Do We Have a Plan B for Electricity?
Can the wind stop flowing? Can technology stop working? Let’s melt down those questions’ complexity
Our society relies on electricity. Switch it off, and most of us freeze.
Sure, assuming that we’ll always be able to produce electricity is reasonable. It’s about making and distributing energy in a particular shape.
But what if something goes wrong? I don’t want to be apocalyptic or a Cassandra; just try to learn from a hypothetical and, hopefully, unlikely scenario.
Making electricity
The electricity we need for technology isn’t available in nature. I mean, there are no deposits of electric energy from which to take it and distribute it.
This means electricity comes from a transformation from another energy source, and a transformation implies inefficiency. How long can we afford this inefficiency, and how much?
Yes, there are renewable sources, like light and wind. For them, inefficiencies appear less problematic as time is what only matters: given a renewable source, do we have enough time to extract from it the electric energy we need in time?
Let’s say that as long as we rely on renewable energy sources and physics laws, we…
