10-10-22: Quest for Fire

Since then, human history has been all about discovering, exploiting and—inevitably—depleting new sources of power. In a comprehensive series on California Local, Jonathan Vankin takes a look at California’s energy resources—past, present and future.

But each form of energy that fuels modern life comes with its own negative side effects. So now it’s all about renewable energy: wind, solar and hydroelectric. Yet each of these come with its own set of problems, as Vankin reports.

As science fiction writers figured out long ago, envisioning the future usually involves imagining a world where humans have learned even more powerful ways to harness energy. Back in 1965, when the original Star Trek hit the television airwaves, rare dilithium crystals kept matter-antimatter reactors in check—a fantasy power source which in its volatility bore no small resemblance to nuclear power plants, the first prototype of which emerged in 1951.

These days, Star Trek is thinking about renewables too. What could be more ecologically friendly than combining physics and mycology to create a spore-fueled method to travel faster than light? That’s the technological breakthrough created by Dr. Paul Stamets on Star Trek: Discovery. (Played by Anthony Rapp, the character is based on a real-life mycologist.) Sure, it sounds far-fetched now. But we’re going to need some mighty impressive new energy sources to survive another million years.