04 Energy Sources We’ve Got to Look Forward To

Listen, fossil fuels have been great. They provided such an abundance of cheap energy and revolutionized the last century that we have carried their wave from horses and guns to rocket ships and the Internet. But there are costs to burning it (you know, like how to burn the planet). As the losses begin to outweigh the gains, it is clear that the time for oil and coal is fast approaching its end.

The debate over which renewables could replace them (and thus be worth more public investment) has been going on for years. It turns out that one thing we're not lacking in is amazing ideas for energy production that, with the right resources and public investment, can be implemented in our lives. things like…

1. Nuclear waste

Nuclear fission reactors have been around forever, currently provide about 20% of US energy, and are likely to be the backbone of any climate response plan due to their reduced greenhouse effect. Contrary to popular belief, it is completely safe, since accidents such as the common and rare Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters can be prevented. But there is one problem that is not emphasized much, and that is the problem of nuclear waste.

Current light water technology surrounds uranium fuel rods with enough water to slow down the neutrons and produce a continuous fission reaction, but only replaces an unacceptable 5% of the uranium atoms inside the rods, and can be used first. The remaining 95% of the variety is dumped into an ever-growing inventory (90,000 tons and growing) that we don't really know what to do with. That's where fast reactor technology comes in, which immerses the rods in sodium and so can change those numbers: using 95% uranium and just the rest rather than adding more to the existing mess. Dumping 5%. If we can remove the political stigma from nuclear power, this technology has real potential.

2. Nuclear Fusion

Of course, we don't have to stick to fusion at all. At least not in the long run. Nuclear fusion, in which molecules are fused together into a new element using extreme heat and pressure, is safer, more powerful, cleaner, and more environmentally friendly, and could lead humans into this kind of future. It can provide enough energy to do things that only one person could dream of. . on the Jetsons. Unfortunately, it is not easy to keep net positive (meaning we get more energy from the reaction than we have to put into catalysing it) for fusion reactions to be commercially viable.

There's an old adage that comments on fusion long, long and we've already come and how far we still have to go before we get started: “Nuclear fusion is the energy source of the future,” and always will be.” It's both funny and a little frustrating, given the potential That always seems like just one hack. We just need to look at the stars that are there because of the merger. So technically, since none of us exist without the Sun, so do you.

3. Geothermal energy

Despite the appeal of fusion and wind, there is certainly something to be said for an energy source that does not depend on expensive reactor facilities or unreliable weather conditions. Enter geothermal energy: heat is drawn directly from beneath the Earth's surface, where it's always abundant. Now technically, we've been using geothermal energy for a century just by collecting it from water and steam. But modern technologies for harnessing geothermal energy are limited, both in scope of use (even when the technology is mature, it is used primarily for heating and cooling purposes) and geography itself (we need to harness incoming heat where it is, always in tectonically active areas).

However, we are constantly making improvements in both accessing heat and spending less money, effort and time doing so. In the near future, the technologies are expected to come under the umbrella of improved geothermal systems, which drill for water into "hot dry rock" regions of the Earth's crust to double the energy stock there. Compared to fossil fuels, clean energy currently gives us the potential to reshape the energy landscape.

4. Space-Based Solar

The first thing anyone thinks of when they hear the term "renewable energy" is probably solar energy. Why don't they? The sun bombards the Earth with more raw force every second than we have experienced in a year. But the problem was never that it wasn't there. I have always used and stored the goods. But what if we could harness the sun's energy in space? However, they are always present in waves that are not filtered by an elastic atmosphere (which anyway reflects 30% of it back to space).

The basic idea is to build lots of solar farms that collect high-energy sunlight and use mirrors to collect the energy into small collectors, which would recycle it in the form of microwaves or lasers, and send it back to Earth. However, this technology is very expensive. But it probably won't last long. After all, companies like SpaceX are constantly engineering ways to lower the cost of sending goods into space, so hopefully we'll see one of these world-changing (and charging) behemoths in our lifetime.