Leftists and other sourpusses love to go on about "bubbles," as if they're all bad, but they do have their benefits. The dot.com bubble really did help develop the Internet, and we're mostly grateful for that, no?
.............
I love bubbles.
Then again, I love risk and audacity (in concept, engineering and deed) so I'm surely biased.
What's the next bubble?
As you wrote, ideally it would be alt.energy. But we seldom get what we yearn for, at least in an unalloyed form. I think the next bubble will come from a constellation of technologies. These technologies will receive a sexy label, meant to place them all under the same tent and there'll be some sense in that: collaborative or, as old design tech hipsters say, 'synergistic' effects will be evident.
Even so, this collection of techs will move with sinister majesty down different paths which sometimes merge but remain essentially separate.
Some of these are:
* Bio-engineered organisms (including us)
Existing plants and animals will be altered and new forms of life will be created for a variety of reasons. Eventually, moralistic resistance to human performance enhancement (running the gambit from exotic genetic manipulation to sophisticated hormone therapies, steroids, etc) will decay as the benefits are touted. Results will be mixed to say the least. There will be positive effects but also serious problems.
* Ubiquitous computing
Machine "intelligence" will be embedded in more devices and these devices will be networked. Efforts such as AMD's 50x15 (providing at least 50 percent of the world's population with Internet access by 2015) will inspire the creation of smaller, cheaper, hardier devices which will see wide distribution. The so-called first world will continue to have expensive items such as iPhones et. al. but the rest of the world will have its own set of computing machinery. Because of this market's truly global scope, manufacture and sale of these devices will create unprecedented boom conditions.
* "Intelligent Surveillance"
See the above and think of the surveillance implications.
* Climate Change Aware Design and Existing Systems Retrofit
To get a flavor of what I'm referring to, read this BLDGBLOG post about "Farmadelphia" -
<http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/farmadelphia.html>
Slowly, but with growing momentum, new markets (with both real and bullshit elements) will be created to reduce the 'carbon footprint' of devices, buildings, communities, small towns, massive cities. This will attain greater speed as the harsh, jarring effects of climate change become strongly evident to ordinary people.
.d.
-- "Your mistletoe is no match for my TOW missile!"
Robot Santa ...................... http://monroelab.net/blog/