Short stories from the year 2050
H2: Unlimited Energy in Space.
Grandpa and Lena are just about to leave the house when Grandpa turns back to Lena: «Please turn off the light.» – «Oh, Grandpa, you know by now that we haven’t had an energy problem for a while.» – «Back in my day, they always said we had to save electricity.» – «But that’s not necessary anymore. Energy is everywhere and more than plentiful. The Chinese just inaugurated their first space power plant. That will satisfy China’s energy needs for years to come.» – «Yes, I read about that, too.»
Lena: «Well, China built a space station just for generating energy. Dad told me that this station moves in such a way that it’s always in daylight and can therefore constantly benefit from solar energy,» Lena explains. «Lots of solar panels would then capture the light and convert it into electricity. That energy is then used to produce hydrogen. Grandpa, what I don’t quite understand is what you can do with the hydrogen. I can’t just plug it into an outlet and have electricity come out that I can use to charge my VR Transformer, can I?»
Grandpa: «Hydrogen has a major advantage over the direct use of electricity: You can produce hydrogen using sustainable energy regardless of location and at a later time—and, most importantly, you can store it. Hydrogen is also much easier to transport than electricity,» Grandpa replies. – «Oh, now I get it, Grandpa. The Chinese fly lots of transport shuttles to the space power plant and pick up the hydrogen in huge tanks. That way, they can produce the hydrogen in space and then use it in their own country later.» – «Yes, that makes perfect sense,» says Grandpa, and continues right away. «Hydrogen was initially used for transportation. But today we use it for heating and to generate electricity. Many industries have long been dependent on hydrogen.»
«Fortunately, fossil fuels now account for only a few percentage points of total energy production,» says Lena. «That’s right,» Grandpa confirms, «they used to be real polluters. But thanks to new technologies, we managed to pull off the energy transition just in time.» – «Trying to educate people to use electricity more sparingly hasn’t been very effective,» Lena interjects with a guilty look. – «Exactly, so please do turn off the lights, Lena, even though we have plenty of energy today. Waste is never good,» Grandpa laughs.
* Jörg Eugster is «The Ambassador of the Future». He regularly writes for m&k from the year 2050, describing how technology and lifestyles have evolved.
