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 [I’m

envisioning wind-up flashlights or the like],

but scientists are working on harvesting power

generated from normal human movement.

We’re 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

bag, pocket or moves in your hand, or 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 we’re 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.

We’re 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.

It’ll 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 put “the 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.