Energy
| Emerging technology | Status | Potentially marginalized technologies | Potential applications | Related articles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vortex engine | Chimney Cooling tower Solar updraft tower | Power generation. | ||
| Airborne wind turbine | Research | Fossil fuels | Producing electricity | KiteGen |
| Artificial photosynthesis | Research, experiments | replicate the natural process of photosynthesis, converting sunlight, water, carbon dioxide into carbohydrates and oxygen | AlgaePARC | |
| Biofuels | Diffusion | Fossil fuels | Energy storage, more so for transport | Issues relating to biofuels |
| Concentrated solar power | Growing markets in California, Spain, Northern Africa | Fossil fuels, photovoltaics | Producing electricity | DESERTEC, BrightSource Energy, Solar Millennium |
| Electric double-layer capacitor | Diffusion, continued development | Chemical batteries | Regenerative braking; energy storage: generally faster charging, longer lasting, more flexible, greener | |
| Flywheel energy storage | Some commercial examples | |||
| Fusion power | Theory, experiments; for 60+ years | Fossil fuels, renewable energy, nuclear fission power | Producing electricity, heat, fusion torch recycling with waste heat | ITER, NIF, Polywell, Dense plasma focus, Muon-catalyzed fusion |
| Generation IV reactor | Research, Experiments | Traditional nuclear power reactors, fossil fuels | Producing electricity, heat, transmutation of nuclear waste stockpiles from traditional reactors | |
| Grid energy storage | Increasing use | |||
| Home fuel cell | Research, commercialisation | Electrical grid | Off-the-grid, producing electricity | Autonomous building, Bloom Energy Server |
| Hydrogen economy | Diffusion of hydrogen fuel cells; theory, experiments for lower cost hydrogen production | Other energy storage methods: chemical batteries, fossil fuels | Energy storage | |
| Lithium-air battery | Research, experiments | Other energy storage methods: hydrogen, chemical batteries, some uses of fossil fuels | Laptops, mobile phones, long-range electric cars; storing energy for electric grid | |
| Lithium iron phosphate battery | Commercialization | |||
| Molten salt battery | Applications and continuing research | |||
| Molten salt reactor | Research, Experiments | Traditional nuclear power reactors, fossil fuels | Producing electricity, heat | |
| Nanowire battery | Experiments, prototypes | Other energy storage methods: hydrogen, chemical batteries, some uses of fossil fuels | Laptops, mobile phones, long-range electric cars; storing energy for electric grid | |
| Nantenna | Research | Fossil fuels | Producing electricity | |
| Silicon–air battery | Experiments | |||
| Smart grid | Research, diffusion | Smart meter, SuperSmart Grid | ||
| Solar roadway | Research | Fossil fuels | Producing electricity | |
| Space-based solar power | Theory | |||
| Thorium fuel cycle | Research started in the 1960s, still ongoing | Uranium based nuclear power, fossil fuels | Producing electricity, heat | |
| Wireless energy transfer | Prototypes, diffusion, short range consumer products | Power cords, plugs, batteries | Wirelessly powered equipment: laptop, cell phones, electric cars, etc. | WiTricity, resonant inductive coupling |
Read more about this topic: List Of Emerging Technologies
Famous quotes containing the word energy:
“Long before Einstein told us that matter is energy, Machiavelli and Hobbes and other modern political philosophers defined man as a lump of matter whose most politically relevant attribute is a form of energy called “self-interestedness.” This was not a portrait of man “warts and all.” It was all wart.”
—George F. Will (b. 1941)
“The persons who constitute the natural aristocracy, are not found in the actual aristocracy, or, only on its edge; as the chemical energy of the spectrum is found to be greatest just outside of the spectrum.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Just as we need to encourage women to test life’s many options, we need to acknowledge real limits of energy and resources. It would be pointless and cruel to prescribe role combination for every woman at each moment of her life. Life has its seasons. There are moments when a woman ought to invest emotionally in many different roles, and other moments when she may need to conserve her psychological energies.”
—Faye J. Crosby (20th century)