Although they provide us with clean electricity, nuclear plants are often criticized, among others, for their residues after the primary radioactive material is spent. Normally, they are buried in depleted uranium mines, and thus their impact is minimized, but there are lots of situations when things could get dangerous as the radioactive material could infiltrate deep inside the earth, and pollute the underground springs.
Sometimes, what we get is not what we expect - at all. For example, a team of scientists from Northeastern University and from NIST discovered by mistake how to produce more solar power by using the residue of a process used to build arrays of titania nanotubes. Now, physorg.com interprets this invention through the perspective of better hydrogen production, but improving the solar power capturing ability gives a lot more useful applications than only that of hydrogen production.
The transition to a fully-renewable global energetic system has to be done in small but sure steps. New inventions pave the way towards sustainable technologies, and their experimentation on small and medium scale improves their survival chances and lowers their implementation price.
If we could somehow invent a reliable technology that could "eat out" all the excess CO2 from the atmosphere in a large scale, we could turn back to where we started from a hundred years ago, reducing global warming and the change of climate.
The run after the new gold, the unlimited and cheap energy, is being pursued all over the world, not only in the US. There are states, like Israel, where solar power has been harnessed for decades in the form of hot water for its inhabitants. All those solar water heaters have been build by economical needs. In fact, only economical needs can stimulate the world to such an extent that it develops new technologies.
The Holy Grail of energy has been, is, and will be the solar power. Numerous solutions of converting solar power have existed along the centuries, and people have always used the Sun to power things up, except for the last hundred years or so - that's the main reason we all got into troubles with mother nature.
More and more research studies show the fact that biofuels, ethanol, and other zero-carbon burning fuels do more damage than they do good in the long run. According to a recent study, it looks like ethanol, the petrol companies' saving field, consumes up to three times more water than it was previously thought, as MIT's Technology Review states.
A space-based solar electricity program could soon power the Californians' homes. The project belongs to the state's biggest energy company, PG&E, and it aims to generate 200 megawatts in the next 15 years.
The world's largest solar plant will be built in Florida. The construction will begin in June of the next year. The entire project will cost approximately two billion dollars.
As I have said it many times before, inventions in the field of hydrogen storage are most desired, because hydrogen can be created easily from solar power, and offers nothing but water at the other end of the equation.
