Comment As a Brown student I want to clarify (Score 1) 244
So for review, no one got to read others' email for three days, instead, they got to read no email for that time and email sent to the accounts which were routing wrong was bounced back.
Though this is more about pie-in-the-sky this would be cool and inspiring stuff, practically, our best options right now are solar thermal power.
Concentrated solar power uses no new materials-- glass, steel, mirrors, steam turbines, water, and occasionally fancy salts that we've already invented. It's one of the only renewable alternatives that doesn't want any money for research, just help getting some of the start up money to use materials we already have and make here in the US to build up these plants. Though they're not price-competitive yet, most research suggests that once enough capacity is built, economy of scale will kick in and it'll be competitive with fossil fuel costs within five years.
Talk about the ability to prime pump a market.
Plus, concentrated solar works naturally with usage peaks and can be used for desalinization/purification of water which is great considering regions where there is little rain/cloud coverage is ideal.
Two things need to happen-- we need to build more terrestrial solar capacity, both concentrated thermal and photovoltaic, and more importantly, we need to construct better power infrastructure so we can deliver energy from high solar density areas (which are typically desolate and therefore don't have the power pumping capacity some areas have) across far distances.
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. -- Henry David Thoreau