Check out some of the proposals from IBM's site below. Much of it is ambitious and if using computing power to solve the world's problem and it works from new energy sources, to better health care and to education, then I'm one who is for it's plans for the future of the planet. http://www.IBM.com/think
The PS3's Cell processor, is currently being used by Stanford researchers, through a program called 'Life With Playstation (formerly known as Folding@Home).' You select that option within the settings portion of your PS3's menu, and it allows that particular machine to act as a computing resource for them. Just figured I'd throw that out there.