our world is becoming increasingly more
complex and connected for 95% of
humanity's existence we didn't even know
about electricity there is a fundamental
physical law which states that energy
cannot be created nor destroyed but only
transformed in that sense all the energy
we currently use in our homes
communications factories among many
other things had not been created in a
coal factory or in the desert with solar
panels the energy that humanity uses had
always been transformed from a source be
it coal factories or in hydroelectric
power plants that use kinetic energy
from their turbines or in nuclear power
plants the world has a constantly
growing need for energy as the world
population increases to meet the needs
of each and every one of us so far the
easy solution had been to burn fossil
fuels such as coal or oil but this has
taken a toll on the planet these
resources are finite and are rapidly
declining so what solution has been
proposed to face the inevitable energy
crisis the answer isn't so simple since
it is a matter in which politicians
economists and above all scientists have
been debating for a long time however
time is running out and it is critical
that we find another sustainable and
perpetual source of energy fortunately
we are coming close to a semi perpetual
source let's begin
the earth a floating blue sphere in the
middle of an endless vacuum this blue
marble contains life thanks to a
combination of key factors but the most
important is the heat and energy
produced by our Sun our source of life
it is the main factor responsible for
our plants to germinate and it is the
reason why our oceans contain life and
what maintains the world's food cycle
however the world currently uses most of
its energy thanks to the burning of
fossil fuels currently oil is the most
important source of energy for society
being responsible for 33 percent of the
energy obtained followed by carbon with
24 percent gas with 22 and the rest of
renewable energies and nuclear energy
only make up 15% in a world with a
limited source of oil extracting 40
million barrels of oil per day or more
is clearly not sustainable even if other
potential oil reserves were found this
would only end up damaging the
environment in the long term it is even
estimated that oil will run out in about
40 years gas isn't sustainable either
even if Russia has the largest gas
reserves in the world at the current
rate of extraction we will run out of
gas in just 160 years even the abundant
carbon one of the basic elements of the
universe is not unlimited on our planet
but carbon is not eternal and with the
current rate of consumption it will only
last another 400 years this may seem
like a long time to us but in the scale
of the history of humanity
it's practically nothing so to ensure
the continuity of our species society
and civilization monumental efforts have
been made in order to transform our
economies from being fossil fuel addicts
into economies that consume clean and
sustainable sources of energy for a few
years now European countries have been
developing strategies to increase
infrastructure to free themselves from
fossil fuels and although now for
example there are countries such as
Sweden and Denmark that produced more
than half of their energy from renewable
sources there are other nations such as
China the u.s. or Poland that still
depend on burning coal to power their
cities other countries such as France
for example depend heavily on nuclear
energy powering an entire country such
as the United States solely with solar
and wind power would require an enormous
scale of construction of solar panels
extending through practically all the
deserts of the country although this is
technically possible
distributing the energy throughout the
whole country is another story so we can
see the practicality of oil and gas they
can be stored and later burned to
generate electricity when needed in the
case of solar panels the energy produced
by sunlight is instantaneously converted
into electricity if it isn't used
immediately it can still be stored in
batteries by applying this to such a
massive country it proves to be quite
problematic theoretically solar energy
could be enough to cover all our energy
needs as a civilization so how can we
turn this into a reality
take for example the most famous desert
in the world the Sahara this desert
covers multiple countries in North
Africa extending over nine million
square kilometres the Sahara Desert
receives countless hours of sunlight per
year but could the Sahara supply our
entire energy demand theoretically yes
if we only covered 1.2 percent of the
Sahara Desert and photovoltaic panels we
would be talking about an approximate
100,000 square kilometres covered in
solar panels these panels could generate
enough energy to cover the entire global
demand the engineering challenge would
be the development of a system capable
of storing and distributing all this
energy to Europe Africa Asia and the
Americas Africa does not have very good
electrical networks a new infrastructure
capable of transporting this energy over
long distances would be needed so what
would be the geopolitical and economic
risk of concentrating all the world's
production in this one region not to
mention the engineering and economic
complications that must be solved to
carry out this project in the first
place another solution could be the
widespread use of nuclear energy after
the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in 1945 who was demonstrated
that the power of the atom that either
leads humanity to its salvation or its
destruction the truth is that decades of
research by scientists ended with the
construction of nuclear power plants
around the world which are mostly water
based nuclear power plants inside a
container the nuclear fission is
produced which separates the heavy atoms
such as uranium while neutrons are being
bombarded therefore the atoms are
separated which produces a control chain
reaction which produces heat which then
boils and evaporates the water which
then drives a turbine nuclear power
became more widespread after the oil
crash of 1983 when oil prices increased
disproportionately after the embargo of
the open
country's more than half of nuclear
reactors were built during this time
millions of scientists and politicians
were convinced that nuclear power would
be the solution to all our energy
problems but we quickly realized that
the physics and engineering was not so
easy to translate from blueprint to
reality and above all it was very very
expensive a couple nuclear disasters
such as Chernobyl and Fukushima the
closed nuclear power plants throughout
the world and the government should
focus above all to develop solar and
wind energy and although there are still
countries especially emerging countries
that continue to build nuclear power
plants other countries such as Germany
Japan and France are beginning to
renounce nuclear power recently China
which is the number-one polluted country
in the world has taken on the role of
being a leader in the construction and
development of clean and renewable
energy currently the situation in the
country is dire where for example in the
capital Beijing breathing the air for
one day is equivalent to smoking 20
cigarettes a while ago China made rounds
in world news because it managed to
create an artificial Sun that managed to
acquire a temperature of a hundred
million degrees Celsius enough to
generate nuclear fusion fusion and
nuclear fission are two different things
Fusion is for example the engine of our
Sun it is the same process that makes
all the stars in the cosmos shine and
the principles that under great
pressures and temperatures it is
possible to fuse atoms that would
normally repel each other
generating atomic quantities of energy
fishing on the other hand is the inverse
it is the separation of atoms in order
to not complicate matters for a long
time scientists have been trying to
imitate the same atomic process that our
Sun performs in experiments here on
earth but in order to do this we must
create conditions similar to our star in
other words emulate a mini Sun capable
of achieving nuclear fusion capable of
generating electricity for everyone
nuclear fusion does not produce any
radioactive waste if the scientific
community can fully develop nuclear
fusion we will have unlocked access to a
clean and almost infinite source of
energy
the Chinese experiment was also a
statement to the world that China is
trying to lead efforts to solve the
nuclear fusion puzzle but it is not the
only country these advances will
contribute to the construction of the
International thermonuclear experimental
reactor a project developed in the South
of France where 35 countries will
collaborate including
the US Russia and the EU the objective
of this project is to achieve in some
way the same reaction that takes place
within the heart of our Sun but at the
moment they are just experiments and
although it has been possible to carry
out the fusion and small lapses of time
for the moment it costs more to carry
out all the experiments then the energy
actually produced by the fusion there
are still decades before it is
commercially viable and perhaps it will
never be the problem is we may never
really reach the point of imitating the
conditions present in our Sun here on
earth before the moment while some
countries led by presidents like Trump
that refused to transition to other
sources of energy are committing to not
develop their technology in order to
allow humanity to free itself from
dependence on oil and other fossil fuels
continuing to burn coal can be a simple
and short-term solution but they are
risking the availability of energy in
the coming years currently there is a
very interesting concept called the
Kardashev scale it visualizes the level
of development of a civilization based
on the energy that it can harness a type
one civilization for example would have
the capacity to collect all the energy
from its native planet but us humans
aren't even a type one civilization yet
were estimated to be only at 0.73 a much
more advanced civilization that evolved
into a type two civilization with the
potential to collect the energy of its
host start how could that be possible
well theoretically they could develop
gargantuan solar panels that would
encase their star to capture all of its
potential energy and finally the type 3
civilization would be able to harness
the entire energy of its host galaxy but
we are millions of years away from
reaching this potential so all in all
our planet's resources are finite but in
a couple centuries we may reach the
status of a type one civilization we
will then be forced to look for
alternative forms of energy so what do
you think about the incoming energy
crisis do you think we should focus more
on renewable energy sources or should we
risk a little more to achieve nuclear
fusion that could potentially completely
solve this issue so I hope you enjoyed
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