Solar energy, hydro-electricity, geothermal, biofuels and nuclear are options that are going to be explored.
To that can now be added burgeoning commercial interests in hydro-electricity, construction and telecoms.
And yet if countries like Turkey want to develop, hydro-electricity is a clean, efficient way of doing so.
Rivers, rapids and waterfalls are another natural feature of the nation's natural landscape that can be tapped as a source for hydro-electricity plants.
Others say that if hydro-electricity fails to provide the goods, Laos has no alternative but timber, and the faster chopping down of its forests of hardwood.
It is offering hydro-powered electricity at a very cheap rate: two U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour compared to four cents in the United States and seven cents in Germany.
China produces merely 1 percent of its electricity from non-hydro renewable power, while the United States produces 5 percent of its electricity from non-hydro renewable power.
FORBES: Global Warming Alarmists Chant 'Forget The Carbon, We Demand The Tax'
Cornwall can already produce more than 80 megawatts (MW) of electricity from wind, hydro-electric, solar and other renewable energy sources.
BBC: Roscrow wind farm tests strain of green energy on power grid
Mr Simplot himself, an avowed lover of skiing, duck shooting and the great outdoors, was attacked in the 1970s for his support for new coal-fired electricity plants along the Snake river and for a scheme to generate hydro-power by diverting water from another river into a vast underground tube.
It is then released through a number of turbines to generate electricity in the same way as hydro-electric power plants work.
BBC: NEWS | UK | Wales | South West Wales | Wave power plan for Welsh coast
So they did for the hydro-power companies, which were within days of enforced electricity rationing.
It recognized that Vermont utilities import large quantities of electricity from Quebec and the provincial utility Hydro-Quebec is a major supplier of Vermont electric power.
For example, Latvia operates two major hydro-electric plants on the Daugava River which provide only half of Latvia's electricity needs.
In most places the long-term electricity alternative is not oil, but coal, natural gas, hydro and the comparatively new wind and solar vendors.
FORBES: Post Fukushima-- burn more coal and oil, and hire more engineers not regulators
The 10 megawatts of power that will be generated by the Sound of Islay turbine farm pales into insignificance when compared to the output of a large nuclear or coal power station, which according to American hydro energy non-profit the Ocean Energy Council, can produce up to 100 times as much electricity.
Two huge hydro-electric power schemes, on Lake Cahora Bassa in Mozambique and in the Lesotho mountains, which will zap electricity across the region, are also being built.
应用推荐