Ah, but plants have already gathered several hundred million years of this fusion energy & stored it for us in a relatively compact form, which is currently at least an order of magnitude more compact (by volume & by weight) than the best batteries. :-) --- The U.S. govt has decided in its infinite wisdom to start charging significant duties on Chinese solar cells, so that they will be noticeably more expensive here in the U.S. :-( --- The good news is that the feature size on silicon chips is now only 3x the sizes needed to build "quantum dots" for the appropriate wavelengths of light for high efficiency solar cells. This means that we will soon no longer have to depend upon weird materials that happen to have the appropriate energy levels; we will be able to manufacture energy levels by changing certain size parameters of these quantum dots. At 04:38 PM 5/25/2012, Robert Baillie wrote:
of course, we can already get energy from fusion!
there is a fusion reactor 93 millon miles from the earth. it is already up and running, is maintenance-free, and has a 5 billion year fuel supply.
all we have to do is collect its energy using solar collectors, wind turbines, etc.