The Climate Conundrum
All the solar energy (insolation) that hits the planet is known, about 1366 watts per square meter. That sounds like a lot, but it is all used or otherwise accounted for in natural processes. It makes the rain fall, the wind blow, and the plants grow. It makes the planetary surface warmer than the deep cold of outer space. We can play with it, and so long as we do not extract a very large amount of power from it, we will be fine. But if we would actually attempt to extract enough solar power to make a real difference, there would be consequences in weather and climate that we do not know much about, since we have such a paltry understanding of the dynamics of climate.I am always amused when I read one of these climate studies - not the executive summaries that science journalists read, but the studies themselves - there is so much that they admit that they do not understand. It does not stop them from reaching sweeping conclusions though, ofter covered with weasel words like "we believe" or "likely" with no backup or calculation. Climate science is unique that way - no calculation is needed, just a well written exec summary to fool the rubes.
Early indications are that wind farms on land tend to create a warmer microclimate nearby and offshore wind farms cause onshore cooling. The reasons are unclear, but the folly of extensive deployment of wind extracting mechanisms will definitely have unintended, and largely unknown, consequences. Large solar electric or heat extraction similarly prevents the sunlight from reaching the ground, thus upsetting the ecosystem in ways both known and unknown. Hydro - well, nobody is gonna let us build any more hydro plants, so that does not matter. The little fishies would protest.
The real conundrum is that we use an enormous amount of power in the first world, and the third world wishes to join us in this endeavor. There is no known way to produce this power without upsetting a preexisting balance of ecology. It may well be that petroleum is the cleanest and safest, but that depends on the yet unknown danger of CO2, the last emittant, the one that we can not remove the way we removed the actual pollutants. But all these alternatives also change the ecology in ways both known and unknown.
That is why the green movement is against every single one of them. They have sued to stop photovoltaic and wind projects, and they are just getting started. Their answer they seek (just ask them, or read their blogs) is a Malthusian die-off of about half the world human population. The global warming scare is just a single manifestation of their desire to achieve this Brave New World of theirs, where humanity lives in harmony with the little piggies and fishies, and everyone is happy. They have banded together with the end of the worlders, and combined with careerists in academia and industry to formulate their scare. They probably believe their own bullshit. The fact is that earthly climate history is a story of ice ages interspersed with interglacial periods. We are currently deep into an interglacial. The sentient people in the physics community believe that, to the extent that something humanity is doing is extending the interglacial, that is a Good Thing, since humanity cannot survive another ice age.
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Update - In response to a question, I will add this bit:
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Hydro power is solar power in that the sun evaporates the water that falls as rain in the reservoir that spins the turbines. Wind power is solar power in that it is the heat of the sun that provides the convection that results in wind blowing. There is a finite amount of insolation delivered at the planet's surface, and it all does SOMETHING. We can capture it on a limited basis, but do you really think the greens will let us cover a desert area the size of Arizona plus New Mexico? The little salamanders will stop that one every time, so there is never gonna be enough power from solar to replace more than a fraction of the energy we use currently, and the third world wants to use energy like we do. The "Greens" want us to use energy like the third world does. All known practical energy sources must be exploited, and all leads pursued, but I fear that the profoundly unserious way humanity appears to be dealing with this impending problem will continue to take us in exactly the wrong direction. We need energy in increasing amounts. A sizable proportion of powerful humans (the greens) want us to use less energy, but they know we will never agree, so they put up spurious limits on energy generation expansion, backed up by religious dogma, which they label "science." Science is a process, while Warmist greens claim that "The science is settled," which is a profoundly unscientific statement. Science marches on, but inconvenient findings are scorned and ignored by the academic and media Warmist community. Meanwhile more and more scientists who formerly believed the orthodox position are changing their views. There are powerful career and social consequences for a scientist deviating from academic orthodoxy - just ask any physicist who questions string theory how his career fared after submitting that contrarian paper. But. Over time, the data and the reality will become clear - whatever it is.
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Update #2 Better insolation numbers
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Above I posted that total energy from the sun was 1366 watts per square meter. That number applies to a total of solar energy, much of which energy never reaches the ground. Clouds soak it up, "greenhouse" gases soak it up (yes Virginia, actual CO2 absorbs energy from both directions, which is why global warming can not be caused by CO2) and a large amount is reflected back into space (albedo). The maximum solar energy that does reach the ground is 746 watts per square meter in optimum conditions, which is, in the U.S.A. limited to relatively small area in the south west between about 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM for about 300 days a year. all other places in the United States see less than that. Then the efficiency of collection must be considered. Right now we are doing well at 10%, but even assuming huge strides in this area you must factor in that this is only possible during times when most people are not home. Storage of electricity is also woefully inefficient, so add it all up and you can easily see that covering every roof with photo-voltaic cells and filling every basement with next generation electric storage batteries will still not keep any modern home off the grid for more than a few hours at a time.