The Energy Future's Outer Edge

After the gulf oil blowout, we look at alternative energy ideas around the world. Kite power. Liquid batteries. Anything but oil.

Fossil fuels are fouling the planet. And by 2050, projections are we’ll use 50 percent more energy worldwide.

What to do? We need alternatives.

This hour we’ll go global, looking at the work and research out there right now. Solar energy paint. Harvesting wind from the ends of high-flying kites. The push on nuclear fusion. New initiatives in China, Europe, the USA.

We’re going to need to conserve, bigtime. But we need alternatives, too.

This Hour, On Point: around the world in search of an alternative energy future.Guests:

M. Sanjayan, host of the Discovery Channel series "Powering the Future." He's also a biologist and lead scientist at The Nature Conservancy.

Lisa Margonelli, director of the New America Foundation’s Energy Policy Initiative and author of “Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank.”

Corwin Hardham, CEO of Makani Power, a company that builds kite-mounted wind turbines.