Open Pit Coal Mine
It is the dawn of an new decade of the 21st century, and I must admit the future isn’t at all what I had expected. It doesn’t match the space age promises of my youth. No flying cars or personal helipad, no jet packs, no colonies on the moon. What is most disappointing to me is how mundane issues have escalated without solutions. Our pollution is growing and no action is taken, our oceans are dying without screams of dismay. Our energy consumption and needs are preventing our progress.
This week I was told about a renewed effort to open coal mines, it’s the 21st century and we are still using coal to generate electricity and fuel industry. This was a ancient source of power in the 1800′s, men and boys went underground to mine for black rock to burn. This fossil fuel kills the miners and the user, yet is still used and mined.
What about oil? Gas powered cars are still the norm. In Canada the oil sands are being processed to squeeze out more oil to be used for gas guzzling cars. In some parts of the world the 21st century is no different than 100 years ago.
Science and technology has provided us with abundance. Cell phones, microwaves and the internet are all part of the application of science. Why haven’t the same technologies been applied to electrical production and transportation?
Wizard of the West
In the first quarter of the 1990′s a brilliant engineer call Tesla proposed ideas that were science fiction then and now are considered prophetic.
Wireless transmission of electricity using the earth as a conductor. Solar panels in space to collect solar power and transmit electricity to earth. Free unlimited power anywhere on the globe. With the proper application of technology all these things are possibile.
We may still be a long way from colonies on the moon or even hover cars, still we should be able to replace coal mines and produce clean forms of electricity. Even without the Tesla Coil and wireless electricity transmission the technology exists to produce electricity without digging caves and harvesting fossils to be used for fuel. This should be manageable for us. Then we can start cleaning up our mess in the air, land and oceans.
