If you are worried about clean energy of the future, don't spend too much time dwelling on the problem. Many new energy strategies are in the works worldwide.
One of the best hopes for clean and reliable energy is hydrogen plasma fusion reactors, which in theory could provide abundant energy without end.
Fusion reactors are designed to work like nuclear fusion in stars where atomic nuclei collide and fuse together to form helium atoms. In the process, a huge amount of energy is released. Fusion reactors superheat hydrogen gas to temperatures of the Sun to produce plasma. The problem has been holding the plasma in place for long enough periods.
According to gizmag.com, Germany's newest fusion reactor, the Wendelstein 7-X fusion stellarator, took 10 years to build but has now heated a single milligram off helium gas to 1 million degrees Celsius. What this means is the the newly designed reactor, built at the cost of $1 billion, will pave the way for other reactors that will be able to continuously produce power. The new Wendelstein produced its first quarter of a second plasma pulse in December. The goal is to work up to 30 minutes of plasma containment.
The German reactor was built to be an improvement upon the tokamak design of fusion reactors. But in China, scientists using the tokamak design have been able to sustain the energy for 102 seconds, a very good record.
In a more down-to-earth plan, a city in China, Shenzhen, is producing a new, circular waste-to-energy plant. The plant will incinerate 5,000 tons of waste every day to produce power for 20 million residents of the city. The plant is scheduled to start operations in 2020.
Researchers at MIT have created the thinnest, lightest solar cell ever made. The cell is the size of a human hair and it is capable of producing 6 watts of power per gram. According to MIT professor Vladimir Bulovc, the cells are light enough to rest on a soap bubble. They could well be used to power portable devices, or make spacecraft lighter. They might be used in circuit boards or even clothing.
