Surprise! Surprise! Most technologies used in the power industry today are over 100 years old. Here are some examples:

• The solar cell (built in 1883) is still in use today;
• Turning wood chips into liquid fuel (first done by German chemists over 100 years ago);
• Turning gas in a clean liquid fuel (first done in 1920);
• The solar dishes (like the ones in the picture above) use a Stirling engine, patented by a Scotsman in 1816, decades before the diesel or internal combustion engine.

While this industry is given special attention from multiple directions (the administration is pumping billions of dollars into renewable energy source projects), industry veterans warn against unrealistic expectations. They say the time from a patent to a working product is measured in decades, not years. Unless, of course, enormous amounts of money (much more than currently planned) are pumped into technology development. And even so, there is a question of available, qualified, innovative people who will be responsible for "the next big innovation" in the power industry.

via the Wall Street Journal