From philosophical reflection, this paper makes a programmatic discussion on the huge leap change in human energy control ability in the grand historical process, and gives nine major topics to discuss the path of developing energy technology.
It's a bit brain-burning, and those with insufficient knowledge reserves should be cautious.
In the long history of mankind, the energy revolution is closely related to the lives of each of us, and its far-reaching impact will far exceed the impact of the previous three industrial revolutions. In this energy revolution in full swing, human beings' ability to control and utilize energy has been greatly improved.
Historically, in the long process of human evolution, the energy we can control is limited to living biomass energy and a small amount of raw energy such as hydro and wind power. However, with the advent of the first industrial revolution, the invention of machinery such as the steam engine allowed mankind to master fossil energy sources such as coal, and this technological progress greatly improved human subjective initiative and ability to realize wishes.
Subsequently, the second industrial revolution was based on electromagnetic induction and other electricity, which promoted the transformation and development of electrification, greatly expanded people's living space, and improved the convenience of life and the efficiency of energy conversion and transformation.
The third industrial revolution is dominated by information technology and biotechnology, based on nano, molecular and quantum technologies, which further improves the fineness of human energy control.
When we look at this energy revolution from a historical perspective, just as we look back at the previous three industrial revolutions today, how will people describe this energy revolution a hundred years later? It may be described as follows: Since the 21st century, due to the contradiction between human energy supply, demand and distribution, nuclear energy and solar energy utilization technology have developed rapidly, so that the total amount of energy mastered by mankind at the end of the 21st century has increased by dozens of times compared with the beginning of the 21st century, and the ultimate solution for solar energy utilization has been formed. In addition, artificial intelligence is also an important part of this energy revolution, artificial intelligence allows human beings to control energy without the human body, so that the combination of energy and artificial intelligence becomes a productive force that does not depend on the human body, so as to completely liberate human beings themselves.
Therefore, this energy revolution is a technological revolution based on the use of clean energy such as solar energy and the development of artificial intelligence. Compared with the previous three industrial revolutions, this technological change is more significant in terms of the increase in the total amount of energy, and the subjective initiative of human beings will no longer be limited to the human body, but has been greatly extended. After the completion of the first phase of the energy revolution, human living space will expand to the Moon, Mars and further interstellar outer space. The second phase of the energy revolution is expected to begin in the 22nd century, with the larger-scale application of nuclear energy as the main line, benefiting from the maturity of nuclear fusion, lunar helium-3 application and other technologies, mankind will be able to get rid of dependence on the sun and master greater energy. In the second stage of the energy revolution, the revolution of life technology will also take place simultaneously, and the progress of life technology will make it possible to extend the length of human life, so that the life span of human beings can be greatly increased. The evolution and expression of life will also have the potential to be controlled by the human will.
When the two stages of the energy revolution are completed, the energy revolution will become the most glorious chapter in the history of human civilization.
How can the above arguments be applied to specific technological changes?
We have nine topics, and only the first and second topics will be discussed here.
1: The development of new energy vehicles
The LCOE of photovoltaic and wind power has dropped to a very low level. In areas with long hours of sunlight and strong winds, the cost of wind and solar power is even lower than that of coal and natural gas, and only one-tenth of that of mobile energy such as oil. In some hydropower areas with the best conditions, the LCOE of wind and solar power can also be comparable.
The current challenge is energy storage, which is mostly based on how to optimize the use of individual energy links. For example, electrochemical energy storage mainly pursues high density and low cost, but the laws of physics limit its development in the short term. The energy storage capacity of electrochemical energy storage cannot exceed the internal energy of chemical reactions, such as hydrogen-oxygen reaction, which is the highest energy density among all energy storage methods. But it's not optimal.
Because in the current technology world, no one has considered optimizing energy storage as a bottleneck in the solar energy utilization system. If the system is considered, it is the optimal energy storage method according to a power generation motor + renewable liquid fuel in the car.
#Hotspot Engine Plan# Specifically, the efficiency of photovoltaic power generation can reach 25%, the charging and discharging efficiency of electric vehicle on-board batteries can reach 95%, and the efficiency of electric motors can reach 92%. The efficiency of converting solar energy into vehicle propulsion can reach more than 21%. With on-board electric motors and renewable fuels, we can achieve low costs for energy storage. The purchase cost of using motor fuel can save more than one trillion yuan, and China's vehicle fuel (such as gasoline, diesel and other refined oil) in 2021 is about 233 million tons. The cost of vehicle fuel is about 2 yuan. The feed-in tariff for distributed photovoltaic power generation has been lower than 0.65 yuan to 0.35 yuan per kilowatt-hour. If we can realize photovoltaic direct charging to replace vehicle fuel, it is equivalent to saving 1.5 trillion yuan in fuel costs for the society every year. Ten years can save 15 trillion yuan, and Chinese can get 10,000 yuan.
2: Improvement of total energy control
At present, the total amount of human energy control is 180 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, and the power generation is about 28 trillion kilowatt-hours. How can we greatly improve the energy use of human autonomy?
If energy is applied to the water cycle in the atmosphere, human control over energy can be increased by tens or hundreds of times, and this energy use can allow humans to exploit arid areas or more land on a large scale.
In addition, the development of outer space also requires a huge amount of energy, and if outer space travel were to reach a tenth of the current scale of aviation, then we would need about hundreds of billions of kilowatt-hours of energy.
3: Direction of development of power and grid technology
4: The status and role of auxiliary energy sources such as nuclear energy, fossil energy and geothermal energy in the future energy
5: How to achieve a breakthrough in energy technology where the Earth, the Moon and Mars travel back and forth to each other
6: What will energy applications look like on Earth in 100 years
7: How to make optimal use of solar energy on the Moon and Mars is directly related to the extent to which the Moon and Mars can be developed
8: How to transform the earth through water diversion and power generation, and what will the transformed earth look like