Ask Science
Ask a science question, get a science answer.
Community Rules
Rule 1: Be respectful and inclusive.
Treat others with respect, and maintain a positive atmosphere.
Rule 2: No harassment, hate speech, bigotry, or trolling.
Avoid any form of harassment, hate speech, bigotry, or offensive behavior.
Rule 3: Engage in constructive discussions.
Contribute to meaningful and constructive discussions that enhance scientific understanding.
Rule 4: No AI-generated answers.
Strictly prohibit the use of AI-generated answers. Providing answers generated by AI systems is not allowed and may result in a ban.
Rule 5: Follow guidelines and moderators' instructions.
Adhere to community guidelines and comply with instructions given by moderators.
Rule 6: Use appropriate language and tone.
Communicate using suitable language and maintain a professional and respectful tone.
Rule 7: Report violations.
Report any violations of the community rules to the moderators for appropriate action.
Rule 8: Foster a continuous learning environment.
Encourage a continuous learning environment where members can share knowledge and engage in scientific discussions.
Rule 9: Source required for answers.
Provide credible sources for answers. Failure to include a source may result in the removal of the answer to ensure information reliability.
By adhering to these rules, we create a welcoming and informative environment where science-related questions receive accurate and credible answers. Thank you for your cooperation in making the Ask Science community a valuable resource for scientific knowledge.
We retain the discretion to modify the rules as we deem necessary.
view the rest of the comments
Infinitely far.
First, actual infinite power is impossible. It violates a bunch of the laws of nature. Not going to happen ever, at all.
Second, practically infinite power (meaning more power than we could ever use) is also out of reach. Solar/wind is super cheap, but you still need to build and maintain the PV/generators and that will always have a cost. Also, there's infinitely much we could do with energy, so if energy gets cheaper we will just use more of it.
If energy was close to free, we'd just replace cargo ships with railguns or something crazy wasteful like that. We'd invest crazy amounts of energy in making things a little bit more comfortable.
Just look at the current AI craze, or the crypto craze. None of that is actually doing something really necessary, but it makes numbers go up on some billionaire's charts and thus we waste ungodly amounts of energy into it.
If it wasn't that way, and instead we'd keep our lifestyle and just use cleaner energy production to not destroy the planet, we wouldn't have global warming at all right now. With the lifestyle of the 50s and the efficient tech from today, global warming wouldn't exist.
But we like numbers going up and thus we burn more and more energy and having more energy available just means we burn more of it.