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The Sun’s Unlimited Energy Supply

written 27 Sep 2008 over dinner

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the Sun, blazingThe Discovery Channel recently enlightened me to the fact that the Sun blasts Earth with enough energy every second to power all of humankind’s electricity needs since the beginning of hte Industrial Age. Estimates say that our current energy consumption, using our current methods (coal, oil, wind, etc.) are equivalent to about 1/1000th of the amount of total energy the Sun pours over us every day.

That said, if we could harness the power of the sun much more efficiently, we could theoretically have enough power in a couple of minutes to supply all of civilization for as long as we’re likely to exist on this planet. The entire idea is amazing, mind-boggling when you think about how much effort we put into sucking oil out of the ground or blowing off the tops of mountains to get the coal inside. We could eliminate greenhouse gases, advance development across the globe and eliminate much of our current reasons for war. Imagine a world where energy was in such abundance that Russia would have no reason to invade Georgia, Muslims and Christians would finally see the light and lions would no longer eat gazelles.

Okay, so obviously, that wouldn’t happen. As long as there are people, it seems, they’ll find a reason to club, stab, shoot or nuke each other. Nuclear bombs have already been used on fellow humans, and though it would seem that America and the other nuclear powers in the world learned their lesson from Hiroshima, more countries and terrorist organizations seem closer to producing nuclear power every day. The sheer terror that one of these devastating abominations of nature can produce is bewildering, and we could in fact already destroy our planet if we chose to do so.

Now imagine a world with the unlimited power of the sun to harness into weapons of seriously massive destructive capabilities. Suddenly a world where we no longer have to destroy our planet doesn’t seem to enterprising.

Filed Under: contemplating molecules | 1 Lonely Comment

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