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  • It’s a really exciting time to be alive. We have a front row seat to the only known

  • transformation of a world powered by dirty fossil fuels, to a planet that gets its energy

  • from renewable, clean sources. It’s going to happen just once, right now. These are

  • the top 10 potential energy sources of tomorrow.

  • Every hour, more energy from the sun reaches us than we earthlings use in an entire year.

  • To try and save a lot more of it, one idea is to build giant solar farms in space that

  • will collect some of the higher intensity, uninterrupted solar radiation. Giant mirrors

  • would reflect huge amounts of solar rays onto smaller solar collectors. This energy would

  • then be wirelessly beamed to Earth as either a microwave or laser beam. One of the main

  • reasons this amazing idea is still just an idea is because it’s, big surprise, very

  • expensive. But it could become a reality in the not so distant future as our solar technology

  • develops, and the cost of launching cargo into space comes way down, thanks to the work

  • of companies like Space X.

  • We already have human-powered devices,

  • but scientists are working on harvesting power generated from normal human movement. Were

  • talking about tiny electronics here, but the potential when multiplied by billions of people

  • is big. And with developers making electronics that use less and less power, one day your

  • phone may charge when it rustles around in your pocket, your bag in your hand,

  • your fingers move on the screen. At Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, scientists have

  • even demonstrated a device that uses viruses to translate pressure into electricity. Yes,

  • it’s amazing as it sounds and no, there’s no way I’m going to try and explain how

  • it works--of course it’s linked below if you want more info. There are even small body-worn

  • systems that passively produce electricity when you move. Human power isn’t going to

  • solve global warming, but every little bit helps.

  • Harnessing all the energy in the motion of the ocean could power the world several times

  • over, which is why over 100 companies are trying to figure out how. Because of the focus

  • on wind and solar, the tidal energy industry kind of got elbowed out of the early mix.

  • But these systems are quickly becoming more efficient. For one, meet Oyster, a 2.4 megawatt

  • producing, hinged flap that attaches to the ocean floor and - as it opens and closes - pumps

  • high-pressure water onshore, where it drives a conventional hydroelectric turbine. So,

  • one of those could power a whole housing development or a couple massive residential towers--roughly

  • 2,500 homes. An engineer with the air force academy has created the terminator wing-shaped

  • turbine that employs lift instead of drag, allowing it to theoretically harness 99% of

  • a wave’s energy instead of the 50% that current tidal projects can get. And Perth,

  • Australia just got the world’s first-ever wave-powered desalination plant that provides

  • the city with enough drinking water for 500,000 residents.

  • The element hydrogen - by far the most abundant in the universe - is very high in energy,

  • but an engine that burns pure hydrogen produces almost no pollution. This is why NASA ‘s

  • powered its space shuttles and parts of the International Space Station with the stuff

  • for years. The only reason were not powering the entire world with hydrogen is because

  • it only exists on our planet in combination with other elements like oxygen. You know,

  • good old H20. Russia even converted a passenger jet to run on hydrogen in the late 80’s

  • and Boeing recently tested small planes that fly on hydrogen. Once the hydrogen is separated

  • it can be pumped into mobile fuel cells in vehicles that are able to directly convert

  • it into electricity. These cars are now being manufactured on a fairly large scale. Honda’s

  • planning on demonstrating the versatility of its new hydrogen fuel cell car by plugging

  • it into a model home in Japan to power the house--instead of the car sucking electricity

  • from the building like its electric-powered competitors have to do. Honda says one of

  • these fully-fuelled cars could power an entire house for a whole week, or drive 300 miles

  • without refuelling. The main obstacle right now is the relatively

  • high cost of these vehicles and the lack of hydrogen stations to refuel them, although

  • California now has plans for 70 of these stations across the state, South Korea’s expected

  • to have a total of 43 soon and Germany’s aiming for 100 by 2017.

  • The method of converting the heat rising from the depths of the molten core of the earth

  • into energy - also known as geothermal - powers millions of homes around the world, including

  • the electricity usage for 27% of the Philippines and 30% in Iceland. But an Icelandic deep

  • drilling project may have recently discovered the holy grail when it hit a pocket of magma,

  • which had only happened once before in Hawaii. The team pumped water down into the hole,

  • which the scorching magma instantly vaporized to a record-setting 842 degrees fahrenheit.

  • This highly pressurized steam increased the power output of the system tenfold, an amazing

  • success that should lead to a giant leap in the energy generating capabilities of geothermal

  • projects around the world.

  • Nuclear fission power plants are the traditional reactors that have been in use around the

  • world for decades and provide the US with about 20% of our electricity. They use something

  • called light-water technology to surround the fuel rods with water, which slows the

  • neutrons and allow for a sustained nuclear reaction. Buuuut, the system is really inefficient--only

  • 5 percent of the uranium atoms in the rod get used up by the time it has to be removed.

  • All that unused, highly radioactive uranium just gets added to our growing stockpile of

  • nuclear waste. But now, finally, there appears to be another, more efficient way, called

  • a fast reactor, where the rods are submerged in liquid sodium instead of water. This allows

  • 95 percent of the uranium to be used, instead of the unacceptably inefficient 5 percent.

  • Adopting this method would solve the huge problem of getting rid of our 77,000 tons

  • of radioactive waste because these new reactors can reuse it. GE Hitachi has already designed

  • a fast reactor called PRISM and is shopping it to power companies, but the biggest obstacle

  • is the high cost of building new nuclear power plants. Plus, you have to overcome the political

  • stigma that nuclear is a dangerous energy source. Still, the benefits are huge---Its

  • a proven technology that emits pretty much no greenhouse gases. The big success story

  • is France, which has 75% of its electricity needs met by its 59 nuclear power reactors.

  • With production and installation costs getting cheaper by the day, solar power is taking

  • off around the world. Europe is the best in photovoltaics and is driven by its leader,

  • Germany. On an average sunny day in 2012, Deutschland got as much electricity from the

  • sun as 20 nuclear power stations, enough to power 50% of the country. Spain is now generating

  • more than 50% of its power from renewable resources like solar. A California desert

  • is home to the largest solar power station in the entire world, and the United States

  • increased its solar capacity by nearly 500% from 2010 to 2014. And if you think that that’s

  • as fast as solar can possibly grow, listen to this. Researchers at the Los Alamos National

  • Laboratory in New Mexico just made a significant breakthrough in quantum dot solar cell technology

  • that will allow highly efficient solar panels to double as transparent windows. When this

  • technology becomes cheap enough to hit the mass market in the next couple of years, every

  • sun-exposed window in the world will have the potential to be converted into a mini

  • power station.

  • From 2002 to 2013, biofuels grew more than 500% in the U.S. as production of crop-derived

  • ethanol and biodiesel became a mainstream substitute or supplement to gasoline in our

  • cars. In fact, back in the day when Henry Ford first developed his Model T, he thought

  • it would run on ethanol. The discovery of vast amounts of cheap oil all over the world

  • unfortunately made it the go-to energy source. But renewable biofuels are making a strong

  • comeback now. The only problem is that the currently dominant first generation of biofuels

  • use the same land and resources that have traditionally been used to grow food, which

  • is driving up the cost of food and causing big problems in a lot of the developing world,

  • so something has to change if biofuels are going to give us a chance at replacing oil

  • with something clean burning. That’s where a plant like switchgrass comes in. It’s

  • hearty, it grows like a weed just about anywhere, and it isn’t food. But, if we wanted to

  • run all the world’s cars on it, we’d need to plant it on an amount of land equivalent

  • to the entire countries of Russia and the U.S., combined. So that’s not gonna work.

  • This brings us to the 3rd generation of biofuels, algae, which has all the right ingredients

  • to replace oil once and for all. Algae’s natural oil content is greater than 50%, which

  • means it can be easily extracted and processed. We can convert the remaining part of the plant

  • into electricity, natural gas and even fertilizer to grow even more algae without chemicals.

  • Algae grows quickly and doesn’t need farmland or freshwater. Just last month, Alabama became

  • the world’s first algae biofuel system that can also effectively treat human wastewater,

  • this actually resulted in a carbon-negative outcome. The 40,000 a day demonstration plant

  • basically floated giant bags on a bay, pumped wastewater water into them, added a little

  • algae, and then let the sunlight do its thing. Before long, algae had grown everywhere and

  • cleaned the wastewater so well it could either be released back into the bay or reused by

  • people as drinking water.

  • Were already getting a lot of energy from the wind, but with the Buoyant Air Turbine

  • - or BAT - that floats 1-2,000 feet above the ground where winds are stronger and more

  • consistent, we could soon be getting that energy much more efficiently. The system is

  • simple: a ringed blimp with a wind turbine in the middle is tethered securely to the

  • ground. Itll produce twice as much power as similar sized tower-mounted turbines. It

  • can even handle winds of more than 100 mph and can be fitted with additional devices

  • like a wifi unit, which would help bring the Internet to parts of the world that don’t

  • have it yet. The buoyant air turbine was designed for bringing renewable wind energy to rural

  • parts of the world where building a traditional wind turbine was impossible and will first

  • be deployed in Alaska. It can even automatically detect and adjust its floating height to where

  • the best wind speed is. When the wind speed is dangerously high, the thing will dock itself,

  • eliminating the need for manual labor. Flying wind turbines like this should soon replace

  • all the less efficient tower-based systems and could allow for the construction of offshore

  • wind farms that have until now been really expensive to build.

  • Unlike fission, nuclear fusion doesn’t create any deadly nuclear waste because it fuses

  • atoms together instead of splitting them apart, so there’s no threat of a runaway reaction

  • that could lead to a meltdown event. But, this is easier said than done. One Nobel Prize-winning

  • physicist described fusion as trying to putthe sun into a box. The idea is pretty.

  • The problem is, we don't know how to make the box." The technical issue is that fusion

  • reactions will produce material that’s so volatile and hot, it will damage the reactor

  • that created it. This isn’t stopping private companies and governments from spending billions

  • to research the technology and solve these problems. And if the immense challenges can

  • be overcome, fusion will provide virtually limitless energy and power the world. That’s

  • why the world’s wealthiest governments are collaborating on the controversial International

  • Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor in France, known as ITER. When was the last time Russia,

  • China, Europe and the United States collaborated on anything? That’s how important for humanity

  • this project is. And because of its revolutionary potential several powerful companies like

  • Lockheed Martin are quietly working on their own fusion reactors. Lockheed has a very optimistic

  • timeline for their system, projecting that they will meet global energy demand by 2050.

  • Their optimism may be fairly justified. In October, 2013, in separate research, scientists

  • at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States achieved a huge milestone

  • in fusion when, for the first time, a fuel capsule gave off more energy than was applied

  • to it.

  • Thank for watching. Let us know if we missed anything or if you disagreed with our rankings.

  • If you liked this video, help the conversation spread by sharing it. You can see a collection

  • of our favorite videos from across the Internet back on our website, TDCvideo.com. For The

  • Daily Conversation, I’m Bryce Plank.

It’s a really exciting time to be alive. We have a front row seat to the only known

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