It is not a secret for anyone that the resources used by mankind today are finite, moreover, their further extraction and use can lead not only to energy, but also to environmental disaster. The resources traditionally used by mankind - coal, gas and oil - will end after a few decades, and measures must be taken now, nowadays. Of course, we can hope that we will again find some rich deposit, as it was in the first half of the last century, but scientists are sure that such large deposits are no longer there. But in any case, even the discovery of new deposits will only delay the inevitable, it is necessary to find ways to produce alternative energy, and switch to renewable resources such as wind, sun, geothermal energy, energy of water flows and others, and at the same time it is necessary to continue developing energy-saving technologies.
In this article, we will consider some of the most promising, in the opinion of modern scientists, ideas on which the energy of the future will be built.
Solar stations
People have long wondered whether the use of solar energy on earth is possible . Water was heated under sunlight, clothes and pottery were dried before being sent to the oven, but these methods cannot be called effective. The first technical means that convert solar energy appeared in the 18th century. The French scientist J. Buffon showed an experiment in which he managed to ignite a dry tree from a distance of about 70 meters with a large concave mirror in clear weather. His compatriot, the famous scientist A. Lavoisier, used lenses to concentrate the energy of the sun, and in England they created biconvex glass, which, focusing the sun's rays, melted the cast iron in just a few minutes.
Naturalists conducted many experiments that proved that the use of solar energy on earth is possible. However, the solar battery, which would turn solar energy into mechanical energy, appeared relatively recently, in 1953. It was created by scientists from the US National Aerospace Agency. Already in 1959, the solar battery was first used to equip a space satellite.
Perhaps already then, realizing that such batteries are much more efficient in space, scientists came up with the idea of ​​creating space solar stations, because in an hour the sun can generate as much energy as all of humanity does not consume and in a year, so why not use it? What will be the solar energy of the future?
On the one hand, it seems that the use of solar energy is ideal. However, the cost of a huge space solar station is very high, and besides, it will be expensive to operate. Over time, when new technologies for the delivery of goods into space, as well as new materials, are introduced, the implementation of such a project will become possible, but so far we can use only relatively small batteries on the surface of the planet. Many will say that this is also not bad. Yes, it is possible in a private home, but for the energy supply of large cities, respectively, you need either a lot of solar panels, or technology that will make them more efficient.
The economic side of the issue is also present here: any budget will suffer greatly if it is entrusted with the task of converting the whole city (or the whole country) to solar panels. It would seem that it is possible to oblige city dwellers to pay some amounts for re-equipment, but in this case they would be unhappy, because if people were ready to go to such expenses, they would have done it themselves long ago: everyone has the opportunity to buy a solar battery.
Regarding solar energy, there is another paradox: production costs. Converting the energy of the sun into electricity directly is not the most efficient thing. A method has not yet been found better than using the sun's rays to heat water, which, turning into steam, in turn rotates the dynamo. In this case, energy loss is minimal. Humanity wants to use "environmentally friendly" solar panels and solar stations to conserve resources on earth, but such a project will require a huge amount of the same resources and "non-environmentally friendly" energy. For example, in France, a solar power plant has recently been built, with an area of ​​about two square kilometers. The cost of construction amounted to about 110 million euros, not including operating costs. With all this, it should be borne in mind that the service life of such mechanisms is about 25 years.
Wind
Wind energy - has also been used by people since antiquity, the simplest example is sailing and windmills. Windmills are used now, especially they are effective in areas with constant winds, for example, on the coast. Scientists constantly put forward ideas on how to upgrade existing devices for converting wind energy, one of which is wind turbines in the form of soaring turbines. Due to constant rotation, they could "hang" in the air at a distance of several hundred meters from the ground, where the wind is strong and constant. This would help in electrifying rural areas where standard windmills are not possible. In addition, such soaring turbines could be equipped with Internet modules, which would provide people with access to the world wide web.
Tides and waves
The boom in solar and wind energy is gradually passing, and other natural energy has attracted the interest of researchers. More promising is the use of ebbs and flows. Already, about a hundred companies around the world are dealing with this issue, there are several projects that have proved the effectiveness of this method of electricity production. The advantage over solar energy is that the loss in transferring one energy to another is minimal: a tidal wave rotates a huge turbine that generates electricity.
The Oyster project is the idea of ​​installing an articulated valve at the bottom of the ocean that will supply water to the shore, thereby rotating a simple hydroelectric turbine. Only one such installation could provide electricity to a small neighborhood.
Already, tidal waves are being successfully used in Australia: desalination plants operating on this type of energy are installed in the city of Perth. Their work allows us to provide fresh water for about half a million people. Natural energy and industry can also be combined in this energy production industry.
The use of tidal energy is somewhat different from the technologies that we are used to seeing in river hydropower plants. Often, hydroelectric power plants harm the environment: the surrounding territories are flooded, the ecosystem is being destroyed, but stations operating on tidal waves are much safer in this regard.
Human energy
One of the most fantastic projects on our list is the use of the energy of living people. It sounds stunning and even somewhat terrifying, but not so scary. Scientists cherish the idea of ​​how to use the mechanical energy of motion. These projects are about microelectronics and low-energy nanotechnology. While it sounds like utopia, there are no real developments, but the idea is very interesting and does not leave the minds of scientists. You must admit that devices that, like watches with automatic winding, will be charged by the fact that they are swiping the sensor with the finger, or from the fact that the tablet or phone just hangs in the bag when walking, will be very convenient. Not to mention clothing, which, filled with various microdevices, could transform the energy of human movement into electricity.
In Berkeley, in Lawrence’s laboratory, for example, scientists tried to realize the idea of ​​using viruses to convert pressure energy into electricity. Small mechanisms operating from movement are also available, but so far this technology has not been put on stream. Yes, the global energy crisis cannot be dealt with in this way: how many people will have to “pedal” to make the whole plant work? But as one of the measures used in the complex, the theory is quite viable.
Especially similar technologies will be effective in hard-to-reach places, at polar stations, in the mountains and taiga, among travelers and tourists who do not always have the opportunity to charge their gadget, but staying in touch is important, especially if the group is in a critical situation. How many things could have been prevented if people always had a reliable communication device that was independent of the “power outlet”.
Hydrogen fuel cells
Perhaps, every owner of a car, looking at an indicator of the amount of gasoline approaching zero, had the idea of ​​how great it would be if the car worked on water. But now its atoms have come to the attention of scientists as real objects of energy. The fact is that in the particles of hydrogen - the most common gas in the universe - contains a huge amount of energy. Moreover, the engine burns this gas with almost no by-products, that is, we get very environmentally friendly fuel.
Hydrogen is charged with some ISS modules and shuttles, but on Earth it exists mainly in the form of compounds, such as water. In the eighties in Russia there were developments of airplanes using hydrogen as a fuel, these technologies were even applied in practice, and experimental models proved their effectiveness. When hydrogen is separated, it moves into a special fuel cell, after which it is possible to generate electricity directly. This is not the energy of the future, it is already a reality. Similar cars are already being produced in rather large batches. Honda, in order to emphasize the versatility of the energy source and the car as a whole, conducted an experiment as a result of which the car was connected to an electric home network, but not in order to get recharged. A car can provide energy to a private house for several days, or drive almost five hundred kilometers without refueling.
The only drawback of such an energy source at the moment is the relatively high cost of such environmentally friendly cars, and, of course, a fairly small number of hydrogen gas stations, but in many countries their construction is already planned. For example, Germany already has a plan to install a hundred gas stations by 2017.
Heat of the earth
The conversion of thermal energy into electricity is the essence of geothermal energy. In some countries where the use of other industries is difficult, it is used quite widely. For example, in the Philippines, 27% of all electricity comes from geothermal plants, while in Iceland this figure is about 30%. The essence of this method of energy production is quite simple, the mechanism is similar to a simple steam engine. Before the alleged "lake" of magma, it is necessary to drill a well through which water is supplied. Upon contact with hot magma, water instantly turns into steam. He rises, where he turns a mechanical turbine, thereby generating electricity.
The future of geothermal energy is to find large "stores" of magma. For example, in the aforementioned Iceland, this was possible: red-hot magma in a split second turned all the injected water into steam at a temperature of about 450 degrees Celsius, which is an absolute record. Such high-pressure steam can increase the efficiency of the geothermal station several times, this can become the impetus for the development of geothermal energy worldwide, especially in areas saturated with volcanoes and thermal springs.
Use of nuclear waste
Nuclear energy, in its time, made a splash. That was until people realized the danger of this energy industry. Accidents are possible, no one is safe from such cases, but they are very rare, but radioactive waste appears stably and until recently, scientists could not solve this problem. The fact is that uranium rods - the traditional "fuel" of nuclear power plants, can only be used by 5%. After developing this small part, the entire rod goes to the "landfill".
Previously used technology in which the rods were immersed in water, which slows down the neutrons, maintaining a stable reaction. Now, instead of water, liquid sodium has been used. This replacement allows not only to use the entire volume of uranium, but also to process tens of thousands of tons of radioactive waste.
It is important to rid the planet of nuclear waste products, but there is one “but” in the technology itself. Uranium belongs to resources, and its reserves on Earth are finite. If the entire planet is converted exclusively to energy received from nuclear power plants (for example, in the USA nuclear power plants produce only 20% of all electricity consumed), uranium reserves will be depleted quite quickly, and this will again lead humanity to the threshold of an energy crisis, so nuclear energy , albeit a modernized, only a temporary measure.
Vegetable fuel
Even Henry Ford, creating his "Model T", hoped that it would already work on biofuels. However, new oil fields were discovered at that time, and the need for alternative energy sources dropped for another several decades, but now it is returning again.
Over the past fifteen years, the use of plant fuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel, has increased several times. They are used both as independent energy sources and as additives to gasoline. Some time ago, hopes were pinned on a special millet culture called “canola”. It is completely unsuitable for food either for people or for livestock, however, it has high oil content. From this oil and began to produce "biodiesel". But this culture will take up too much space if you try to grow it enough to provide fuel for at least part of the planet.
Now scientists are talking about the use of algae. Their oil content is about 50%, which will also make it easy to extract oil, and the waste can be turned into fertilizers, on the basis of which new algae will be grown. The idea is considered interesting, but has not yet proved its viability: a publication on successful experiments in this area has not yet been published.
Thermonuclear fusion
The future energy of the world, according to modern scientists, is impossible without fusion technology . This, at the moment, is the most promising development in which billions of dollars are already invested.
Nuclear power plants use fission energy. It is dangerous because there is a threat of an uncontrolled reaction that will destroy the reactor and lead to the release of a huge amount of radioactive substances: perhaps everyone remembers the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
In fusion reactions, as the name implies, the energy released during the fusion of atoms is used. As a result, unlike atomic fission, no radioactive waste is generated.
The main problem is that as a result of fusion, a substance is formed that has such a high temperature that it can destroy the entire reactor.
This energy of the future is reality. And fantasies here are inappropriate; at the moment, the construction of a reactor has already begun in France. Several billion dollars has been invested in a pilot project that has been funded by many countries, which, in addition to the EU, include China and Japan, the United States, Russia and others. Initially, the first experiments were planned to be launched in 2016, however, calculations showed that the budget was too small (instead of 5 billion it took 19), and the launch was postponed for another 9 years. Perhaps in a few years we will see what thermonuclear energy is capable of.
The problems of the present and the possibilities of the future
Not only scientists, but also science fiction writers, give a lot of ideas for translating the technology of the future in the energy sector, but everyone agrees that so far none of the proposed options can fully satisfy all the needs of our civilization. For example, if all cars in the USA will drive on biofuel, canola fields will have to be planted in an area equal to half the entire country, without taking into account the fact that there are not so many lands suitable for farming in the United States. Moreover, so far all methods of producing alternative energy are expensive. Perhaps each of the ordinary city dwellers agrees that it is important to use environmentally friendly, renewable resources, but not in the case when they are voiced the cost of such a transition at the moment. Scientists have a lot to work in this area. New discoveries, new materials, new ideas - all this will help mankind successfully cope with the emerging resource crisis. The energy problem of the planet can be solved only by complex measures. In some areas, it is more convenient to use energy production using wind, somewhere - solar panels, and so on. But perhaps the main factor will be a reduction in energy consumption in general and the creation of energy-saving technologies. Everyone should understand that they are responsible for the planet, and everyone should ask themselves the question: "What kind of energy do I choose for the future?" Before moving on to other resources, everyone should realize that this is truly necessary. Only with an integrated approach will it be possible to solve the problem of energy consumption.