Word: solarization
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...promise is tantalizing. Windmills generate renewable power, so called because the source of the energy, wind, is continually renewed by nature (ditto for solar cells, which are powered by the sun; geothermal systems, which use the earth's heat; and hydroelectricity, which flows from dams). Unlike oil and coal deposits, renewable energy can't be exhausted, at least not until the sun burns out billions of years from now and earth goes cold...
Skeptics may recall the burst of enthusiasm for conservation and renewable power when oil prices quadrupled in the 1970s. State-funded energy research and development surged, while tax incentives boosted solar, wind and other alternatives to petroleum and the atom. But once oil supplies loosened and prices dropped, governments lost interest. In the U.S., rules requiring more fuel-efficient cars were rolled back. In California, subsidies evaporated, pushing wind companies into bankruptcy. "It is a moral disgrace that we have done so little to reduce our dependence on imported oil and oil generally," says Reid Detchon, a former U.S. Energy...
Clean energy has a long way to go. Only 2.2% of the world's energy comes from "new" renewables such as small hydroelectric dams, wind, solar and geothermal. (Traditional renewable energy from large dams provides another 2.2%.) How to boost that share--and at what pace--is debated in industrialized nations--from Japan, which imports 99.7% of its oil, to Germany, where the nearby Chernobyl accident turned the public against nuclear plants, to the U.S., where the Bush Administration has strong ties to the oil industry. But the momentum toward clean renewables is undeniable. Globally, solar- and wind-energy output...
...moved aggressively into photovoltaic cells, which turn sunlight into electricity. And in April General Electric snapped up Enron Wind from the bankrupt energy giant. "We are on a journey to a lower-carbon world," says Graham Baxter, an executive at Britain's BP, which is building a $100 million solar plant in Spain...
...soon we reach an era of clean, inexhaustible energy depends on technology. Solar and wind energies are intermittent: when the sky is cloudy or the breeze dies down, fossil fuel or nuclear plants must kick in to compensate. But scientists are working on better ways to store electricity from renewable sources. Current from wind, solar or geothermal energy can be used to extract hydrogen from water molecules. In the future, hydrogen could be stored in tanks, and when energy is needed, the gas could be run through a fuel cell, a device that combines hydrogen with oxygen. The result: pollution...