Fusion. The ultimate, clean energy generation potential.
Also, don't discount wind that fast. The typical "it will have to whole country with these 1-2 MW turbines" line of argument is old. Modern offshore turbine designs are 6MW, getting to 10MW by 2012 and 20MW designs are in the works now. Advances in the field have been massive just in under a decade, with higher output efficiency (gearless designs) and less overall maintenance effort.
The trouble with wind is the variability. And even if you assume that there is always good wind somewhere, the energy grid just can't handle shifting power back and forth so quickly.
It takes time for the other generators to change output levels, so during high speed wind turbines tend to get disconnect from the grid because of the harmful effects they have on it.
The net result is that they don't produce out as much energy as expected.
> It takes time for the other generators to change output levels, so during high speed wind turbines tend to get disconnect from the grid because of the harmful effects they have on it.
Traditionally, a wind turbine generator works only in narrow range of speeds (say, 2000 rpm). In older designs the variable speed of wind was addressed by using a (massive) gearbox, not unlike what you have in your car. The newer designs (e.g. what Siemens Windpower is churning out now) are gearless, don't suffer from that problem, and have in ballpark of 40% better energy efficiency.
The cap/penetration effects of wind power on the grid are being studied, but on levels below 1/5th of total consumption it is believed to not cause any substantial problems. Most of the existing grids can accommodate that. I think no country approached the 20% wind power penetration yet.
I forget the name of the company, but some guy is working on electric cars with swappable batteries: the idea is that instead of plugging your car in overnight to “refuel” it, you would take it to a service station and change the discharged batteries for charged ones.
Now imagine that the outlets for charging those batteries were connected to a wind-powered grid, where the power company charged a lower rate in exchange for less reliable availability. That kind of service would suck for running, say, an Internet data center, but it would be adequate to make sure that all the batteries that came in by 6:00 pm were fully charged by 6:00 am.
Most of the big car companies are experimenting with some sort of battery swapping concept. The problem is that they all have to get together and agree on some sort of standard interface, power ratings and dimensions. If a service station has to stock dozens of different models of batteries then the idea has basically failed before it even gets started.
Yes, we need a smarter grid, we need a breakthrough in battery technology, etc., etc. The way forward is going to be hard and take serious investment in technology, but what else is new?
I would love to see some offshore wind turbines, but as soon as that's brought up the rich people from both the left and right decide they don't want to ruin the views from their beach houses.
It seems like so many people want everyone else to be clean while being dirty themselves.
Also, don't discount wind that fast. The typical "it will have to whole country with these 1-2 MW turbines" line of argument is old. Modern offshore turbine designs are 6MW, getting to 10MW by 2012 and 20MW designs are in the works now. Advances in the field have been massive just in under a decade, with higher output efficiency (gearless designs) and less overall maintenance effort.