Is "Free Energy" possible? | Some Say...
[Music] energy has always been among the most essential resources that endorses the progress evolution and prosperity of human societies the development of our society requires a lot of energy on day-to-day basis because the developments are getting faster in time and world population is heading towards 10 billion the demand for energy has increased tremendously [Music] fossil fuels oil coal and natural gas provide almost eighty percent of the energy used worldwide the world is continuing to burn through these non-renewable resources to fill the demand of the world's economy [Music] the energy consumption in 2020 for instance was 154 750 terawatt hours the energy was so large that it could run 14.3 billion households for a year or run a single household for 14 billion years keep in mind that the universe was created 13.8 billion years ago since the big bang another example to illustrate this immense number is that this power is also equivalent to 9 million times of the atomic bombs that exploded over hiroshima in 1945 yet even with so much energy produced there were still 768 million people around the world who had no access to electricity in 2021 due to poverty and power inequality how is this fair some say that according to one individual no one should ever pay for any electricity as it's supposed to be free and easily accessible because on earth flowing of liquid metal in the outer core of the planet generates electric current and according to him it's supposed to be easily collected his name is nicola tesla the inventor of alternating current belief that have a stable energy inherently exists in both ground and air and electrical power could be transmitted over long distances without wires or cables wooden cliff tower also known as tesla tower was built as an early experimental wireless transmission station backed up with 150 thousand dollar investment from the famous financial at that time jp morgan harvesting and transmitting electric current over the earth of free sounds too good to be true but according to nikola tesla and his theory the technology is real and he claimed he had proven nearly a century ago in 1931.
presenting to the general public by installing an 80 horsepower alternating current electric motor in a new car replacing the gasoline engine as its power source entrepreneurs at the time observed this creation which functioned flawlessly for an entire week without any additional power source the car also accelerated up to a speed of 150 kilometers per hour but sadly none of the entrepreneurs were interested in his invention it is said that tesla could not complete his warden cliff project because morgan killed it saying if anyone can get electricity anywhere then where do we put a meter these days fossil fuels continue to be the main source of power production for our daily life [Music] fossil fuels are made from decomposing plants and animals and these fuels are found in the earth's crust which can be burned for energy since these sources of energy are limited and the population is increasing the prices will continue to rise the electricity that we are using is mainly generated with the limited energy source so electricity will also become more expensive and demanding in time wars are often triggered for desperation or a control over these resources so if you're able to solve this energy problem war in theory should be reduced along with poverty inequality and hunger to some extent and the solution is free energy that could provide unlimited usage of electricity for everyone just like what tests are dreamt of putting nikola tesla aside let's take a look at the available technologies and see if they could be the salvation to this energy problem [Music] wind turbines convert the kinetic energy in the wind into electricity the technology seems environmentally friendly and renewable but it actually has many downsides wind turbines can have a large impact on local wildlife come with noise and visual pollution cannot produce power consistently as it heavily relies on the availability of wind and it can only be deployed at certain locations only and is very expensive due to high initial costs all these hurdles make wind energy not an ideal choice after all [Music] what people are not aware of is that most of the cities and towns in the world rely on hydropower and have for past century it's similar to wind turbines but uses a power of water current that is created by gravity the three george's dam that holds 39 trillion kilograms of water from the yangtze river has been calculated by nasa that slowed down the earth rotation by 0.06 microseconds it doesn't continuously pollute the environment like fuel energy but upon mismanagement it can cause serious environmental threats due to its loss structure and high importance of maintenance the initial cost of building and ongoing running costs incur enormous sum of money water contains two thirds of hydrogen and it's the most common element available on earth hydrogen is a tremendous source of energy and can be used as a source of fuel to power ships vehicles homes industries and rockets is completely renewable can be produced on demand and doesn't leave any toxic emissions in the atmosphere but to be able to store it we need to compress it into liquid form and store it at a temperature of -252.8 degrees celsius perhaps it's more expensive to store it than to produce it not to mention is very explosive [Music] nuclear energy has two general kinds of reactions nuclear fission and nuclear fusion there are about 450 nuclear power reactors operable in 30 countries and all of them are using nuclear fission providing 10 of the world's electricity nuclear fission uses uranium as the source and is a chain reaction because it produces its own reagents thus allowing more nuclear fissions the cost of operation is low much lower than the cost to produce energy from gas coal or oil it's so efficient that one kilogram of uranium can generate the power equivalent to 2 million kilograms of gasoline which means it can be installed on transportation vehicles the first nuclear fission-powered submarine uss nautilus put to say in 1955 but it didn't work out on planes and cars for an obvious reason it's dangerous an airplane crash or a car crash would easily cause a nuclear catastrophe just like their weapon counterpart the nuclear weapons used during world war ii little boy and a fat man that exploded in japan were the same technology nuclear fission another important factor is radiation chernobyl disaster in 1986 is estimated to have at least 10 000 deaths from the long-term effect of radiation in the region the fukushima power plant crisis in 2011 showed that no matter how safe nuclear power plants are designed to be accidents can and do happen the radioactivity in nuclear waste will only decay after a period of one thousand to ten thousand years it's called resources uranium deposits are limited thus it cannot be used as a sustainable energy source but on the other hand nuclear fusion is inherently safer than nuclear fission because it has no chain reaction involved in the fusion reactor there will only be a limited amount of fuel at any given moment unlike nuclear fission the reaction of nuclear fusion relies on a continuous input of fuel if there's any interruption in the process the reaction ceases immediately nuclear fusion does not create any long-lived radioactive nuclear waste it uses hydrogen or helium as fuel and sea water is loaded with hydrogen it's extremely efficient that a single glass of seawater could be used to produce as much energy as burning a barrel of oil this is possibly the best option of the future sustainable energy source it's unlimited it's free high power output and low risks but as a catch fusion reactions only take place at the temperatures of 100 million degrees celsius which is 18 000 times hotter than the surface of the sun it's an ideal solution but to overcome this temperature the energy span to create a nuclear fusion reaction costs more than the nuclear fusion itself if creating such enormous heat that equivalent to that of a sun is needed then why do we just collect the energy directly from the sun itself a dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output the concept of dyson sphere was a result of a thought experiment by physicist and mathematician freeman dyson where he theorized that if human civilization expanded energy demands for long enough there will come a time when it demanded the total energy output of the sun he proposed a system of orbiting structure designed to intercept and collect all energy produced by the sun according to kardashev scale only type 2 civilization is capable of harvesting the energy from its own stall we currently do not even meet the report of type 1 civilization as we are yet to have complete control over the energy of our host planet it is said that it would take a few thousand years for humanity to reach type 2 status but there's a much simpler way to harvest energy from the sun with a current and available technology solar panels even without the dyson sphere using solar panels to harvest the energy of the sun reaching to earth's surface will be sufficient as energy the sun provides to the earth just for one and a half hours could be the current global energy needs for an entire year first using solar panel technologies to convert sunlight into electrical energy should be our answer no pollution quiet low maintenance and is a true renewable free energy source because the sun is always there except at night of course back in 1883 solar panel was created by an american inventor charles fritz who created the first solar cell and hope is solar cells might compete with thomas addison's coal-fired power plant at that time but the solar energy was less than one percent efficient at converting sunlight to electricity thus not very practical expensive weather dependent require electric storage and it can't be miniaturized to carry around 134 years later in 2017 a visionary entrepreneur elon musk has a very different thought he believes in order to transition to sustainable energy solar energy is the solution to power the entire united states with solar panels it will take a fairly small corner of nevada or texas which the area needed is about 100 miles by 100 miles and the batteries required to store the energy for 24 7 power supply is one mile by one mile one square mile that's it the area of solar panels would generate about 500 gigawatts which is above the current u.s annual average electricity consumption of 425 gigawatts which enough spare to account for resistance losses so far the technology sounds very promising but more than survival road if one approximates each panel to cost 250 dollars the total cost would be 767 billion dollars and the batteries to store the energy needed to power the entire us for a week without sunlight will require around 77 terawatt hour which costs about 10 billion dollars at a current price solar panel sounds more appealing and viable than the previous technology with this cost yet solar panel suffered many drawbacks and hurdles just like the others the required raw materials and manufacturing capability will be enormous to build that many panels and batteries and the infrastructure and additional equipment needed for the deployment of the system at national scale will be tremendous even with current technology solar panels and inverters are not 100 efficient and note that there will be cloudy days and in winter months this will be an obvious problem unless the solar panel farm is built on the equator the available technologies have many hurdles and are no way near to providing free energy these hurdles could be political inter-industry precious and loving geographical economical or just simply the technology is not available or much enough to reach viability well i'm sorry i'm not tony stark so do we need to give up and wait until these technologies are ready and keep burning fossil fuels meanwhile what if nicola tesla's findings were truly real and can be replicated today some say nikola tesla's free energy theory can actually be accomplished with our current technology we've sent man to space and set foot on the moon beginning to make our first quantum computers creating organoid biologically engineered life forms from human stem cells but why can't we still recreate nicola tesla's creation from a century ago if electricity is abundant in the surrounding air and can be collected unlimitedly and if it can be transmitted to anywhere wirelessly then this technology will be the closest to what we define free energy of course it won't be completely free for the same reason as other technologies as there will be a lot of initial investments that will be required for the infrastructure's installment though its benefits for the society and economy will be completely outmatched the old technologies so all countries will willingly operate it on an extremely large scale the bills that will be incurred to end users will be very small as costs will be spread out in the long run as long as no country nor corporation monopolizes this technology and humanity harnesses it and shares it as a whole all of the world's energy related problems should become history yet the world will still have problems food supply and availability for the ever-growing population and there'll always be war fighting over rare metals land and religion but for at least there'll be no more bloodshed for fighting over energy the dark knight of 768 million people will be illuminated and there'll be no one who will ever die in the unforgiving chills of winter maybe the answer to why tesla's technology doesn't exist is the same as 100 years ago it is the same people putting a hold to the technology those that get extremely upset because they cannot put a meter anywhere to reap the benefit the existing prominent mega corporations and banks have too much lobbying power and their money alone can easily ban the country's will will there ever be a day when everyone can enjoy free energy you
2022-02-24 11:26
