Electricity

Humans have become incredibly dependent on electricity over the past 200 or so years. I am certainly no historian, but I do know that is an incredibly small number when compared with the amount of time humanity has existed on Earth. Over that time, our societies have changed dramatically with the technologies that electricity generation enables. It has come to the point where the lives of certain groups of people, if not everyone at large, depend on a reliable electric grid.

Water is arguably the most important material to human existence; while electricity isn't necessarily a substance, I think it has become the second most important non-living phenomena to human existence within the short time frame that we've been able to take advantage of it. Society as we know it would be upended if electricity-enabled devices were to suddenly stop working; people don't even know how to live in a world that is not supported by electricity. It heats and cools our homes, provides us with entertainment, relays messages for us, etc. We used to do all of that without it.

That is why a solar flare (or coronal mass ejection) hitting the Earth is one of my greatest fears. It did happen in the 1900s, which promptly caused telegraphs everywhere to erupt into sparks (it also caused some telegraphs to be powered by auroras). Who knows what would happen if a flare of the same intensity were to strike now?

But that is just being pessimistic; humans are discovering new ways to efficiently generate electricity all the time, despite this looming possibility. Technology Connections's latest video provided me with the inspiration for this very idea, the potential of solar panels to generate enough electricity for the entire United States power grid.

Currently, the grid is powered by mostly non-renewable resources, such as fossil fuels, coal and natural gas. There is also nuclear energy, which I am a major proponent of, but that also produces nuclear waste. Solar and wind energy do not produce any byproducts, and are not used in the process of generating electricity.

The most common arguments against solar and wind are what happens when the sun isn't shining, or when the wind isn't blowing? Well, that's why there are backups. The best backups are batteries - huge ones. Batteries connected to solar farms can store all of the excess electricity which can then be used during the night, and the same goes for wind turbines. If the batteries fail, then the best fallback is probably natural gas, which is already being used as a backup for homes.

This has really convinced me that electric cars are the future. Traditional fuel-powered cars pollute the air and encourage the constant cycle of finding more oil. Electric cars are similar to the solar panels and wind turbines; they are built once and can last for years without consuming anything but the materials used to build them. Technology Connections emphasizes this greatly in his video; batteries, solar panels and wind turbines are built once and provide utility (electricity) for their entire lifetimes; in contrast, fuel is burned and must be replaced constantly, which costs more and more money as oil becomes scarce (which inflicts more damage on the environment).

So much of life is dependent on energy. Animals hunt and rest in cycles to conserve energy. The entire world's politics is heavily dependent on the flow of oil and which nations do or do not have access to reserves of it. Without it, entire nations could be at risk of failing to generate enough electricity.

Renewable technologies subvert that assumption. These technologies are disruptive, and that's why they receive so much push back from those that have the power to allow them to replace non-renewable systems. Companies, nations, whatever, all depend on the cash that comes in from their sales of oil. Free energy from the sun and the wind threatens that money. Animals must hunt, consume, excrete waste and sexually reproduce, but long-lived trees do nothing but reach towards the sun.

As years pass, this technology is only going to get better. It's only a matter of time until companies start popping up that offer cheaper electricity than other ones because they only use renewable resources. At least, that's what I hope will happen; I think Technology Connections does, too. Further, this will drive the adoption of electric vehicles as they, too, become cheaper and more capable of long trips. The current status-quo (companies, governments, misguided citizens) is going to fight as much as it can to reject this idea that fuel-powered technologies cannot be replaced by electricity, but we rely so much on electricity already. It powers our homes, our computers; why can't it power everything else?