Discover Magazine for August, 2008, has a great article called "Our Invisible Energy."

We all know which countries have the most oil, but does everyone know where the hot spots are for wind? Geothermal? Hydroelectric? Where does most of the uranium come from?

Unfortunately, it's not online at their website yet, but it's almost worth picking up the magazine just for this article. Lots of cool maps.

A few interesting tidbits:

-- China has the most hydroelectric potential, followed by the U.S., Russia, Brazil, and Canada.

-- Over two-thirds of the world's recoverable coal is in the U.S. (29 percent), Russia (19 percent), China (14 percent) and Australia (9 percent)

-- The U.S. has 20 percent of the known geothermal potential, with a possible 30,000 MW from sources less than two miles down. If you go deeper than two miles, this could be as high as 130,000 MW. This is followed by Indonesia (11 percent), the Phillippines (6 percent) and Mexico (4 percent). The Geothermal Energy Association has identified 39 countries, mostly in Africa, South America, and Central America, with the potential of getting all their power this way. Note that unlike solar and wind, geothermal is 24/7.

-- 50 percent of the world's known uranium is in Australia (23 percent), Canada (11 percent), and Kazakhstan (16 percent!) The U.S. has ten percent.

-- Most of the wind energy potential is at coastlines. Looks like you get to pick between looking at oil rigs or looking at wind towers. The good news--windmills aren't going to be springing any "wind leaks," and maybe if you build them right, hurricanes off the coast will make you richer instead of poorer. According to the article: "The Global Wind Energy Council predicts that if all wind-friendly policies now being considered are adopted, wind could provide up to 29 percent of the world's electricity by 2030." I suspect there's a bit of fine print associated with that, but there it is.

When you throw solar into the mix, Australia is looking pretty good as far as energy is concerned. If you could shove electricity into tankers, Australia could be the Saudi Arabia of the 21st century.

Hint for the Aussies: Given enough electrical power, you can actually make liquid fuels out of atmospheric CO2...