Word: fuel
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While the developed nations debate how to fuel their power plants, however, some 1.6 billion people--a quarter of the globe's population--have no access to electricity or gasoline. They cannot refrigerate food or medicine, pump well water, power a tractor, make a phone call or turn on an electric light to do homework. Many spend their days collecting firewood and cow dung, burning it in primitive stoves that belch smoke into their lungs. To emerge from poverty, they need modern energy. And renewables can help, from village-scale hydro power to household photovoltaic systems to bio-gas stoves...
Ultimately, the earth can meet its energy needs without fouling the environment. "But it won't happen," asserts Thomas Johansson, an energy adviser to the United Nations Development Program, "without the political will." To begin with, widespread government subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear energy--estimated at some $150 billion per year--must be dismantled to level the playing field for renewables. Policymakers must factor in the price of pollution: coal plants are more expensive than renewable power when one includes the cost of scrubbers on smokestacks and the expense of health care for coal-related illnesses; nuclear energy costs...
Another way to increase renewables' share of the energy mix is to reduce the use of conventional fuel through efficiency incentives. Experts estimate that efficiency could slash the globe's projected energy consumption by a third. Strict standards can cut energy use in everything from air conditioners to cars. Compact fluorescent lamps use a quarter of the electricity of incandescent bulbs to provide the same amount of light...
...least as we know it, is on the way out. New types of fuel and construction materials are on the horizon, and the look and feel of autos are on the brink of a radical redesign. Driving promises to become more environmentally friendly, stylish and fun. We may not be whizzing around in flying cars like the Jetsons or speeding vertically toward the sky on magnetic tracks as in Minority Report, but we will definitely be traveling in ways previously unimagined...
Many industry watchers believe that the fuel of the future for powering electric cars will be hydrogen. Special fuel cells can combine hydrogen with oxygen to produce electricity, driving a motor that can spin the wheels of the car much more quietly than a gas engine can. The only thing spewing from the tail pipe is water--pure enough to drink. Because fuel cells and electric motors are more compact than bulky internal-combustion engines, the new technology will free up the shape and design of cars...