On the tip of everyone's tongue these days is the term, "Alternative Energy." In the news are solar collectors, windmills, geothermal power, and hydropower. But there is more on the energy horizon, and it is becoming more cost-effective and less centralized. Recently, CBS's Sixty Minutes television news program covered an exciting new technology stemming from the domestic space program: the part that was scrapped because politics deems Mars colonization too expensive.

Essentially, a rocket scientist who invented a device to make water on the surface of Mars reversed the engineering to produce a revolutionary fuel cell technology that dispenses with the use of the expensive element rhodium, a type of platinum, and replaces it with a small sandwich of inexpensive materials which, when stacked, presents both a tiny physical footprint, and a tiny carbon footprint. The cell will work off any fuel, including hydrogen, natural gas, LP gas, gasoline, diesel, and biomethane. It is extremely efficient, is being tested now by several corporations at their headquarters, and is slated to come down to around $3000 per residential unit by the year 2020.

Methane is the Earth's most abundant fuel source, and extremely abundant in the United States. When used in a fuel cell, it does not burn, but emits very little byproduct that does not foul the environment.

Several new ideas on hydropower have been in the testing stages for a few years now, that do not involve dams, and that in some cases present whole new sources and venues for power generation. As there are windmills, there are now devices like windmills being tested in rivers and tidal areas. These are at deep enough sections of rivers and tidal basins to avoid contact with shipping. As well, some floating devices resembling long, articulated tubes use the up and down motion of waves to generate electricity at the point where the sections flex at the articulations.

Nanotechnology is under development that can be used to build stretchable loudspeakers, but also, even more promising, to manufacture paint which, when applied to rooftops and the sides of buildings, turns the entire surface into photovoltaic solar collectors. While not as efficient per square foot as silicon-based solar cells, the new paint is so inexpensive, and can be applied to so large an area, that the gains far outstrip the one small disadvantage.

Speaking of speakers, there is a new kind of refrigerator using a very loud loudspeaker in an enclosed chamber to compress and rarefact air to refrigerate items. It does not use CFC: it uses air. It is efficient and ironically, quiet in use.

And then, there is cold fusion: potentially much cleaner than nuclear fission, but still in the design stages. Also, a futuristic technology called zero point energy, using the energy all around us everywhere, captured in a slew of different device configurations, which could provide mankind with free energy after the purchase of the device. Its technology is controversial, but then so was everything else far ahead of its time...

The link to the TV segment is:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/18/60minutes/main6221135.shtml

and the link to the company pioneering this technology is:

http://www.bloomenergy.com/