. Clean up on carbon - no.

Mike, Sydney, Australia

Where will you find 47 million available acres on which to build ponds? And, at a time when California is considering water rationing, will you divert water from agricultural, industrial or domestic use? Read Robert Bryce's new book, Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusion of Energy Independence.

peter, miami, usa

well, yeah: only you would have the Society for the Protection of the Euroamericanindian Winged Manatee Penguin-crab all over you because your algae beds are endangering the ecosystem for their proteges etc. happens with dams, wind-turbines and all. Every lobby wants its place in the sun! (haha)

Pietro B, SP, Italy

Where do you get the hydrogen from? WHere do you get potassium hydroxide from? Does anyone out there understand thermoynamics?

Steve, Hessle, England

What if they find out you can eat the algae?

Do we then stop using it in cars in favour of an ever expanding population?

JonB, Manchester, UK

There was a wonderful article on this in New Scientist in the 28 May issue, featuring some sage stuff from Vinod Khosla. His comments on biofuels were particularly scathing.

It puts the dobbinish approach of our politicians to shame. Cameron should speak to Doerr and Khosla.

Martin, Birmingham,

Google was not a crazy idea. It was an obvious and simple need to be able search for info. It was just that Google won the race amongst many early contenders. The need for alternative technology is not yet clear cut. More evidence is needed rather than emotion (personally I am all for alternatives)

David Cartright, Birmingham,

Nuclear is not obvious Paul, as the problems outweigh the benefits. As for Algae, it doesn't need to be grown in ponds. Just like possible future farms, they could easily be 'grown' in highrises. Of all the green energy I've seen, Algae seems the most promising answer to most questions asked.

Ben, Warrington,

Methonol is the future fuel for cars. Harvest CO2 from power plants, or from the atmosphere using potassium hydroxide, mix with hydrogen in a shift reaction and pump it through the infrastructure already in place, for use in mildly adapted IC engines. A cheap and robust solution.

Julian, Twickenham, UK

I'm all for nuclear (especially thorium because you don't get weapons grade PU from that and there's much more of it about than uranium) but realistically it is not going to solve our problems. We need liquid fuels and alage is the obvious feedstock

Fran, Sydney, Australia

The obvious answer is to use nuclear power. Uranium is about 100,000 times more energy intense than wood, so it is much more manageable and you can leave areas of the planet undeveloped

Paul , northwich, england

"prosperity is the MAIN reason for higher food prices" - debatable in competition with exploding world population and disappearing energy sources. And "ONLY 47 million acres" is a whole lotta pond.
There sure are enormous problems yet to be overcome! But your overall drift is spot-on, Camilla.

G.Green, Bristol, UK

Why this emphasis on carbon dioxide when the science it is based on is pathetic unverified computer modelling. It is as valid to form an opinion of the world based on playing grand theft auto, maybe more so.
Energy conservation need is proven so lets keep to that. Coal is still plentiful, use it.

D Cage, Highworth, UK

If this Algae thing does work, then good. There are so many things that can be done with renewable energy. I'm all for green, but we shouldn't have to pay so much for it! After all, you can't tax water/air/etc.. And charging us for carbon? Does that include breathing?

Seetal Udeshi, London, UK,

Dr. Isaac Berzin an Israeli has set up an Algae growing trial on a US power station in Arizona. It uses the waste product CO2 from the power station to generate the Algae. His company GreenFuel will revolutionize the industry.

ryanh, Modiin, Israel