What happens after the world hits peak oil and prices skyrocket? Or when coal pushes the carbon count in the atmosphere into the danger zone? Soylent Green might turn out to be more prophetic than you thought. But, luckily, entrepreneurs are devising new ways to produce energy even beyond solar and wind. Here are some of the more intriguing and far out ones.Hot Air.
Wrap these chips around a hot steam pipe in a factory, or line the walls of a bakery with them, and you have electricity generated locally. The heat inside factories or bakeries is waste heat, or energy you bought but don't really use for a productive purpose. To add insult to injury, not only do you pay for this unproductive power, companies also have to put power into air conditioners to get rid of it. Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley Lab estimate that the U.S. consumes 100 quads (100 quadrillion BTUs) of energy a year and 55 to 60 quads get burned as waste heat. More>
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