The cleantech industry is buzzing over new, greener power innovations in everything from batteries to nuclear reactors. Soon things from electric cars to your personal computer, and even entire electric grids, will be much more eco-friendly.

New clean technologies showing some promise include:

• A material called “Graphene” that improves the performance of transistors, boosts the capacity of lithium-ion batteries by a factor of ten, and even convinces electrons to move at the speed of light. Thanks to a production agreement between California Lithium Battery and the Argonne National Laboratory, new Graphene-enhanced lithium batteries have the potential to last three times longer than anything else on the market.
• An advanced lithium-ion battery from a company called Envia. They have devised a battery with a silicon carbon anode which when paired with a proprietary high-voltage electrolyte can store two-and-a-half times more energy than current batteries of the same weight. Nearly three years out from production, these types of batteries will be perfect for electric cars.
• A source of renewable energy in the next 10-15 years. Bill Gates is a principal investor in a company called TerraPower which believes it can build a nuclear reactor that runs on its own waste products as it will make and consume its own fuel. At first it starts with a small amount of enriched uranium, but then the reactor doesn’t need to be refueled or have its waste removed until the end of life of the reactor, which is theoretically a couple hundred years.

Though some of these technologies are only initial research stages (like the TerraPower reactor) many of them are only a few years away from being included in our everyday devices. These breakthrough innovations are bound to help allay our growing environmental concerns.  When someone like Bill Gates calls for “at least two hundred crazy people who think their idea … can solve this,” his confidence alone is sure to keep momentum in the industry going strong.