Coming: Powerful breakthroughs in power production

Monday, February 21st 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) -- In this, the technological age in which, it is said, nothing is impossible when combined with entrepreneurship, there is weeping and worrying about the rise in the price of oil.

Among dire possibilities mentioned are endangered national security, inflation, recession, a stock market collapse, and long-term mediocrity for our now rising standard of living. All such possibilities might be worth discussion, but so alsoare the technological innovations in pursuit of new energy sources being taken by some of the country's biggest and smallest companies.

Such research and development efforts cannot be the answer to the immediate problem of oil prices, but their efforts are raising stunning possibilities for radically different energy sources. Some may be closer to the marketplace than realized. Hydrogen-powered fuel cells, which can be likened to powerful batteries able to heat or cool a house, have already gone through rigorous testing.

Patents have been issued on thermionic generators capable of converting heat to electricity within the home, and doing so cleanly, giving promise of houses with their own power plants. Trials are underway on more efficient electric motors with the potential for radically lowering costs throughout industry and bringing close the production of a practical electric vehicle.

Synthetic fuels are being developed, and oil companies are well along in technology for utilizing fossil fuels once thought to be inaccessible or in economically small amounts. What's surprising is that so much research and development by so many companies has been underway for so long with so little recognition in the media.

Many of the energy products emerging in the next few years represent technological breakthroughs that, in the aggregate, can have an impact at least faintly comparable to those of the Internet. You wouldn't guess that from the some of the ominous sounding reactions to the latest surge in oil prices, the thrust of which was that, alas, the country would just have to grin and bear it.

It draws a contrast with the typical greeting provided an Internet startup which answers no challenge, solves no problem, and has no earnings -- but which, it is said, has a great future. But all the nerds and techies, and all the research and innovation, haven't been confined to the Internet.

Technology thrives on challenge, and the U.S. economy and national security have been challenged for decades to come up with fuel alternatives, clean cars and efficient power generation. Quietly, some of the biggest and sometimes dullest companies, such as utilities, have been working with brainy entrepreneurs to accept the challenge, and they've made a lot of headway.

You'll be hearing more from them this year and for many years hence. Yes, there is an energy solution. There is hope. And judging from what's in the pipeline, some of the news will electrify you.