Reply #15: Hybrids and electric cars take us a step closer, but

[tclambert]

there is still the problem of where the electricity comes from.

T. Boone Pickens is taking one approach--massive windmill farms.

Another that shows promise you may not have heard of--solar concentrators. Newer generation solar cells actually reach their peak efficiency with light intensities many times greater than normal sunlight. This means reflectors something like the bells of stadium lights can concentrate sunlight on small solar cells, effectively multiplying the area of the cell many times over. The advantage is reflectors are extremely cheap, so this will allow a cost reduction in electricity produced from solar energy, perhaps enough to make it economically competitive with fossil fuel generator plants.

The third and longer term solution is hydrogen fusion reactors. They are inherently safer and cleaner than fission reactors. Researchers have reached break-even. Getting to commercial power plants is still many years off. Eventually, though, we get power from seawater. And we have long coastlines on three, count 'em, three, oceans. Afghanistan has none.