Anyone serious about global warming and carbon-free energy sources needs to give this a read - David J C MacKay (Physics, Cambridge) does the math on various options for energy generation and conservation.

"Skipping one bath saves a much energy as leaving your TV off standby for over six months."

I like especially the Register's analysis of the "green" plan with no nuclear or coal at all:

"Britain would be literally covered with — and girdled by — massive wind farms, tidal barriers and wave barrages, and every sizeable body of water in the land would rise and fall to the strange new tides of the national grid. We would have literally rebuilt the British Isles as a single mighty renewable generator, pouring concrete and erecting steel on a scale so far matched only by human habitation — industrialising the land and sea in a way that would make intensive agribusiness look like a wildlife refuge. And still we'd be importing power."

Sheer apocalyptic genius.
So, importing solar power from North Africa is the way forward then?

Thanks to tbrd for pointing the article out.