I’m going to toss out a broad idea that is just asking for objections, but hear me out.
There have only been two true eras of energy so far — the chemical and mechanical. Only recently have we started the transition to the third — the elemental.
Each builds on the past, but marks such a wild departure from the past that the very nature of humanity fundamentally changes.
The first started in our archaic past. The second started with wind and water mills and has been dominant to this day. The third taps into something so fundamental that it may be the last we need.
Sure, there have been countless innovations between. I in no way want to diminish the transition from the most archaic mills to the modern power plant and electrical grid, or even to supersonic flight.
However, if you look at the fundamental nature of how energy is released and used, these three leaps forward are in their own class — advancing, and redefining, our world.
The First Two Eras
The first two eras are marked by two tracts of knowledge.
The first is chemistry, and the development and exploitation of fuel sources. The second is engineering, and harnessing potential through efficiency and transmission.
In many regards, we haven’t changed our ways since we started using wood fires for heat and light.
What we do to coal, natural gas, gasoline, and jet fuel is the same. We exploit the chemical structure of a fuel to break down molecules in an exothermic reaction.
Then we use the heat however we can. The problem, to date, has been how much heat we end up losing in the process, or building something robust enough to contain the reaction.
If you have a fireplace, you aren’t too far off from where we started when our ancestors learned how to burn wood. Only 10% of the heat released actually heats your house. The rest goes right up the chimney.
With so much energy being lost, increasing the fuel supply is a terrible idea. The scaling at 10% efficiency is horrendous. A constant stream of incremental improvements resulted.
Using the same principles of mechanical force used for wind and water mills, engineers drove up efficiency by using turbines, coupled with closed steam pipe systems.
The discovery of ideal fuel-to-air ratios led to efficient pistons that, when paired with camshafts, opened up even smaller engine designs that could be mounted on vehicles.
Coolants and lubrication reduced friction and excess heat, allowing more efficient, higher RPM designs. Weight reductions from material changes drove down weight.
The dynamo transformed mechanical energy into a stream of electrons. Wires were thrown up worldwide to blanket the world in an electrical grid carrying power from chemical reactions.
Even state-of-the-art batteries simply exploit unbalanced chemical reactions to generate a constant flow of electrons. Hopefully without getting out of control and torching a brand-new Tesla S.
So much has changed in recent history, but it has all been through incremental improvements upon tried and true chemical and mechanical laws of nature, often rapidly adopted whenever a new scientist’s discovery or engineer’s design is revealed.
It wasn’t until the middle of the last century that the third era started to emerge, marking fundamental breaks from both the chemical and mechanical eras.
The Elemental Era
The new era of energy dives into our relatively new understanding of our universe. We are going beyond molecular reactions to exploit the fundamental properties of atomic forces and physics.
Power generation from basic nuclear physics is becoming the norm. In regard to the nature of the fuel, nuclear and solar power, so different in public perception, must be lumped together.
Nuclear power, as we know it, approaches elemental power via ultra-heavy atoms that can be forged by nothing less than the crucible of the catastrophic explosion of ancient stars.
No burning, no chemical reactions, no carbon pollutants. The fundamental, unstable nature of the radioactive isotopes we refine are enough to create constant heat to turn steam turbines.
The energy potential is unfathomably greater as well. By weight, uranium packs about 17,000 times the energy potential of modern fossil fuels.
Solar energy exploits the other end of the nuclear spectrum. Hydrogen and helium fuel the 10 billion year-long thermonuclear explosion, barely contained by gravity, commonly known as the Sun.
We capture the tiniest hint of a fraction of the energy that rains down on us as solar radiation, with maybe 15-20% efficiency. Yet it is still enough to be economically feasible and capture over half of the total world energy market by 2050.
The very thing that makes our planet habitable is belching out, in all directions, all the free energy we could possibly use. It is the great, cosmic version of “money on the table.”
Even the mechanical breakthroughs we’ve produced are being replaced by new technologies, developed from Albert Einstein’s Nobel Prize-winning work.
The photoelectric effect he described is responsible for the flow of electricity out of solar cells. No mechanical movement or parts are needed.
A Brave New World
This third era is going to change so much that we cannot possibly imagine the full implications today, just as our ancestors couldn’t imagine how far a fire could take them.
Our only experience so far has been the clumsy first generations of these technologies. Think of the solar powered calculators and antiquated Cold War-era nuclear power plants still used today.
The latest designs for both power sources have shed their early limitations, and the world is rapidly moving to exploit element-based power sources as quickly as possible to reap unprecedented benefits.
New generation designs for nuclear power, such as molten salt reactors, cannot melt down and can reprocess old fuel.
There are about 430 active nuclear power plants, 65 being being built, and 165 planned. China and India, with both massive power expansion and pollution reduction needs, account for the bulk of them.
China alone plans 100, costing up to $2.4 trillion.
It is no coincidence that the recently announced energy plans for the two most populous nations on the globe extensively rely on nuclear and solar, which are exactly in line with the recent climate agreement.
Nor is it a coincidence that former U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told the Outsiders Club‘s Nick Hodge in an exclusive interview that:
…there are several things that are making it more likely that we are going to see some real progress on the nuclear front. Certainly at the top of the list is the emergence of global concern over climate change issues. It’s hard — even for the people who’ve long opposed nuclear power — to fight nuclear energy and global warming at the same time. People now recognize the critical role that nuclear power plants play in the production of electricity without emissions of greenhouse gases. And so I think as that awareness combines with the concerns about the amount of emissions, it’s providing a strong political base for expanding nuclear.
Though many haven’t noticed — probably due to the acrimonious political climate we’re in, filled with wedge issues and talking points — the entire world, including the U.S.A., has been aligning itself behind an unprecedented wave of nuclear power plant construction.
Make no mistake about it, we’re entering a brand new era of energy. One that we desperately need, and one that will dramatically change our world, society, and markets as trillions of dollars pivot from fossil fuel investments to nuclear and solar-based elemental power.
