>>And then, the electricity can be produced in many ways - dams being among the more environment friendly. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the bottom line would be less overall carbon fuel consumption. Add to that the reduced consumption of electricity if only governments would give tax breaks to those who insulate their homes well (so there'd be less energy consumed for heating and cooling).

>Dams can be quite damaging to the environment (look at three gorges in China) and in the long term don't they silt up. Solar power is the best way I think. Its free and its always there.

"Among the more environment friendly" is exactly what I meant - more than those burning fuel. And silt can be (should be?) cleaned up periodically, but the expense doesn't look good on balance sheet, so they delay it forever.

There's other environmental damage if dams aren't built properly - change of microclimate, reduced flow downstream (because they're trying to fill it up too fast), but than it's the same as effect of any natural dam when it's created by an earthquake or avalanche.

Solar would be the way to go, except that the industry keeps thinking like, well, industry. They still want to build big, centralized and distributable, so they'd have the control. The trouble with this approach is that sunshine is evenly distributed. Any roof can become a power plant. Heck, solar panels (for either heat or electricity) also insulate the roof, so they also somewhat reduce the power consumption of the house. Which is where I got back to my rant :).