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History of Technology 1: The Search for Renewable Energy Begins 12 Views


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Description:

The search for renewable energy led us to look carefully at many things: wind, water, the sun, our grandpa's farts after taco night...all viable options.

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Transcript

00:00

by the 1950s humanity had it all. steam called electricity combustion

00:08

engines and even nuclear power. we were at the top of our energy game rolling in

00:13

cheap abundant energy. nothing could bring us down well except for the fact

00:18

that coal oil and uranium are limited resources. everything is limited [man goes swimming]

00:22

resources actually. even the Sun is gonna run out of hydrogen in a few you know

00:27

billion years. then it's core will collapse and its outer layers will

00:31

devour the earth. this is such an uplifting video. but on the bright side

00:36

at least we've got some time before that happens. and we have more pressing

00:39

business like what's gonna be the next song of the summer? or what's gonna

00:44

happen when oil keeps getting rarer and more expensive .what well they're come

00:49

forward. anyway these days we hear a lot of advocates calling for us putting more

00:53

time and money into researching green renewable energy sources. where did that

00:58

movement begin? well not in the early 1900s that's for sure. back then nobody

01:03

was worried about things like carbon emissions peak oil or rising energy

01:07

prices. didn't look like we'd ever run out of coal or oil. and yeah coal slow

01:12

smelled gross but it was probably totally fine right? well sure there were [people wear masks in smoke]

01:16

early murmurs of fear people couldn't look at our mines and oil wells and then

01:21

look at the increasing rate of consumption and put two and two together.

01:24

much later in 1956 a man named M king Hubbert published the paper that

01:30

essentially said

01:34

while hovered invented the idea of peak oil - which would be the moment when oil

01:39

production would peak and then decline. after peak oil

01:44

there won't be discoveries of deeper oil wells and oil production while takin

01:48

noes dive. our fossil fuel based world might not grow forever. while Hubbert

01:54

wasn't the only person saying dooms day things. world had to face the idea that [lighting flashes]

01:58

we were running on a quarter tank of fuel down a long dirt road, no gas

02:03

stations and no emergency plan. well there were lots of different reactions

02:07

to this realization. one was the environmentalist movement of the 1960s

02:11

and 70s which said we should lower our consumption of energy and change our

02:16

lifestyles. presumably by wearing more beads and flowers and stuff. well others

02:21

saw the whole thing is a national security issue. maybe we were running out

02:25

of energy but we'd be fine as long as the Russians ran out first. ha ha take

02:30

that commies. but some just saw a huge business opportunity whoever came up

02:34

with the next big deal in energy could be a bazillionaire. [people mock renewable energy]

02:38

others refused believe that we're running out of anything and that we

02:41

should just take a chill pill or a handful of them. apart from those last

02:45

guys with the mellow vibes everyone agreed that new ways of generating

02:49

electricity would be super great, and so the push for renewable energy

02:53

technologies began. we're off to the races but it's been a slow race to say

02:58

the least and like watching slugs race each other while hauling cement blocks.

03:02

yeah it's a gonna replace NASCAR any time. [race track shown]

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