It's no secret that Gene Roddenberry's venerable "Star Trek" metaseries has inspired the imagination of millions since it first debuted in 1966. Strange worlds, compelling characters, and more techno-babble than you could shake a stick at have always been hallmarks of the series. But Star Trek has also been noted on many occasions throughout the series for seemingly predicting (or perhaps inspiring) the progression of technology.
While we're certainly not cruising the galaxy in starships trying to pick up green women, a lot of Trek tech seems to have not only become commonplace but in some cases even obsolete and antiquated. Taking the original series as a key example, the flip-style wireless communicators seemed space-age during the show's run. Today if your phone isn't a touch-screen equipped slate-style smartphone, it's practically an antique. Modern communications equipment is more in line with Trek's famed tricorders than it is with a simple communicator.
So what does this mean for the world of energy? Quite a bit, if the trend seems to follow. Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of "Star Trek" and virtually all other forms of science fiction knows that a vessel capable of interstellar travel never stops at a gas station or tries to get by with "putting five bucks in." Unless you count Lone Starr's space Winnebago from Mel Brooks' “Spaceballs," but that's beside the point. In the realm of sci-fi, traditional energy sources like fossil fuels have been largely abandoned in favor of presumably more efficient and abundant energy sources.
Granted, we aren't exactly harvesting dilithium crystals for our warp cores just yet, but science is slowly and surely crawling its way towards a new era of energy production. Even the staid alternative, solar power, is seeing a new lease on life
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