Let’s Break The Energy Idler Wheel
Big wheel keep on turnin’, Proud Mary keep on burnin’, Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river
While recording the first episode of our podcast We CTRL ENERGY with my co-founder Adlane, I was struck by a strange irony: despite the technological leaps we’ve made, we’re still stuck in the age-old logic of the steam engine.
Whether it’s oil, gas, hydro, or even nuclear, the core principle remains the same — boil something to make it spin something else. It’s as if the ghost of James Watt is still pulling the levers in the control room of the world’s most advanced power plants.
Think about it: With all our progress, from space exploration to quantum computing, we still use fire — albeit in more sophisticated ways — to generate the bulk of our electricity. It’s an almost absurd thought. We burn fossil fuels, we harness the immense force of water, we unleash the power of splitting atoms, and yet the objective remains simple: heat water, create steam, and drive turbines. No matter the fuel source, the mechanism follows the blueprint set down centuries ago, when a steam engine powered the first factories of the Industrial Revolution.
To be fair, the world has seen extraordinary developments in energy efficiency and output, but the basic approach to energy generation is far more primitive than we might like to admit. The physical materials may have changed — coal swapping places with natural gas, uranium rods replacing wood — but the underpinning logic has hardly evolved.
It’s like swapping out the horse for a Tesla but still insisting that someone ride the car with a whip, just for tradition’s sake. This steam-turbine dynamic is rooted in a past that we can’t seem to shake. Even with renewable energy sources like wind or solar, the solution often relies on this mechanical loop: spin something to generate current.
Imagine if we thought of other technological frontiers with such a narrow view. If, instead of inventing flight, the Wright brothers had just tried to get horses to run faster. Or if Elon Musk had focused on making telegraphs more efficient instead of sending rockets to Mars. It’s not that steam-turbine energy production hasn’t been useful — it’s just that the rest of the world has moved on, while our energy paradigm remains bogged down in an antiquated model.
When we consider nuclear power, arguably one of the most advanced forms of energy we have, it too follows this steam-age logic. We unleash the colossal forces within atoms — not to directly produce electricity — but to generate heat, which boils water, which creates steam, which spins turbines. Again and again, the same dance. It’s astonishing when you think about it: we hold the power of the sun in our hands, and we use it to boil water like we’re making a pot of tea, with a radioactive byproduct that is far less tasteful than your earlgrey.
As Nikola Tesla once mused, “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration.” Yet our understanding of energy remains frustratingly grounded in the methods of old like a brilliant symphony played on a broken gramophone.
The problem with this fixation on the steam-engine approach is that it limits our imagination about what energy production could look like. Instead of envisioning radically new ways to generate and distribute power, we’re caught up in upgrading an old system, patching it up with renewables and nuclear fission, without breaking free from the underlying mechanics. It’s like trying to make a flip phone smarter by giving it a touchscreen — you’re missing the point entirely.
We’re at the cusp of unprecedented breakthroughs in science — quantum mechanics, fusion energy, and breakthroughs in materials science — that could revolutionize how we think about electricity. But here’s the catch: as long as we’re bound by this centuries-old paradigm of mechanical movement as the core process for energy, we’ll always be throttled by inefficiencies, and more importantly, by a lack of imagination.
Fusion energy, for example, holds the promise of endless, clean power, but guess what? It’s still focused on creating extreme heat to, you guessed it, boil water and drive turbines. It’s as though we can’t escape this gravity well of old thinking. Why is it that our technological future always loops back to turning a wheel?
And herein lies the deeper issue: this steam-engine logic traps us not just technologically, but philosophically. Our energy system is a reflection of a linear, extractive mindset — burn something, convert it, move something else. This cycle mirrors how we’ve historically exploited the planet: take, use, discard. It’s why the idea of renewable energy, while noble, still struggles to truly break free from the past. We’re generating clean energy but within the same clunky framework.
Imagine a world where energy doesn’t have to come from some violent conversion of material into heat and motion. Imagine a paradigm where power is derived from subtler forces — perhaps through tapping into quantum phenomena, or utilizing the vast, unexploited energies of the electromagnetic spectrum in ways we can scarcely dream of now. We’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s possible.
Buckminster Fuller once said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” It’s time we applied that wisdom to energy.
We don’t need incremental tweaks to make our steam-driven turbines more efficient. We need an entirely new model — one that transcends the need for boiling water to spin turbines, one that harnesses energy in ways that don’t just patch over old systems but fundamentally shift how we think about power.
Because at the end of the day, as thrilling as nuclear fusion or advanced solar panels may sound, they’re just upgrades to an antiquated engine — one that has served us well but is long overdue for retirement.
📣 Want to make a difference?
Join us for this volunteering opportunity as a community shaper
If you’re ready to make a tangible difference and help shape the clean energy revolution in your community, we want to hear from you at CTRL ENERGY! This is a unique opportunity to be part of something transformative. As a Community Shaper, you’ll be playing a critical role in bringing sustainable, affordable energy to people everywhere. Let’s build the future together!
Join the first hardware beta-test !
Ready to contribute to the sustainability mouvment while making the deal of a lifetime?
We are opening our private beta-test to build the ZERO with us, a power, versatile, scalable and reusable portable energy storage device! You can get it now at -90% (no it’s not a typos) , here is the link to join!
