What's your take on superconduction? I've always had a childish dream of building hugh nuclear plants out in the desert where nobody will complain, but then you'd need to transmit the power... using some new ceramics, perhaps.
I think that will have to wait for a major major breakthrough in materials research coming in a couple years.
Currently what's happening in materials research is that scientists can run models of molecules and then run simulations of combinations of molecules until they find a combination that they like. and then they shake and bake it into existance.
I think that really cheap high temperature superconducting materials will have to wait until the next generation math for materials comes out. I've seen a couple papers in the last several months from one of the ivy's in the north east. The papers were involved with doing the math to create algorithms that will enable programmers to directly specify the characteristics of a material they want to build and then shake and bake it into existance.
Man when that happens the world changes in a flash. It'll be just like a frigging house has dropped on the world and the present age will be like the witch in the wizard of oz when the house drops on the witch and all that's left of her that we can see are her shriveling feet.