Animoto task

Energy and Power

 Energy is arguably the backbone of our modern society. Every thing we use requires it in one form or another. Electronic devices, cars, water pumps, and gas heaters all rely on energy. But where do we get it, how do we supply it, and what do these effects have on our environment. Most of our energy comes from fossil fuel sources, although some of it comes from renewables but not anywhere near the same scale. Everyone knows about fossil fuels such as gasoline, coal and natural gas. And most of us know about renewables like solar, wind, and hydro-electric. Most scientists agree that our current consumption of fossil fuels cannot be maintained and that global warming (or as I like to call it "Pollution") is a direct side effect from the massive amounts of fossil fules we burn every day. There are solutions to this problem but they won't come easy. There are many business intrests and polititians in opposition to converting to renewables due to the large amounts of money they stand to lose. One solution is solar panels and wind energy. However the technology is way behind in our ability to capture and store these virtualy unlimited resources. Also the space required to generate the same output as say a coal fired electrcal plant is vastly greater. To put a number on it only five percent of the world population lives in the United States and we consume 20% of all the worlds fossil fuels. Thats a staggering number. If everyone on this planet is to one day live like the average american we would have to build vast arrays of solar cell farms, wind farms, thousands of olympic sized swimming pools of bio fuels. Impossible by any stretch of the imagination. The "get out of jail free card" is known as fusion power. The technology is decades from being able to put power on the grid but scientists across the world are working on this problem with some surprising results. Conservitive estemates say around 2036 we sould have a working fusion reactor. Time will only tell, due in part to we would need a "Manhatten Project" scale funding, but with Germany, England, China, Japan, Russia, and the United States all working together to do it by then.