Fundamental resources/Energy

From AdCiv

Humanity on average consumes 15 terawatts of energy^[1]. This is a tiny amount of energy compared to what is available around us: 72 terawatts of available wind energy at ground level^[2], 150 terawatts in the jet streams^[3], 44.2 terawatts of geothermal energy ^[4], 2 terawatts of easily-exploitable wave power^[5] and 174,000 terawatts of solar energy^[6]. We clearly have tens of thousands of times the energy we need, the key is our ability to harness this energy. This article explores existing and emerging technologies for doing this.

Steadily increasing energy efficiency  due to improved system design and increasing cultural awareness should become a significant factor in our energy usage.

The issue currently is monetary economics. The bottom line is that with the current economic framework it is still 'cheaper' to pump oil out of the ground and burn it to produce power than use other more plentiful, renewable and environmentally benign sources. These alternative energy sources are sitting right in front of us waiting to be harnessed. It may be that open-source methods can bypass the incumbent economic system to enable plentiful, environmentally-friendly power.

Much future energy generation is likely to become more decentralised. Many buildings, or group of buildings, will likely generate much of their own power on-site by incorporating solar panels into the roof, walls, pavements and even windows ^[7], as well as having other renewable energy generation devices such as wind turbines and geothermal systems.

Although for power requirements beyond that which can be captured locally for more energy intensive activities, there will be very large-scale renewable energy generation sites. For instance electricity to supply the entire United States or Europe could be met with photo-voltaic arrays measuring one hundred miles by one hundred miles [8]. Although this area might sound large, in a major desert, this would be a tiny fraction of the total area - for instance in the Sahara this would be less than a third of 1%. Desertec is multi-national program looking to develop this kind of large-scale solar facility and infrastructure.

We have these major sources of energy available to us, in no particular order and not including fossil fuels that we currently rely on for the majority of our energy today: