Milestones and Trends in Renewable Energy

Sterling D. Allan writes "Some reflections and projections: The year 2005 saw large wind power installments come into a price range where they are now competitive with traditional grid prices. 2006 could see several solar designs do the same. Cold fusion was boosted with two, concurrent and independent sonofusion breakthroughs, though the stigma in the name is still deeply seated. 2006 could see floating wind turbines arrive on the commercial scene -- floating in the water like oil rigs, or floating high in the air, courtesy of helium. 2006 will see at least three companies offering after-market kits for adding Brown's gas (H and O from electrolysis, common ducted) to the air intake of vehicles for enhanced mileage and performance. Many other fuel economizing systems are slated to mature in the marketplace. Climate change evidence will continue to mount. It will yet be years before we harness lightning, but stable tornado systems prototypes that tap waste heat from power plants could arrive this coming year. Will 2006 be the year that clean energy becomes more the vogue than cool computer gadgets?"

Comments

Re:Yes.

[Da Fokka]

Pebble bed reactors are inherently safer and make efficient use of nuclear fuel. And they can be a lot smaller than conventional nuclear reactors, which makes them more attractive for smaller scale use.

However, PBRs have a very large drawback. It is nearly impossible to extract useful material from the spent fuel pebbles. Manufacturing these pebbles is not a trivial process, by the way.

Personally, I'd like to see more development of integral fast reactors. They are not modular in design, but these plants are designed with the entire fuel cycle in mind and can burn up nuclear fuel so efficiently that the waste degrades to background radiation in just 300 years.

Re:Yes.

[Yvanhoe]

And yet, strangely, in France and Germany, ecologists want to revert to coal plants to prevent nuclear pollution.