In the beginning was energy. Maybe it was matter, or something else. For simplicity, let’s assume we started with energy. The universe experienced the Big Bang. Energy is converted into matter, or at least a lot of it was. Energy becomes matter. Energy is matter and matter is energy. E=MC2, So the science goes.
The universe was suddenly populated with matter. Atoms from energy, now concrete and real. We don’t know exactly what energy is. We know what it does and we know it’s a force that can move matter. The nature of energy is mysterious. Energy can transform into matter & matter into energy. Energy can be kinetic or stored.
Some atoms coalesced to become stars (suns). Suns are giant fusion reactors (ie. they fuse atoms), they combine two atoms to become one, and in this process, releasing energy, the energy seeded from the original big bang. This fusion reaction that naturally happens in the Sun (fusing atoms, releasing energy) is what made life possible on Earth.
Energy became matter, matter becomes energy (via fusion reaction), blasts through the galaxy, shines on a small blue planet we call Earth, and through some miraculous phenomenon, life occured. Atomic, chemical reactions and perhaps quantum reactions took place to create LIFE.
This life was somehow able to convert fusion energy from the Sun and store it as biological life and multiply. Chemical reactions occurred that allowed the interaction of atomic elements on Earth to form LIFE. These life forms became prodigious in organizing elements found on Earth, combining it with light & energy from the Sun to create new molecules – new atomic structures that became the building blocks of Earth life.
Energy from the Sun no longer went to waste, at least not immediately. Sun energy normally strikes a planet, temporarily warming it and then quickly dissipates into the universe. No knowable value was being created from this interaction of Sun energy to your average desolate planet. If life didn’t exist or didn’t occur on Earth, all the energy from the Sun would hit the Earth, temporarily heat the planet and then quickly cool down, like a barren dessert that’s super hot during the day and freezing cold at night. Most energy from the Sun, disappears deep into the universe.
But LIFE was able to create a stop gap in this process. It was able to save this Sun energy and store it. It became animated material, it started to live, evolve, multiply and the process of saving and storing the Sun energy exponentially grew. First there were tiny microbes which multiplied and laid the foundation for more complex life structures.
We got single cell life, algae, plants and simple life forms. These organisms became more complex, leading up to the evolution of humans. This pyramid of complexity and life are all rooted from the original base layer of life forms and plants which have the magical ability to convert Sun energy, combine them with Earth elements and create biological life.
Biological life became more complex, sturdy, varied and numerous. We have billions of varieties of life forms that connect and interact with our ecosystem. It’s a mind boggling complex multilayered ecology who’s goal appears to be in capturing Sun energy, combining them with Earth elements to create more and more heterogeneous life forms in greater numbers and complexity.
Biolife wants variety, quantity and change. It wants layers of interdependence to create a robust ecosystem that’s sturdy, antifragile and robust. All life on Earth is connected by a web of association, feeding off each other, exchanging energy, attempting to create new layers of life derivitives, in greater variation and diversification, some surviving, most dying off.
All life on earth shares the same root DNA code. From microbes, single celled life, algae, plants, insects, trees and of course our cousin apes. We share 50% of our DNA with trees, 60% with insects, 98.8% with apes 99.9% with other humans. All life share the same genetic and biological tree of origin. We share the same deep instincts, fears & motivations, on a genetic level, with animals & insects.
The human frontal cortex separates us from our cousin primates, the most modern evolution of the human brain. The frontal cortex gives humans the ability to be conscious, intelligent, plan for the future and be self aware. The newest iteration of our mind allows us to plan further into the future, plan further ahead, ensuring the continued evolution of Earth life.
Biological life die. They have a finite lifespan, replaced by the next evolutionary iternation and replaced by the next generation. All life die and go back to the Earth. Over millions of years, they become oil, coal and natural gas. They are the biological long term storage elements of energy that come from the Sun, that came from the original foundation of the universe – atomic energy. All life, including humans, eventually become biofuel.
When you burn timber, you release energy stored in the dead tree that came from the Sun. You’re getting a tiny vision of the Sun. When you burn coal, oil or natural gas, you’re releasing the stored energy from the dead remnants of biological life that existed millions of years ago. Energy that originally transferred to Earth from the Sun. Sun energy from the beginnings of the universe.
When you eat a vegetable or a steak, you are eating the energy stored in the plant that was extracted from the Sun, the cow who extracted energy from grass or grain which extracted energy from the Sun.
Energy is being transferred, converted and reused constantly. Humans have the intelligence to dig up stored bioenergy from the earth and focus that energy to further shape the environment, for our purpose and needs. In that process, the energy is stored in the structures we create or released as heat back into the universe.
Humanity has created empires and cities consisting of breathless structures, bridges & dwellings. We’ve moved earth, blasted our way through mountains, and built toweres that reach the skys. We continue to bend our material world and create a planet perfectly suited for safe dwelling and multiplication.
This ability to harness dead biomass energy, ie. Oil, gas, coal, has given humanity the ability to exponentially grow our population and create an environment that’s safer & more prodigious for human life expansion, as it’s obvious today, our population soon to reach 10billion.
Our next goal would be multiplanetary life. The expansion of humanity to other planets, further multiplying sapien life to unprecedented levels. Humans are able to increasingly stack population growth through innovation, technololgy and increase the total quantity of life on Earth.
Biofuel is used to power our machines, our industries, drive commerce, trade and feed our farms. Without oil, we couldn’t support our world population. Humans are able to extract elements from dead bioenergy (oil) that plants and agriculture need to thrive. It’s impossible to use traditional farming techniques to feed our crops, we need elements found in oil. Dead animals and plants, stored in the Earth for millions of years, is necessary to feed our crops today.
Bioenergy feed our industries, machines, transportation and electronics. The majority of electricity is generated from burning fossil fuel. The power and energy in electricity power our world. You can say that life on Earth from millions of years ago, now power our modern way of life.
Plants, bacteria and algae source energy from the Sun. Animals and humans source energy from other living animals and plants. Our machines, the very devices that humans created, source their energy from dead biofuel, ie. oil, gas and coal that get converted into electrical power.
Plants eat the Sun. Animals eat living plants and other living animals. Humans eat living plants and animals. Humans and animals eat things that are alive. Machines eat things that are dead.
Biofuel is a kind of battery for Sun energy. All life, plant, animal, bacteria, will eventually go into the earth and become biofuel battery. What could possibly be the end purpose for creating biofuel, buried deep in the earthl? ie. oil, coal, natural gas. What would the universe want with this?
In 1954, the first nuclear power station was installed in Obninsk Soviet Union. In 1958, the first nuclear power plant was built in Pennsylvania USA. Humans have tapped into atomic energy.
Today, we are able to bypass biofuel which are merely derivatives of atomic energy – via the Sun, plants & animals, and tap directly to the source, ie. atomic energy from the origins of the galaxy.
Through a process called Nuclear Fission, we are able to release energy from an atomic level. No longer do we need the Sun as the source. We’re going direct. Nuclear Fission is the opposite of Nuclear Fusion, in that we are not “fusing” two atoms together, but separating a single atom (fissuring) into two. The process releases energy.
Energy in the form of electricity is our power of choice. Many man made machines run on electrical power. Even nuclear power is converted into electrical power. We burn oil/gas/coal to create electrical power. We use solar panels, windmills, hydropower to convert them into electrical energy.
Electrical energy is mysterious. Electricity isn’t created, it’s only activated, motivated and moved. When electrons move through wires, they power our machines. Electric generators or power generators don’t create electricity. They create the environment or phenomenon for the process of electrons to move in one direction, eventually leading to our homes and businesses to power our machines.
We use conductive wires or copper wires as our electricity transport of choice, only because they do the best job of “moving” electrons, they’re easy going. Unlike electrons found in wood, plastic or rubber, which are more difficult to move. Uranium is the atom of choice for creating a Nuclear Fission process, only because they are the easiest to fissure or split. Theoretically, you an fissure any atom for energy, but it’s very difficult or dangerous.
Electric power generators convert kinetic energy, ie physical energy into electrical energy or potential energy. This kinetic energy can come from burning oil, coal, gas, moving water, damns or the wind. Something has to get burnt and/or something has to move, ie generate kinetic energy.
This kinetic energy is then loaded onto electrons, motivated to move through conductive wires. When these electrons with energy move through our machines, they do “work”. The original kinetic energy is then converted back from stored potential energy that was carried by electricity. So we’ve converted kinetic energy into electrical potential energy, and then back to kinetic real world work. Some energy is lost during this process via heat during transport in the conductive wires. You’ll notice your electrical wires get hot or warm, this represents a loss of electrical energy, not the loss of electrons. Electrons never disappear.
Electrons are moved from atom to atom, carrying energy, and then eventually return back to the source power generator or into the earth as ground.
Much like how red blood cells carry oxygen from our heart and lungs to every cell in our bodies and return back to refuel with more oxygen, electrons carry energy to our machines, carrying kinetic energy.
This makes you wonder what will power our future AI (artificial intelligence). If they reach and/or surpass human level intelligence, will they run on electricity or source directly from atomic energy? Will biological life be necessary? If intelligence (AI) is able to tap directly into atomic power, what is the need for biolife to harness, capture and save solar energy? Why create bio-batteries at all?
What if humans had the technology to tap directly into atomic energy for body fuel, would we have a need for any biolife on Earth? Plants and animals as a food source would be obsolete. Farming would be irrelevant. We wouldn’t need to dig up fossil fuels. Those batteries could remain in the ground forever.
If humans had the ability transform consciousness and human intelligence to quasi-biolife or artificially created machine like life forms to house human intelligence, the ecology of life on Earth would change into an unknown landscape.
We wouldn’t need microbes, plants, other animals or biological human bodies as we know it. We may not even need our natural ecosystem with its complex network of interdependent life forms.
We’d become conscious intelligent entities stored in machines with unlimited physical abilities. Or life may no longer need to exist in a physical world at all. It could be 100% virtual, digital, and just as real.
The End
