Author: ГРИБ ЕГОР ПАВЛОВИЧ | GRIB EGOR
Preface
Greetings, reader! I am Egor Grib, a future energy engineer of the Republic of Belarus. Today I am a third-year student and I am already thinking about the development of new technologies and how to make a big contribution to the development of the energy complex of the Union state. While writing my work, I learned that there are many directions for the development of the energy complex, but I tried to convey to you, in my opinion, the most interesting and promising.
This work is my view on the prospects for the development of the energy complex of the future
My great desire, as a future power engineer, is to recreate Tesla's technology and bring to life his "Wireless way of transmitting energy." It was this desire that prompted me to understand this topic and write this work.
All options for the development of energy branches may seem fantastic to some people, or at least are not achievable within the framework of the XXI century. Despite the evolution in science and technology, and technologists are breaking beyond the boundaries of understanding, we can say that the technologies described in the work will be achievable in the foreseeable future. Even our grandparents could not have thought that a person would be able to communicate with a person at a great distance, and after only 50 years we can not only communicate with each other from anywhere in the world and see each other.
With this work, I want to show that today scientists all over the world are making discoveries that show the way for further research that will make life easier for a future civilization. It is necessary to pay attention to the inventions of the past centuries, which were ahead of their time and could not develop due to the lack of knowledge of past generations.
The story described in my work shows the path of development in the fuel and energy complex and the more we put our efforts into the present, the easier it will be for us in the future.
And if you imagine the situation from my work, then we can accelerate the development path by two or even three times. And suddenly such a situation has already happened, who knows?...
They brought me into a dark room with a table on which there was a pile of papers and a lamp. A man in uniform was sitting in front of me with a frown, and next to him was a gray–haired man in glasses and a white coat who looked like Peter Shapgalden.
– Have a seat. My name is Leonid Viktorovich. How can I contact you? The man in the uniform asked.
– Konstantin Zagorkov.
– Konstantin, do you remember how you ended up on the overpass at night?
— no. The only thing I remember is that at 21:56 at the TSSP, where I work, the particle accelerator went out of control. I rushed to the emergency switches, but I didn't have time – and an explosion occurred. Then I woke up on the overpass.
– Yeah.… Very interesting. Answer one more question. A device was found in your belongings, the purpose of which our scientists could not determine. Is this a surveillance device? It is in your best interest to answer the truth and only the truth.
– Oh no, I'm not a spy! This is my old atomic power bank, they haven't been produced for five years.
Leonid Viktorovich looked at me in perplexity. Taking one of the papers from the table, he began to read aloud:
– During the standard patrol on October 31, 2023 at the overpass…
– Wait, wait, what year is it?
– 2023. Don't try to cheat, we'll find out anyway.
I looked at the calendar on the table – it was 10/31/2023. And even my watch somehow synchronized and showed this date. And then it dawned on me. I knew it was possible in theory, but I didn't even think it would actually happen to me.
– This will sound strange, but I assure you that I am from the future!
– How can you be from the future? This is nonsense.
– I swear to you! Perhaps because of the explosion of the particle accelerator, I got into the past, as you do.
– And how can you prove it?
– Since I work in the energy sector, I can tell you how everything works in this industry here.
At that moment, the scientist became noticeably animated, and I began my story.
– I was born on July 9, 2081, in the midst of the transition from energy transmission via superconductors to wireless energy transmission in the so-called "Tesla Method".
– Wait, how did humanity manage to use superconductors to transfer large amounts of electricity? The man in the bathrobe asked.
– Of course, it didn't happen right away. As we were told in the history of energy classes, the transition to superconducting power lines did not happen immediately. At first, there were hybrid cable lines consisting of a pipeline for liquid hydrogen and high-temperature superconductors. For example, magnesium diboride was used with a transition temperature to a superconducting state of 39 Kelvin, which was maintained by liquid hydrogen with a temperature of 20.3 Kelvin. In your time, there were already attempts to make cables from superconductors, and then liquid nitrogen circulating in pipes was used to cool the wires. But nitrogen was heating up quickly, which is why the length of the lines did not exceed one kilometer. Then they came up with the idea of using liquid hydrogen, but there was a problem with the pipeline that was supposed to deliver hydrogen in a liquid state, not in a gaseous state. By 2030, people had solved this problem too – and started using superconductors with might and main. [4]
Superconductors were also used to protect against short circuits at substations. We are talking about current limiters based on superconductors. The bottom line was that a section of superconducting wire connected in parallel with a resistor was included in the rupture of the power line. In case of a short circuit, the current density increases, which is why their resistance increases sharply. In this case, the resistor takes over part of the load. Such limiters are triggered faster than any relay protection, in less than 3 milliseconds, and then the relay protection is triggered. The first company to start using such current limiters was the Russian company Podol Electrical Protection. But these limiters went out of fashion with the complete transition to wires from superconductors. [4]
The problem of using liquid nitrogen in superconducting lines was soon solved. So they began to use an external circuit in the form of a vacuum, which did not allow nitrogen to heat up. Thanks to the available innovative compressor technology, these conductors entered the market in the 2050s [4].
– It was useful information for us. However, how did you come to the point where you could learn to transfer energy without wires at all?
– Our scientists have been puzzling over this issue for a long time, but in fact everything lay on the surface – in the works of Tesla. Nowadays, there are so-called "Station facilities" all over the planet, on which resonating transformers are installed. The high-potential terminals of the resonant step-up windings of transformers are connected by wires. The low-potential terminals of the resonant windings of both transformers are grounded directly near the transformer structures. The low voltage winding of the transmitting transformer is connected to the output of the high frequency generator. It is needed to increase the frequency of electricity to the resonant frequency of a single-wire transmission system. The low voltage winding of the receiving transformer is connected to the load. As a result, conditions are created in the transmission system for the excitation of standing waves of electromagnetic vibrations along the windings with a wavelength approximately four times the length of each of the resonant high-voltage spiral windings. Thus, with the help of mother earth, we transmit electricity. This transition could have happened much earlier, but it took a very long time to prove the reality of this project? [2]
– Stop, stop, stop, that is, people using Tesla's achievements recreated his technology?
- Yes. As Tesla himself said: "Perhaps I've really gone too far ahead. You can still do without "my" energy transmission system as long as my multiphase system meets the needs of the world. But in case the need arises, the power transmission system without wires is already ready." Of course, it took a very long time to look for all the developments around the world, but the energy company "Great Global Grid" collected everything that could be collected, and was the first to introduce an energy transmission system without wires. [1]
– We need to search for them urgently! Tell me, will there be any drastic changes in electricity production? Will we be able to recycle nuclear fuel?
– You can immediately see a man of the old formation! Scientists had previously thought this way and came up with a way to reuse spent nuclear rods. Hundreds of nuclear fuel reprocessing plants have grown all over the world. But soon people were faced with the fact that their work adversely affects the environment, overshadowing all the advantages of nuclear energy.
The best minds have thrown all their efforts into finding a reliable, clean and economical way to extract electrical energy. On June 25, 2054, we woke up in a completely different reality. German scientists Albert Ananhard and Peter Shapgalden produced the first controlled nuclear fusion reaction, for which they were soon awarded the Nobel Prize. For 50 years now, we have been using nuclear fusion, keeping the environment clean and not worrying about stocks of raw materials.
As you know, generating electricity using thermonuclear fusion is that we use hydrogen isotopes – deuterium and tritium. During the reaction, 0.03 grams of deuterium releases the same amount of energy as when burning 300 liters of gasoline. But in order for the reaction to be constant, two conditions are needed.
The first condition is that in order for the reaction to proceed, the nuclei need to be given an energy of the order of 10 kiloelectronvolts. At the turn of the nuclear forces, the Coulomb repulsion energy is on the order of 10 kiloelectronvolts, and in order to overcome this barrier, the nuclei in a collision must have kinetic energy at least not less than this value.
Secondly, in order for the energy released in the synthesis reaction to at least cover the energy costs of initiating the reaction, atomic nuclei must undergo many collisions. In each collision, in which a fusion reaction occurs between deuterium and tritium, 17.6 megaelectronvolts of energy are released, that is, approximately 3 · 10-12 joules. For example, if 10 megajoules of energy is spent on ignition, then the reaction will be unprofitable, provided that at least 3· 1018 pairs of tritium and deuterium take part in it. To do this, a fairly dense high-energy plasma must be kept in the reactor for a long time. This condition is expressed by the Lawson criterion.
These problems were solved with the help of laser thermonuclear fusion. Scientists were able to create an installation that carried out thermonuclear microbursts under the influence of laser radiation, and held the substance at a temperature of 108 kelvin. Thus, we have entered the era of clean and affordable energy [3].
– Are other sources of energy used besides thermonuclear fusion? After all, we are now investing so much in wind and solar power plants.
– Yes, of course. We have a CSEC. They are built to power huge factories and enterprises, so as not to connect them to a common power supply network. Sometimes such stations also power entire cities where employees of enterprises live.
– What is CSEC?
– CSEC is a space–based solar power plant operating in Earth orbit.
– Is it really that easy to build a space power plant in your time?!
– Yes, nowadays many technologies have become more accessible, and the development of space technology has leapt far ahead. After the colonies on Mars and bases on the Moon appeared, the space power plant will not surprise anyone.
– And how do you realize the transfer of energy from space to your Earth? Tesla again?
– The CSEC has installations that emit microwaves, like those that you use for Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. The installation also has an antenna, with which these waves are transmitted to the substation. At the same time, the receiving substation is located at a distance of 5 kilometers from the enterprise. This decision is due to the fact that the beam that transmits energy emits radiation that harms people. Therefore, these receivers are installed at a distance and isolated from people. Substations have microwave receivers that use a Rectenn element array, that is, a rectifying antenna.[5] The first developments on the transmission of energy through a laser were conducted by the Americans in the 2020s, but in 2030 the Chinese company Doroshoko Pawer introduced a working installation that transmitted energy of 10 kilowatts over a distance of 400 kilometers. Then, by 2035, they increased the level of transmitted voltage to 1 megawatt and in 2042 the level of transmitted voltage was 10 megawatts, and the station reached an altitude of 36,000 kilometers. The finale of this project was a station in geostationary orbit, which produced a voltage of 5 gigawatts [6].
– Yes, you have an interesting story, Konstantin. It's hard to believe that such drastic changes are waiting for the energy sector and one of us will be able to implement them. I would like to talk to you again, but our time is coming to an end. I will report all the information received to my superiors. You will be detained until all the circumstances are clarified. After we figure everything out, we will return all the items you have seized.. Provided they don't hurt anyone.
– I hope my information will be useful and you will be able to use it correctly. May the XXII century come sooner!
Afterword
My work describes the technologies that will appear in the XXII century, but this can be achieved faster. If each of us makes even a small effort, even if it will not be something significant, but it is already a small step on the way to a cherished future. As Walt Disney used to say: "All our dreams will come true if we have the courage to make them come true."