Power: MHD's target: Payoff by 2000: Efficiencies over 50 percent and generating costs of 32 mills/kWh may make magnetohydrodynamic systems viable by 1995

The magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) technique for generating electricity involves the interaction between a magnetic field and a conducting medium that is fluid rather than solid, as in conventional generators. MHD germinated more than a century ago, but now the attempt to translate it into a viable, commercially acceptable energy-conversion technology is intensifying as a result of the need to improve the use of fuel resources that are being depleted. The United States, for example, plans to have an operational pilot plant as early as 1985, and a base-load commercial demonstration plant before 1995.