THE COMMANDING HEIGHTS
For the great overlooked fact is that the energy problem is not just one of quantity; it is one of structure as well. We not only need a certain amount of energy, but energy delivered in many more varied forms, in different (and changing) locations, at different times of the day, night, and year, and for undreamed of purposes.
This, not simply OPEC’s pricing decisions, explains why the world must search for alternatives to the old energy system. That search has been accelerated, and we are now applying vast new resources of money and imagination to the problem. As a result we are taking a close look at many startling possibilities. While the shift from one energy base to the next will no doubt be darkened by economic and other upheavals, there is another, more positive aspect to it. For never in history have so many people plunged with such fervor into a search for energy — and never have we had so many novel and exciting potentials before us.
It is clearly impossible to know at this stage which combination of technologies will prove most useful for what tasks, but the array of tools and fuels available to us will surely be staggering, with more and more exotic possibilities becoming commercially plausible as oil prices climb.
These possibilities range from photovoltaic-cells that convert sunlight into electricity (a technology now being explored by Texas Instruments, Solarex, Energy Conversion Devices, and many other companies), to a Soviet plan for placing windmill-carrying balloons in the tropopause to beam electricity down to earth through cables. New York City has contracted with a private firm to burn garbage as fuel and the Philippine Islands are building plants to produce electricity from coconut waste. Italy, Iceland, and New Zealand are already generating electricity from geothermal sources, tapping the heat of the earth itself, while a five-hundred-ton floating platform off Honshu island in Japan is generating electricity from wave power. Solar heating units are sprouting from rooftops around the world, and the Southern California Edison Company is constructing a “power-tower” which will capture solar energy through computer-controlled mirrors, focus it on a tower containing a steam boiler, and generate electricity for its regular customers. In Stuttgart, Germany, a hydrogen-powered bus built by Daimler-Benz has cruised I In-city streets, while engineers at Lockheed-Californ in are wmk ing on a hydrogen-powered aircraft. So many new avenues are being explored, they are impossible to catalog in a short space.
When we combine new energy-generating technologies with new ways to store and transmit energy, the possibilities become even more far- reaching. General Motors has announced a new, more efficient automobile battery for use in electric cars. NASA researchers have come up with “Redox”—a storage system they believe can be produced for one third the cost of conventional lead acid batteries.With a longer time horizon we are exploring super-conductivity and even—beyond the fringes of “respectable” science—Tesla waves as ways of beaming energy with minimal loss.
While most of these technologies are still in their early stages of development and many will no doubt prove zanily impractical, others are clearly on the edge of commercial application or will be within a decade or two. Most important is the neglected fact that big breakthroughs often come not from a single isolated technology but from imaginative juxta-positions or combinations of several. Thus we may see solar photovoltaics used to produce electricity which will, in turn, be used to release hydrogen from water so it can be used in cars. Today we are still at the pre-take off stage. Once we begin to combine these many new technologies, the number of more potent options will rise exponentially, and we will dramatically accelerate the construction of a Third Wave energy base.
This new base will have characteristics sharply different from those of the Second Wave period. For much of its supply will come from renewable, rather than exhaustible sources. Instead of being dependent upon highly concentrated fuels, it will draw on a, variety of widely dispersed sources. Instead of depending so heavily on tightly centralized technologies, it will combine both centralized and decentralized energy production. And instead of being dangerously over-reliant on a handful of methods or sources, it will be radically diversified in its form. This very diversity will make for less waste by allowing us to match the types and quality of energy produced to the increasingly varied needs.
In short, we can now see for the first time the outlines of an energy base that runs on principles almost diametrically opposed to those of the recent, three-hundred-year past. It is also clear that this Third Wave energy base will not come into being without a bitter fight.
137
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430