False Energy Choices

With each new disaster, Ned has had to endure jackasses braying about the "need" to produce more and more energy, and more and more electricity, even in face of the physical impossibility of doing such over the long term. He has to bear the insulting illogic from "experts" who declaim that we "must" choose between a mix of fossil fuels combined with some substantial amount of nuclear and "renewables."
Ned is sick to death of hearing from ignoramuses bleating about the things we "need" that didn't exist twenty or forty years ago--auto air conditioning for one, and gas-powered "lawn care" devices for another. He is sick to death of watching Americans waste energy on a vast scale and then whine about how high their gas or home heating bill is. He has seen men, mostly elderly, on a daily basis, wasting water and energy on a vast scale as they run faucets continuously while shaving, then shuffle into the shower room and spend another ten or fifteen minutes in an indulgent shower, while Palestinians make do on ten to 15 gallons of water A DAY, and no electricity for hours on end.
Now that yet another nuclear plant has melted down or come too close for comfort, he wonders what it will take for sensible people to realize that we can't build our way out of this energy dilemma, and that conservation and efficiency must lead the way.
We must not fall for the false choice of coal or nuclear: one road leads to a superheated earth, rising sea levels, melted permafrost and extreme levels of atmospheric methane. The other leads to the so-far insoluble problem of nuclear "waste disposal" and inevitably more Chernobyls.
Here's what Ned feels we need:
1. An international dedication to energy efficiency starting in the most profligate country on earth, here. We must produce all new energy, aside from renewables, by saving what we now waste. This can be done easier than Ned's friends may think, but it will require mandates and not voluntary efforts. We need efficient homes. There is no longer any justification, if indeed there ever was, for huge McMansions drawing hundreds of amps of power.
2. Phasing out of coal plants over the next forty years in the U.S. and Western Europe, and as soon as practical thereafter in developing countries.
3. No new nuclear plants unless they are the truly fail-safe Canadian CANDU models.
4. Means to store electricity produced by renewables hydro, solar and wind must be installed at the greatest possible rate. We could start with battery packs, artificial geothermal systems, and compressed air or LNG plants to use electricity when it is not wanted, then recovering it for use later. Right now in the Pacific Northwest we are debating the absurd choice of shutting down wind turbines or hydro systems because we are producing too much electricity. This is a problem because we can't ship electricity very far due to transmission losses, and we have little or no storage capacity.
But it all comes down to population growth and demand in affluent countries, and population growth and demand in China and India. And the will.