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Rail travel is more energy efficient, and uses less fuel, than cars or airplanes. According to U.S. Department of Energy data, Amtrak is almost 20 percent more efficient than domestic airline travel and 30 percent more efficient than auto travel ...

A recent study by Logan group at Penn State University also demonstrated similar findings in that the energy contained in hydrogen gas not only can offset the energy used for the desalination process but has surplus that can be used for downstream processing.

Several years ago even the mobile phones were very expensive, not to mention computers and airplane flights.

The example of mobile phones is of little relevance here, because cost reduction is driven by the scaling laws of microelectronics. However, the reducing cost of flights - in a way the ultimate energy application - offer a good benchmark. What will happen to flights though if commodity and energy prices go up in the long run?

Driving south out of the agricultural town of Ainsworth, you can't miss its newest crop: wind turbines, three dozen of them, with steel stalks 230 feet high and petal-like blades 131 feet long, sprouting improbably from the sand hills of north-central Nebraska, beside ruminating cattle. Though painted gray, the turbines stand out against the evening backdrop of battleship-colored thunderclouds and bear an almost celestial whiteness when day's light is right. Airplane pilots can spot them from far away, and rarely does a bird make their unfortunate acquaintance. The sound of 8.5-ton blades, three to a turbine, turning and turning, only enhances their almost supernatural presence. Standing at the base of a turbine's stalk, you hear a whistling whoosh - whuh ... whuh ... whuh - as steady summer winds come like the breath of gods to toy with pinwheel amusements.

Does it make sense to solar power everything? It leads to many small, and relatively expensive installations. Wouldn't it be more effective to go for a battery & plug-in concept where possible. One would loose the inflight recharging of the solar airplane, but for everything else, the plug-in concept probably provides benefits.

In addition, the lifetime of cars, for example, is much lower than the one for solar panels. Why integrate both?

Yes, I agree that there is too much emphasis on the novel in attempt to solve climate change. Creating technology for the designer label market to sell goods to the rich who want to tell their friends they are green. The same investment in a solid developed renewable method could yield a hundred times the reduction of carbon or more...