Why do we boil water with nuclear energy?
We started with sticks and leaves, then coal and oil. Each fuel burned hotter, but the job was the same — make heat.
Then we discovered and developed nuclear energy. A fuel pellet the size of a pencil eraser holding as much energy as a ton of coal. An energy source that doesn't just make heat — it radiates across a whole spectrum of energy waves, the way the sun does. Heat, light, and many forms of energy we can't even see, all pouring out at once.
And we used it to boil water. Why?
Because that's what was needed and wanted at the time. We had an electric grid that ran on heat. Heat that would turn water into steam. Steam that could be used to move machines. And that motion produced electricity.
We took the most concentrated energy source we've ever touched and plugged it into a steam engine. The rest of the energy — most of it — gets wasted. We use about a third of atomic energy's potential.
It wasn't bad engineering. It produced what was demanded.
The demand of our time is changing. And a new look at atomic energy asks different questions.
How can we use the full energy of the atom? How can we capture this full spectrum and turn it into useful energy? How much heat would there be if you just used the energy as it's produced?
The answers follow a very specific path.
The Problem We're Solving
Control is the key to managing any form of energy. Control has three components: the ability to start it, change it, and stop it.
We have wonderful control of the electron. We can produce electricity, move it over long distances, wrap wires with insulators to keep it safe and traveling on the path we decide it will go.
We can convert electricity to light, heat, motion, and turn it on and off with a switch. And we can change its volume — from enough to run a city to a tiny flow in a computer chip.
We can start it, direct it, store it, convert it, and stop it. As I said, we can control electricity.
The next form of energy to conquer is the electromagnetic wave — the photon.
Saying "photon" is like saying "tone." The sound spectrum is made up of an infinite number of tones. And the electromagnetic spectrum is made up of an infinite number of photons.
Each photon is an energy wave, like when you hit a key on a piano. But sound needs air to carry its energy to your ear. A light photon can travel from the sun through space, through the atmosphere, even through water. Once in flight, it propels itself with an electric charge and a magnetic field.
The photons you are most familiar with are the radio band, microwave band, and visible light band. Radio and light photons can be controlled and put to work for your use. Look at how you personally can start, change, and stop them — and you may know little or nothing about how they work.
Photons span a full spectrum of frequencies, similar to sound. There are very long wavelengths and very short ones. You know them as bass and treble. And you can control these bands individually.
Photons work the same way. A radio wave in the FM band can span about ten yards on a football field. The wavelength of an AM wave can span about three football fields. And long-wave radio used in submarine communication has a wavelength of about 300 football fields.
On the other end of the spectrum, an X-ray wavelength is about the distance between atoms in a solid material like gold or silver. And a gamma wavelength is smaller than an atom.
Those are the two extreme ends of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Same energy wave. Different frequencies.
The Key to Control
The key to control is finding the material that matches the frequency of the photon you are trying to control. Look at the door of a microwave oven. The mesh has holes small enough to see through, but too small for a microwave photon to pass through. Visible light passes right through. Same mesh, two different frequencies, two different results. That is why these charts were developed. They are the first step to discovering how to control the entire spectrum of electromagnetic energy — either independently or in combined forms.
And atomic energy has the most combined bands of any energy source we have available.
Imagine being able to capture every form of energy produced by splitting an atom and putting it to use. There would be no waste heat — just usable energy.
Is that even possible? Why not?
Only if we can control each and every band independently.
And the research is showing it can be done.
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