Energy is eternal delight, said the mystic William Blake.
E = MC squared, said Einstein.
On a more pragmatic basis, energy could be based on steam-driven turbines. This form of energy heats water until it expands into steam, and then that drives the pistons.
Car pistons drive on burning gasoline.
When something is transformed into another, it produces energy.
I don't know much about how uranium produces energy, but it apparently is a volatile substance. When it's done producing energy, the spent fuel rods remain radioactive. This is poisonous even in small quantities to humans.
Steam can create steam burns, but steam is more visible, and not as dangerous. But it is also not as productive of energy as uranium.
Whatever's been going on in Japan this week with the tsunami after the earthquake it has to do with energy, and massive amounts of it. Earthquakes can produce massive energy but since this energy is unpredictable it's difficult to harness. Volcanoes and tornadoes also produce massive energy, but it's tough to harness it.
How many of the elements produce energy? Are there any of them that are yet untapped that can produce energy in a more stable way than uranium, and yet that produce more energy and in a recyclable way than water or gasoline?
Obama's energy czar hasn't done much. She seems to lack energy. (Actually, she resigned a couple of months ago, and I don't think there's been a replacement.) We need a more energetic search for reliable means of producing energy that do not in turn produce toxic waste. Solar power seems easy to harness, but apparently you can't get enough of it to run a car. You can run a pocket calculator on it, but not a car. Wind power creates blight on the landscape during the construction and leaves ugliness on the tops of mountains in the form of gigantic windmills which kill birds (cats kill a lot more birds every year, but cats are cute).
We need to find an energy source that is eternal and is always a delight.
4 comments:
Years ago, there was a science program which talked about the scientific problems of the age. At the end, the moderator posed this question: If we could have a genie do three things for us, what would they be?
I think the third request was "clean, unlimited energy".
That would certainly be cool. But energy is where it is, where you find it. Actually, all the energy in the universe is a consequence of the big bang, the event which defined the structure of everything we're aware of. All energy is the residue of that phenomenon. Some believe that everything is still exploding (i.e., drifting apart into limitless extent), and that an enormous cooling off is happening (entropy). This cooling off will result in absolute emptiness, with no energy left, and no energetic consciousness to be aware of itself (the universe). "The universe studying itself." It boggles the mind.
chomp chomp
if everyone worked half as much drove half as much just learned to take it easy more and more we'd conserve energy it is the directing of human effort into contained mayhem and distraction that uses up all the energy phew everybody just slow down this is getting phuqqing crazy i mean what's so phuqqing important that people have to be jettin and cruisin around everyone going between 80 and 600 miles per hour every day this is driving the place into complete and utter disruption
i find it interesting when people make faith statements about such nebulous and incomprehensible notions as black holes as if they're really there or big bangs as if we know that's what happened
fresh air
fresh water
fresh fruit
fresh vegetables
what more does a man need to survive
even making bread is a luxury
how much luxury can we afford to live without
there is a gracious and bountiful and voluptuous god who provides more than we can consume
i would'nt go so far as to call him a designer
but he is hep
what more than to feel the energy of a lover's whisper in ones ear
all manner of earthly despondency is to be endured in that
communal meals will solve the worlds' problems
curtis
start giving some of that high end wine away
it won't mean anything until it's a complete act of charity
believe me
will the 2011 vines be radioactive
poems for a pilfered soul
jh
JH:
Your body is animate matter "looking at itself."
You are a mirror, and the subject is you.
We have met the enemy, and he is us.
that pogo dude
was no average philosopher
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