Nearly everyone agrees that fossil fuels will run out someday – some say we’ll start feeling the pinch within 30 years.

Predictions of disastrous floods that global warming could bring to island nations like Japan, and to coastal areas of Europe and the United States, may force us to phase out petroleum-based fuels even faster.

If so, are clean, renewable alternatives really viable? And can they be developed in time?

In Israel, a Middle Eastern country with no oil or coal reserves, scientists have studied one option, solar energy, longer than anyone.