The topic of fusion recently got me thinking once again about the future of energy, one of the most important engineering challenges in the world today. Where will get our energy in 25 years, 50 years, 100 years? Lets dig in to our biggest contenders and see what is the most (and least) likely to make the grade as our energy savior.
F Tier
Tidal Power - There are a lot of engineering challenges involved with tidal harnesses to capture the earth waves, lots of environmental questions, etc etc. But the real problem with tidal....it sucks. When you crunch the numbers of how much energy you can theoretically get out of it....its abysmal, garbage, not even worth talking about. Frankly money spent on tidal is just throwing money down the drain, it doesn't matter if you solve every single problem tidal has, at the of the day, why try to get blood out of a stone when there are sacks of blood lying around?
Hydroelectric - There is nothing wrong with hydro....except that we have already tapped this well. We have already put damns on the majority of good rivers in the world for generating power, so there is no scaling here. Hydro is good for what we got, but we ain't getting no more.
Motion Capture - This involves schemes like capturing the energy of masses of people walking on bridges or the swaying of buildings in the wind and things like that. Even if you got this to high efficiency, the energy regained is SO LOW compared to other sources its not even worth discussing. The only really good use of motion capture right now is Regenerative Braking, which is used in electric cars to regain a lot of the energy consumed when you when brake your car. This is a good technology, and it one of the reasons electric cards can actually work in city traffic (otherwise you would burn through your battery 10x faster), but its not an energy generator.
D Tier
Traditional Nuclear Energy - This involves most of what the world uses today, traditional uranium based plants with low efficiencies and high nuclear waste. Now ignoring the giant elephant of nuclear safety and waste disposal, when you start running the calculations on scaling this tech up to meet global demand, the uranium supply gets called into question (we literally could run out of uranium when you start looking at how much that large network of plants would consume). So while you could scale this up, its questionable to do so, and with better generations of nuclear technology being unveiled, it seems highly unlikely that a fleet of new traditional nuclear plants would be on the menu.
Geothermal - Unlike hydro there is still some scaling here, there are parts of the world with some decent untapped geothermal reserves, and its a well understood technology. However, when we are talking about GLOBAL demand, this is still bush league. Geothermal is a great local or region power source, and countries with it can enjoy that benefit for years to come. But you won't power the world with this.
C Tier
Fusion - I put fusion smack down in the middle as the ultimate X factor technology. If someone cracks the code, it wins...the raw theoretical potential of fusion just blows away most other technologies, both for its raw power, its low waste, and its center ability (which works well with our traditional power grids). Also fusion produces helium as a byproduct, and we are actually RUNNING OUT OF HELIUM (its actually absurd that we still allow helium balloons for parties when MRI machines are being redesigned because they are so concerned about the future of helium supplies, that's how bad it is). But fusion remains a pipe dream right now, over 50 years of iteration and we aren't even close to a fusion power plant. Likely this is going to take a eureka moment of genius to crack, someone is going to rethink fusion entirely with a process no one has even considered, and suddenly its off to the races. But you can't bet on genius, so its a total gamble at this point. Fusion could become the savior of mankind, or a money sink that slowed down the real solution.
Modern Nuclear Reactors - The more modern nuclear reactors are a lot more efficient than their cousins, able to use significantly larger amounts of their nuclear fuel and less waste. They are better and safer, and with these numbers, you could realistically perform things like siphon uranium from seawater (there is a small but consistent % of uranium in all of the world's oceans). This is the first technology we have discussed that could actually power the world and whose technology is pretty much right here right now. However, now we leave the realm of engineering and start looking at the economic side. Nuclear reactors are expensive, and have actually gotten more expensive over time. Further, the public in general just does not like nuclear compared to alternatives. Yes its safer, but the simple reality is....if we blanket the world in nuclear plants, meltdowns are an inevitability. No technology is perfect, we have made airplanes the safest form of travel by several multipliers compared to other forms....but crashes still happen. It takes huge amounts of money to add safeties and redundancies and more safeties to these nuclear power plants to make them as safe as possible, but its still questionable whether the public will ever truly tolerate the risk.....and the money it takes to add those features have pushed nuclear out of economic reality, at least for now.
B Tier
Wind Power - Wind has come a long way in terms of cost and efficiencies. Its an old well understood technology, that actually has reasonable scaling potential into the global sphere. And its got good branding, people like it. That said, wind's theoretical numbers are just not what the rest of this list can produce, and its reliance on large mechanical pieces means it will always come with a maintenance price tag no one will want to pay. Further, the environmental impact of wind as it scales starts to raise eyebrows, from impacts to bird migrations....to actual concerns about shifting the earth's rotation if we scale it big enough. Wind isn't going anywhere, and if nothing else its a good stop gap technology, but its unlikely to get us to the finish line.
Thorium Nuclear Power (using fluoride salts) - Thorium is the new kid on the nuclear block. Funny enough, it was studied when nuclear fission was first being researched but uranium got the bulk of the attention due its bomb making capability, so thorium was put on the sidelines. Thorium nuclear energy has several advantages over uranium based plants: almost 100% conversion of fuel to energy, almost neglible nuclear waste, much greater safety factors (thorium plants can self regulate, they don't need active cooling systems in the same way traditional plants do), and its harder to make nuclear weapons from the fuel. In terms of abundance, thorium is so abundant in mining we toss it away as a waste product (its not radioactive in its base form). So there is a lot to like about Thorium. However, there is one MAJOR engineering challenge, and its a doozy. Thorum utilizes fluoride salts for its mixture, which is very chemically caustic substance. So you have a hot, radioactive, and extremely caustic mixture..... and there isn't a vessel on earth that can hold it for long periods of time. You would need to remake your vessel every few months, which of course puts your economics completely out of whack. Until someone solves this problem, thorium remains a dream....but compared to fusion, this seems a lot more achievable, and if successful, Thorium packs the punch, the safety, the scalability, and likely the branding (as it can be separated from "nasty" uranium nuclear plants in advertising) to be a world power contender.
A Tier
Solar Power (Traditional Panels): Solar has (hehe) "found its place in the sun" compared to other technologies. Its cost has dropped like a stone in the last 10 years, surpassing all major predictions. Meanwhile, the efficiency of panels has increased markedly. The numbers on solar is very impressive, we actually have tons of great land in the world for solar, more than we would ever need (the US could create a solar farm in just one of its many deserts and pretty much power the world). Ultimately this is one of the reasons solar is near the top, its hard to beat its scalability. Further, its very safe, and you get the added benefit that people can set up their own solar panels for independent power. The main challenges remaining to solar are mostly economic ones. The intermittency of solar (aka no power when the sun doesn't shine) can be solved by just even more panels. Add enough panels to provide double what the world needs in power, connect them through a global grid, and you can just move power to where its needed. Now creating a new energy grid that can support the more spread out nature of solar power (compared to the very centralized power of a traditional power plant) is a major expense....but again completely doable with enough economic will. We don't have to really invent anything to make solar work, we just have to do it.
There is however, one real roadblock to stopping solar from being the undisputed king.... rare earth elements. Currently all solar panels require a certain amount of rare earth elements, and it has rare in the name for a reason. China right now controls 97% of the rare earth mining in the world, and there are few other places that produce rare earths in any quantity. Now for our solar scaling right now, its not a big deal. But once we start really going for global power, when we start slapping panels across a desert....that becomes a real problem. At first it would economic, the price of rare earths would increase massively, leading the viability of teh technology in question. But there is actual concern that there isn't enough rare earths period to get the job done (not to mention everything else we use rare earths for). Now this may change as mining advances, we could find whole new sources of rare earths previously untapped. But that is a lingering question that holds back the full power of solar's might.
S Tier
Solar Power (Organic Panels): So my money for the future of power right now is organic solar panels. These are solar panels but made of "organic" materials, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen....aka same stuff as you and me. Organic panels exist today, but their efficiencies are extremely low compared to a traditional solar panel, so they are not viable yet. But....their efficiencies are improving.
Organic panels solve the material issue that could hold back traditional panels. We are not running out of organic materials any time soon...you could cover everything in them and not make a dent in our material supplies. And you literally could cover most anything, organic panels are flexible and non-toxic. You also remove some of the garbage concerns of traditional solar panels.
Utlimately organic solar panels could take the baton from traditional solar panels and carry it to the finish line. They have the same scaling potential, but with fewer long term drawbacks. They would be clean, safe and plentiful. Truly the power of the sun in the palm of our hands.
F Tier
Tidal Power - There are a lot of engineering challenges involved with tidal harnesses to capture the earth waves, lots of environmental questions, etc etc. But the real problem with tidal....it sucks. When you crunch the numbers of how much energy you can theoretically get out of it....its abysmal, garbage, not even worth talking about. Frankly money spent on tidal is just throwing money down the drain, it doesn't matter if you solve every single problem tidal has, at the of the day, why try to get blood out of a stone when there are sacks of blood lying around?
Hydroelectric - There is nothing wrong with hydro....except that we have already tapped this well. We have already put damns on the majority of good rivers in the world for generating power, so there is no scaling here. Hydro is good for what we got, but we ain't getting no more.
Motion Capture - This involves schemes like capturing the energy of masses of people walking on bridges or the swaying of buildings in the wind and things like that. Even if you got this to high efficiency, the energy regained is SO LOW compared to other sources its not even worth discussing. The only really good use of motion capture right now is Regenerative Braking, which is used in electric cars to regain a lot of the energy consumed when you when brake your car. This is a good technology, and it one of the reasons electric cards can actually work in city traffic (otherwise you would burn through your battery 10x faster), but its not an energy generator.
D Tier
Traditional Nuclear Energy - This involves most of what the world uses today, traditional uranium based plants with low efficiencies and high nuclear waste. Now ignoring the giant elephant of nuclear safety and waste disposal, when you start running the calculations on scaling this tech up to meet global demand, the uranium supply gets called into question (we literally could run out of uranium when you start looking at how much that large network of plants would consume). So while you could scale this up, its questionable to do so, and with better generations of nuclear technology being unveiled, it seems highly unlikely that a fleet of new traditional nuclear plants would be on the menu.
Geothermal - Unlike hydro there is still some scaling here, there are parts of the world with some decent untapped geothermal reserves, and its a well understood technology. However, when we are talking about GLOBAL demand, this is still bush league. Geothermal is a great local or region power source, and countries with it can enjoy that benefit for years to come. But you won't power the world with this.
C Tier
Fusion - I put fusion smack down in the middle as the ultimate X factor technology. If someone cracks the code, it wins...the raw theoretical potential of fusion just blows away most other technologies, both for its raw power, its low waste, and its center ability (which works well with our traditional power grids). Also fusion produces helium as a byproduct, and we are actually RUNNING OUT OF HELIUM (its actually absurd that we still allow helium balloons for parties when MRI machines are being redesigned because they are so concerned about the future of helium supplies, that's how bad it is). But fusion remains a pipe dream right now, over 50 years of iteration and we aren't even close to a fusion power plant. Likely this is going to take a eureka moment of genius to crack, someone is going to rethink fusion entirely with a process no one has even considered, and suddenly its off to the races. But you can't bet on genius, so its a total gamble at this point. Fusion could become the savior of mankind, or a money sink that slowed down the real solution.
Modern Nuclear Reactors - The more modern nuclear reactors are a lot more efficient than their cousins, able to use significantly larger amounts of their nuclear fuel and less waste. They are better and safer, and with these numbers, you could realistically perform things like siphon uranium from seawater (there is a small but consistent % of uranium in all of the world's oceans). This is the first technology we have discussed that could actually power the world and whose technology is pretty much right here right now. However, now we leave the realm of engineering and start looking at the economic side. Nuclear reactors are expensive, and have actually gotten more expensive over time. Further, the public in general just does not like nuclear compared to alternatives. Yes its safer, but the simple reality is....if we blanket the world in nuclear plants, meltdowns are an inevitability. No technology is perfect, we have made airplanes the safest form of travel by several multipliers compared to other forms....but crashes still happen. It takes huge amounts of money to add safeties and redundancies and more safeties to these nuclear power plants to make them as safe as possible, but its still questionable whether the public will ever truly tolerate the risk.....and the money it takes to add those features have pushed nuclear out of economic reality, at least for now.
B Tier
Wind Power - Wind has come a long way in terms of cost and efficiencies. Its an old well understood technology, that actually has reasonable scaling potential into the global sphere. And its got good branding, people like it. That said, wind's theoretical numbers are just not what the rest of this list can produce, and its reliance on large mechanical pieces means it will always come with a maintenance price tag no one will want to pay. Further, the environmental impact of wind as it scales starts to raise eyebrows, from impacts to bird migrations....to actual concerns about shifting the earth's rotation if we scale it big enough. Wind isn't going anywhere, and if nothing else its a good stop gap technology, but its unlikely to get us to the finish line.
Thorium Nuclear Power (using fluoride salts) - Thorium is the new kid on the nuclear block. Funny enough, it was studied when nuclear fission was first being researched but uranium got the bulk of the attention due its bomb making capability, so thorium was put on the sidelines. Thorium nuclear energy has several advantages over uranium based plants: almost 100% conversion of fuel to energy, almost neglible nuclear waste, much greater safety factors (thorium plants can self regulate, they don't need active cooling systems in the same way traditional plants do), and its harder to make nuclear weapons from the fuel. In terms of abundance, thorium is so abundant in mining we toss it away as a waste product (its not radioactive in its base form). So there is a lot to like about Thorium. However, there is one MAJOR engineering challenge, and its a doozy. Thorum utilizes fluoride salts for its mixture, which is very chemically caustic substance. So you have a hot, radioactive, and extremely caustic mixture..... and there isn't a vessel on earth that can hold it for long periods of time. You would need to remake your vessel every few months, which of course puts your economics completely out of whack. Until someone solves this problem, thorium remains a dream....but compared to fusion, this seems a lot more achievable, and if successful, Thorium packs the punch, the safety, the scalability, and likely the branding (as it can be separated from "nasty" uranium nuclear plants in advertising) to be a world power contender.
A Tier
Solar Power (Traditional Panels): Solar has (hehe) "found its place in the sun" compared to other technologies. Its cost has dropped like a stone in the last 10 years, surpassing all major predictions. Meanwhile, the efficiency of panels has increased markedly. The numbers on solar is very impressive, we actually have tons of great land in the world for solar, more than we would ever need (the US could create a solar farm in just one of its many deserts and pretty much power the world). Ultimately this is one of the reasons solar is near the top, its hard to beat its scalability. Further, its very safe, and you get the added benefit that people can set up their own solar panels for independent power. The main challenges remaining to solar are mostly economic ones. The intermittency of solar (aka no power when the sun doesn't shine) can be solved by just even more panels. Add enough panels to provide double what the world needs in power, connect them through a global grid, and you can just move power to where its needed. Now creating a new energy grid that can support the more spread out nature of solar power (compared to the very centralized power of a traditional power plant) is a major expense....but again completely doable with enough economic will. We don't have to really invent anything to make solar work, we just have to do it.
There is however, one real roadblock to stopping solar from being the undisputed king.... rare earth elements. Currently all solar panels require a certain amount of rare earth elements, and it has rare in the name for a reason. China right now controls 97% of the rare earth mining in the world, and there are few other places that produce rare earths in any quantity. Now for our solar scaling right now, its not a big deal. But once we start really going for global power, when we start slapping panels across a desert....that becomes a real problem. At first it would economic, the price of rare earths would increase massively, leading the viability of teh technology in question. But there is actual concern that there isn't enough rare earths period to get the job done (not to mention everything else we use rare earths for). Now this may change as mining advances, we could find whole new sources of rare earths previously untapped. But that is a lingering question that holds back the full power of solar's might.
S Tier
Solar Power (Organic Panels): So my money for the future of power right now is organic solar panels. These are solar panels but made of "organic" materials, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen....aka same stuff as you and me. Organic panels exist today, but their efficiencies are extremely low compared to a traditional solar panel, so they are not viable yet. But....their efficiencies are improving.
Organic panels solve the material issue that could hold back traditional panels. We are not running out of organic materials any time soon...you could cover everything in them and not make a dent in our material supplies. And you literally could cover most anything, organic panels are flexible and non-toxic. You also remove some of the garbage concerns of traditional solar panels.
Utlimately organic solar panels could take the baton from traditional solar panels and carry it to the finish line. They have the same scaling potential, but with fewer long term drawbacks. They would be clean, safe and plentiful. Truly the power of the sun in the palm of our hands.
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