While I fully agree that wind turbines are great and are still in "infancy" (industrial wise), I feel that some real breakthrough with conductive or supra-conductive materials are needed to get energy wiser !
Most energy producing techniques are there (apart fusion, hot or cold). But the means to carry electricity, or to stock it, are still in "stone age".
Nowadays we can't even get some humble housing works being done without posting guards when we get to copper wires installation !!!
There are still some countries where electricity doesn't go everywhere - still, it's a general wish, that all can have access to such comfort - What happens when all those appliances are used everywhere on the globe ? Use micro-wave transportation as Tesla, and get everyone fried ?
I won't even dare to enter in the Faraday cage protections that starts to show it's nose in people who want's to shield themselves from all those fields... (you don't really need copper there, but the grounding wire in all modern installation multiplies the lenght, etc.) Nor about electric cars with an "engine" on each wheel (x4)...!
After the "Peak Oil", the "Copper Peak"...? "What can I do, What can I write, Against the fall of Night". A.E. Housman
Don't forget that metals are much more 'renewable' than energy. If the price is right, you can reuse them quite well. Not perfectly, but still good.
Probably impractical, but it makes for cool SciFi.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
