Sure, solar balloons are nice and all, but everyone knows real men prefer miniature reactors in their backyard: "Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos. ... The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground." Uh huh. This comes from the Guardian and sounds shady, but since we've been fawning over pie-in-the-sky energy ideas lately, why not toss this in, too?
--Bradford Plumer