The ultimate energy source
We're continually searching for better ways of collecting energy from renewable sources using environmentally friendly means. Over the years, there've been some rather interesting propositions (such as solar panels in space, where there's never a cloudy day, and using microwaves to beam the energy back to Earth). For now, we've got quite a few methods that are being employed and are slowly catching on. Wind farms, solar collectors, dams, etc are helping, but it takes a long time to make the change.
Fuel cells are interesting, but that's just another small step along the way. They burn clean, but how was the hydrogen collected? How did they purify it and deliver it to the hydrogen station? It's not some magical unlimited clean energy source... most of the methods used to produce the hydrogen (generally extracted from water) cause pollution themselves. So it's not really reducing overall pollution, it's a shift in where the pollution is happening (instead of your car's exhaust, it's happening at the hydrogen plant).
Once you've got a clean source of electricity, you've got a clean way to make hydrogen. But it all comes down to finding that source of energy.
This is where theoretical physics and science fiction start to blend. Just like the fuel cell example, anti matter (yes, it really exists; produced at places like Fermilab) can be used as a fuel (stored energy). The problem with anti matter is that it's very expensive to create. Any time that you convert energy from one form to another, you lose some of it (usually as heat and/or light). Anti matter is such a compact form of stored energy that you need very little of it.
How much energy is stored in anti matter? Remember Einstein's classic formula: E=mc2? This is what it's for. If you had as much anti matter as there is water in an ice cube, it would hold more energy than 62 million gallons of gasoline!(ref: 1, 2) Ok, but you read the Fermilab article and you're saying: "Sure, but if it takes 10 million times more energy to make anti matter than you get out of it, what's the point?".
This is where things get interesting. The trick is: Don't make the anti matter, collect what already exists. In 1997, astronomers discovered that there's a "fountain of anti matter" at the center of our galaxy. There's enough energy stored in there that if we could harvest it, not only would all of Earth's energy needs be met, new forms of scientific discovery would be opening. Space exploration and even more exotic things that are currently considered to be "provably impossible" might become possible. For example, transporters (yes, like on Star Trek) are currently "impossible" because you'd need more energy than can be found on Earth (not to mention other details, like we don't know how to do it :).
Ok, so there is a catch: we don't have access to all that anti matter. Trying to send a space ship to get it is currently far beyond our means. At present, we can't even send probes outside our solar system. Think about the distant stars you can see in the night sky. We don't have any means of getting that far, yet by comparison, that wouldn't even be the first step towards reaching the center of our galaxy. If you had a wall mural of our galaxy and put your finger on our sun... your fingertip would not only cover the Sun, Earth and Mars, your fingertip would cover those "distant" stars in our sky. If we can't even dream about getting past your fingertip on that mural, how will we ever get an arm's length away to collect all that anti matter?!
Don't go to the anti matter, bring it here to us. We've known for some time (decades?) that wormholes do exist (no, not like Star Trek)... only on a sub-atomic level. For the purposes of collecting anti matter, sub-atomic worm holes might be big enough. But here's where the problem comes in. We can't create worm holes, nor can we hold them open, or even predict where they might be.
So when will we be getting our free, clean, unlimited "energy from the stars"? Well, I'm not holding my breath. In fact, I don't really expect to see it happen in my lifetime. But it's out there, taunting us. I hope that some day we're able to figure out how to collect it.
Fuel cells are interesting, but that's just another small step along the way. They burn clean, but how was the hydrogen collected? How did they purify it and deliver it to the hydrogen station? It's not some magical unlimited clean energy source... most of the methods used to produce the hydrogen (generally extracted from water) cause pollution themselves. So it's not really reducing overall pollution, it's a shift in where the pollution is happening (instead of your car's exhaust, it's happening at the hydrogen plant).
Once you've got a clean source of electricity, you've got a clean way to make hydrogen. But it all comes down to finding that source of energy.
This is where theoretical physics and science fiction start to blend. Just like the fuel cell example, anti matter (yes, it really exists; produced at places like Fermilab) can be used as a fuel (stored energy). The problem with anti matter is that it's very expensive to create. Any time that you convert energy from one form to another, you lose some of it (usually as heat and/or light). Anti matter is such a compact form of stored energy that you need very little of it.
How much energy is stored in anti matter? Remember Einstein's classic formula: E=mc2? This is what it's for. If you had as much anti matter as there is water in an ice cube, it would hold more energy than 62 million gallons of gasoline!(ref: 1, 2) Ok, but you read the Fermilab article and you're saying: "Sure, but if it takes 10 million times more energy to make anti matter than you get out of it, what's the point?".
This is where things get interesting. The trick is: Don't make the anti matter, collect what already exists. In 1997, astronomers discovered that there's a "fountain of anti matter" at the center of our galaxy. There's enough energy stored in there that if we could harvest it, not only would all of Earth's energy needs be met, new forms of scientific discovery would be opening. Space exploration and even more exotic things that are currently considered to be "provably impossible" might become possible. For example, transporters (yes, like on Star Trek) are currently "impossible" because you'd need more energy than can be found on Earth (not to mention other details, like we don't know how to do it :).
Ok, so there is a catch: we don't have access to all that anti matter. Trying to send a space ship to get it is currently far beyond our means. At present, we can't even send probes outside our solar system. Think about the distant stars you can see in the night sky. We don't have any means of getting that far, yet by comparison, that wouldn't even be the first step towards reaching the center of our galaxy. If you had a wall mural of our galaxy and put your finger on our sun... your fingertip would not only cover the Sun, Earth and Mars, your fingertip would cover those "distant" stars in our sky. If we can't even dream about getting past your fingertip on that mural, how will we ever get an arm's length away to collect all that anti matter?!
Don't go to the anti matter, bring it here to us. We've known for some time (decades?) that wormholes do exist (no, not like Star Trek)... only on a sub-atomic level. For the purposes of collecting anti matter, sub-atomic worm holes might be big enough. But here's where the problem comes in. We can't create worm holes, nor can we hold them open, or even predict where they might be.
So when will we be getting our free, clean, unlimited "energy from the stars"? Well, I'm not holding my breath. In fact, I don't really expect to see it happen in my lifetime. But it's out there, taunting us. I hope that some day we're able to figure out how to collect it.
posted by The Amigo at 7:30 PM
feed
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home