Eternal Energy

The world's consumption for energy is growing rapidly and the earth is unable to support these activities as finite fossil fuels are being depleted. Millions of tonnes of coal and crude oil are examples of fuel which are harvested from mother nature to support human activities, and they non-renewable as it takes millions of years to form. What we human are able to do is to find a sustainable source of energy, which can be renewed easily and cause less environmental damage. We also need to look at the existing coal and crude oil as bioenergy, rather than stored chemical energy and to use them in such primitive ways.


By the law of conservation, energy could not be created or destroyed. All source of energy comes from the sun, and naturally it would make sense if we harvest solar energy. However, it is still very difficult to harvest the sun's energy and switch it from our current way of providing energy to the masses due to financial and technological reasons. There are many alternative source of energy but the current "mine and burn coal" takes up the highest percentage because of existing processes and infrastructure. People would not spend extra money to produce the same amount of energy, it just doesn't make economic sense. However as people realise that fossil fuel will run out one day, and if we were to handle the situation later, the transition slope will be much steeper. 


The world's consumption of energy is less than 1,000 exajoules (EJ), with the primary energy usage at 487 EJ and electrical 56.7 EJ. Using the vast amount of resoruces made from selling fossil fuel, energy companies are investing into alternative energy which can tap on:
- Solar Energy (Sun produces 3,850k EJ of energy)
- Hydro / Tidal 
- Biomass (3k EJ)
- Wind (2.25k EJ)
- Geothermal 


One of the most radical ideas I came across is to have a satellite that concentrates solar energy and beam it to earth via microwave. However there are financial and technological issues to this source of energy. The next most viable and promising source of energy is biological. As I have covered during class, bioDiesel that are derived from algae are very promising because they are a renewable source of energy. The algae captures the sunlight during photosynthesis and reproduce, with no high-tech know-hows needed because nature does it work of producing energy.


Ethanol from corn are also using biotechnology. And because our planet is filled with abundance of plant life which are able to tap solar energy, biofuel can be farmed to large quantities to feed the need for fuel consumption. Another possible source of energy in development is using salt water. Salt water is also very abundant, and using this technology, we don't even have to grow our own fuel as it covers over 70% of Earth. Although we are able to find alternative source of energy, human should also make energy consumption as efficient as possible. By pushing the limit of how much distance a car can travel with the same amount of fuel makes energy consumption more efficient.

In conclusion, to make energy eternal, a viable source of energy must replace our current use of fossil fuel which is sustainable. We might find alternatives for portal fuel (petrol, gas) but the challenge still lies ahead with providing cities with huge amount of energy to power homes and industrial plants.