Alternate power production technologies: The promise and the challenge: Near-term and long-term generation alternatives can contribute to our energy resource base, but technological and environmental problems remain

Since the oil embargo of 1973, the top research priority of most electric utility companies has been on how best to use alternate power generation technologies and replace oil-fired generation with clean and abundant domestic sources of energy. The technologies considered fall into two broad categories, near-term alternatives and long-term renewables, each posing unique problems and solutions.