This week's Economist magazine has an excellent special report on alternative energy - The Power and the glory , which is well worth a read. Some of the points I found most interesting;

• The impact of biotechnology on biofuels - this is potentially a far, far bigger market in physical volume and sales than that of pharmaceuticals where biotech is mostly engaged today and biofuels could leapfrog and leave behind the electrification of the transport sector
  
• The chart on photovoltaic modules clearly shows price per watt in $ has remained unchanged over the last few years - but Dr Sachs of 1366 Technologies thinks he can bring about a 27% increase in solar pv efficiency and bring the capital cost of solar cells below $2 a watt (actually, someone said to me the other day, each 1% increase in solar pv efficiency yields a 6% fall in costs - which roughly corresponds)
  
• A very upbeat precis about the prospects for Concentrated Solar Thermal Power, predicting a tenfold increase in global capacity from 400 MW to 4000 MW in just 4 years.
  
• Wind is now cost competitive with gas and not far behind coal and Direct Current smarter electricity grids, combined with transcontinental DC cables will push the contributory impact of wind up a great deal - possibly as high as 30%

The opening article of the survey though, which compared today's alternative energy boom as one in a series, following early booms such as the computing boom in the 1980s, the internet in the 90s, bio and nanotech in the early 2000s struck me as not quite right.

Granted, there's a global boom in energy demand of all sorts. But think of it this way;

A rising energy tide may lift all boats and some with holes in them won't rise at all - e.g. low tech biomass. Meanwhile, big and small alternative energy wave boomlets are advancing up the conventional energy beach - biofuels, fuel cells,  solar and wind - before they recoup and retreat for another assault, perhaps as a new technology not yet out there . . .