• Question: will it ever be possible for humans to create an inexhaustable supply of enery?

    Asked by dumhead456 to Hermine, Katy, Laura, Nathalie, Paula on 22 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Paula Salgado

      Paula Salgado answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Well, considering that there is a finite amount of energy and matter in our universe, I would say no… But I think we might be able to create a renewable, efficient source of energy when we master nuclear fission.

      It seems we are closer than ever before… 😉

    • Photo: Katy Mee

      Katy Mee answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      That is a very good question and it’s impossible to say because we can never know with 100% certainty what will happen in the future. We know that the world’s fossil fuel resources are being depleted but you have to remember that coal, oil, gas etc ARE still being formed all the time and all over the world, it’s just that they take many thousands or millions of years to form so we are using them up more quickly than they can be replenished. They may well run out within the next few generations but that’s not to say that (if life still exists on Earth in a million years) future generations will not have access to it again.

      The closest we have to inexhaustible energy sources are ‘renewable’ energy so basically solar, wind, tidal etc. The geological record shows that these basic weather phenomena have existed since the Earth formed so there is nothing to suggest that they will disappear in the future.

    • Photo: Nathalie Pettorelli

      Nathalie Pettorelli answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Hi there,

      Clever question again – in theory, every supply of energy is exhaustible. Think about solar energy – this won’t last forever. The point is that (if I’m not wrong) the amount of energy in a system is constant. Aside from this point, there are energies that could be qualified as relatively inexhaustable at the human scale – such as solar energy, or energy produces by the movement of water or wind. Hope that I’m not too far off on this one… 🙂

    • Photo: Laura Dixon

      Laura Dixon answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      I hope so! And creating a ‘sustainable’ supply of energy is certainly the topic of alot of research. I think with all the creative people working on this problem that someday we should be able to 🙂

    • Photo: Hermine Schnetler

      Hermine Schnetler answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      Maybe, especially so that I can power my car on something that won’t cost me so much money!!! With all energy sources they will release the energy that we can harness for our use, however other kinds of energy are being released at the same time which will deplete the source as it is wasted energy. To make it inexhaustible we would need to take the wasted energy and the energy that we used and resupply it to the source which can’t really be done. What you are after is basically perpetual motion which is not possible due to inefficincies that are in every system. Shame petrol is really expensive.

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