Power Revolution
By Mariane Lavelle

  The high-rolling risk takers who brought you personal computers,  the telecommunications revolution,  the commercialization of  the  Internet, and, of course, Google now aim to do nothing less than save planet Earth—and make billions while doing it. Vinod Khosl becomes one of  the driving  forces of Silicon Valley as a cofounder of Sun Microsystems and  later as a venture capitalist, views climate change as  the gravest  threat  the world has ever faced.
  Khosla,  through his own Khosla Ventures,  is  in  the vanguard of  entrepreneurs  and  financiers who believe their Silicon Valley success stories can be repeated in green energy. They are pouring money and ideas into a new generation of alternatives  to  fossil  fuel. That  is, options  that can ramp up to serve a large share of the nation’s energy needs because  they’ll cost  less  than coal or oil. One estimate  is that venture capital funds nearly tripled their investment on green energy last year, putting $2.4 billion to work.
  Just  the  sort of optimism  that’s helped make Silicon Valley the world’s leading center of innovation. And just the sort of attitude  that seems  to be fnally cracking  the  tough technological puzzles whose solutions will change  the way we power the global economy and our lives.

  Solar concentration

  Solar energy may be poised  to make  the  leap  from  the rooftop down to the foor of the desert—where some advocates say it needs to be if it’s going to take its rightful place as a member of Big Energy. The nation’s  largest utility  in customers served,  investor-owned Pacific Gas & Electric, this  fall announced a bold plan  to  install nearly fve  times the amount of solar power  that  is now operating across  the United States and do it cheaper, bigger, and faster than has ever been tried before.

  Deep geothermal

  One of the most promising renewable-energy well-springs is underground. Geothermal is lower profle than a range of other alter-native energy  technologies, even  though many homes—including President Bush’s Crawford  ranch—have heat pumps that tap into the Earth’s steady, reliable warmth. But few realize that the United States is the world’s biggest mass producer of geothermal power, with  long-running plants in western hot springs and geyser areas  that generate more electricity than all U.S. wind and solar energy combined.
  This year, a government-sponsored study led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded  that  these “heat mining” methods could offer access to a staggering amount of energy. Just 2 percent of  the U.S. geothermal  resource base  could yield nearly 2,000  times  the power  that  the nation now consumes each year.

High-pressure ethanol

  In alternative  transportation  fuels,  the holy grail quest is the search for the next ethanol. Sure, the business of fuel alcohol distilled  from corn  is booming, with production having tripled since 2002 and up 33 percent this year to 6.5 billion gallons. Historically, ethanol has been more expensive  than gasoline, but crude oil prices are now  so high that ethanol would be cheaper even without  its 51-cent-per-gallon  subsidy.  Indeed, one  reason pump prices have not skyrocketed along with the price of crude oil is that so much  fuel  is blended with 10 percent ethanol. Politicianswould like to mandate that refners use still more.

能源革命
玛丽安娜 •拉凡勒

    喜欢下大赌注的冒险家们为我们带来了个人电脑、电信革命、互联网的商业化，当然还有谷歌，现在，他们正打算干一件不亚于拯救地球的大事，而这样做又会使他们获得数十亿美元的利润。维诺德 • 科斯拉（太阳微电子公司的创始人之一，后来成了一位风险投家）成为硅谷发展的动力之一，认为气候变化是人类世界有史以来所遇到的最严重的威胁。
    科斯拉正在通过自己的风险投资公司，与企业家和金融家组成的先驱者们一起投资绿色能源，他们相信自己在硅谷的成功历史可以在绿色能源领域续写。现在，他们正把大量的资金和聪明才智投入到新一代矿物燃料替代物上，也就是那些由于比煤或石油更便宜而且能够不断再生进而满足美国很大一部分能源需求的新燃料。据估计，去年风险投资基金在绿色能源方面的投资几乎增加了两倍，总额达24亿美元。
    正是这种乐观的精神促使硅谷成为的创新中心，而且似乎也正是这种达观的态度能够最终帮助他们突破技术难关，其解决方案将改变推动全球经济发展和提高人类生活质量的方式。

    太阳能

    太阳能可能要准备好实现从屋顶到沙漠的飞跃。一些支持者说，太阳能要想获得“主要能源”成员应有的地位，就需要在沙漠中寻求发展。美国客户数量最多的公用事业公司——投资者持有的太平洋天然气和电气公司今年秋季宣布了一项大胆的计划：安装五倍于美国境内现有数量的太阳能设备，而且比先前尝试的所有做法更便宜、更宏大、更快速。
深层地热

    最有发展前途的可再生能源之一藏于地下。与其他一系列替代能源技术相比，地热并不太引人注意，虽然许多家庭（包括布什总统在克劳福德的农场）都有热力泵来利用地球上这种稳定可靠的能源。但是，很少有人意识到，美国是世界上的地热能源生产者，长期以来在西部热泉和间歇泉地区建设的发电厂的发电量比美国所有风能和太阳能的发电量的总和还要多。

    今年，由政府资助、麻省理工学院带头进行的一项研究结果表明，这些“热能开采”技术可以为人们提供数量惊人的能源。仅开发美国地热能源基地的 2%，所发的电就几乎相当于美国现在每年消耗的电力的 2000 倍。

    高压乙醇

    在替代性交通运输用燃料中，开发新一代的乙醇燃料是一个长期追寻的目标。的确，从玉米中提炼燃料酒精的行业正在蓬勃发展：自 2002 年以来，燃料酒精的产量已经增长了 3 倍，今年更是增加了 33%，达到 65 亿加仑。从历史上来看，乙醇一直比汽油昂贵，但是，现在原油价格非常高，所以即使没有每加仑 51 美分的补贴，乙醇也比汽油便宜得多。事实上，油品零售价格之所以没有随着原油价格急剧升高就是因为许多燃油中混合了 10% 的乙醇。政界人士将很乐意授权各炼油厂增加燃油中乙醇的含量。
——选自《我爱读英文》