What Does The Future Hold For Electricity? There is an experiment about to happen. If the shortcomings can be conquered it could mean we will have energy which could be very cheap, but there are other ideas in the mix also. The experiment is sending equipment into space which would be capable of creating electricity, using solar cells and beaming the energy down to the earth. There are a lot of problems to be overcome with this type of energy. We have never beamed down electricity this way before. Before we get to the minuses, let’s look at the pluses. The electricity should become cheaper after the extra cost of sending this equipment into space. Launches are getting much cheaper because the private companies seem to be far cheaper when launching their rockets than the government. The solar cells would be in constant sunlight as they are in space. The idea of beaming electricity down from space is not a new one, but it is one which we were never equipped to do before. This type of electricity would not yet be able to be produced in large enough quantities to eliminate all other types of power, but the hope is some day, it will be as the technology advances. There are those who worry about being vulnerable to attack. Satellites can be shot down as demonstrated by both the United States and the Chinese in the past couple of years. This could mean no power for an entire country. Right now, our power grids are the most vulnerable objects in the country, if a war was to take place. Just recently a couple of power stations were taken down in this country by some bad guys, imagine if they knocked out one of the giant grids. We have seen the grids go down in the past. When I was in the army the entire east coast grid went down for hours and I watch from the fort I was stationed in as the New York City skyline went dark. Yes, this was many years ago, but it could happen again. Those who worry about this believe homes should have individual power sources, and so do I. I remember large parts of my town going down for three weeks during a bad storm. If each home would have had its own power, this would not have happened because we would not have been dependent on overhead wires and power stations. Individual powered homes are much safer from both problems. One of the things I have to worry about is if we adopt the idea of sending power down from space, is it really safe? Putting all that electricity into our atmosphere might have unforeseen consequences. I don’t see how there ever could have been a study on what that much power in the air could do to a human body. One thing is for sure however, it would make owing an electric car more feasible. I say this because the cars wouldn’t need a battery pack, they could draw their electricity from the air. This will never happen until the power companies figure out how to meter how much we are using not only for our homes, but also for our cars. Sometimes crazy things happen, and it might turn out the power companies might just plug this new power source into the grid, which would defeat the entire purpose, but which might eventually be a cheaper source of power for them. The question I am asking is do they really want to lose the grid? I don’t think so as it gives them all that control over our electricity usage. There were other ideas for different types of solar power that didn’t use solar panels. The Germans in World War II, had plans for a space station with a huge magnifying glass which could be aimed at an earthly target and burn it to the ground. This might lead some to think of using large magnifying glasses in space to aim beams of concentrated sunlight at huge tanks of water to create steam, which then could be used for generation of electricity. It might be a lot cheaper to build solar cells off world since that would save on the cost of having to launch rockets to space to install them. A for instance, a factory on the moon might be able to produce them and it would be far cheaper to launch from the moon than from earth. This is because the moon’s gravity is only about 1/6 that of earth. Some experts claim all the material needed for solar cells is available on the moon which would make the task a lot more practical. Besides solar panels there are other devices which will be needed such as a converter to convert the power from Direct Current to Alternating Current. They will also need a device to beam the power down along with other devices I am not qualified to know. It does look like our future will be an electrical one. What is amazing is the fact we have known about electricity for a very long time and have yet to find a way to replace it. There are so many ways to produce electricity and that makes it a very practical force to use. It can be produced by the flow of water through dams, sunlight using solar cells, wind power, ocean power, battery power, steam power, oil and coal power, nuclear power, and even using the heat from the earth, known as geothermal energy to produce electricity. As you can see, there are just so many way to create electricity. There may someday be another force we may use and that is cosmic rays. Supposedly, Nikola Tesla invented a car which ran on cosmic rays. If Tesla thought there was a future for cosmic ray power, who am I to contradict him. There is little information available about his cosmic ray car to the general public. It is said he built a cosmic ray receiver which consisted of a box which was a couple of feet long and about ten inches wide. Inside were vacuum tubes and a cable which connected to an antenna. The story goes on to say he drove the car on an off for 8 days for a total distance of about 50 miles and at speeds up to 90 miles per hour. It is too early to tell what direction we will eventually go in because who knows what inventions will influence that direction? It does seem it will be some kind of electrical future.
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