What would be better? Having unlimited energy or unlimited clean water?

I'm sorry,but it is a dumb question, because of your caveats.

The idea of having unlimited energy but you can't use it for desalination is silly. But even more silly, is the idea of being able to turn on the rain.

I just think there are better ways to use our energies,

Sorry,

 

Unlimited Jessica Albas!

 

Just to add to what Icarus said, if you had unlimited clean energy, you would have near unlimited clean water if you spent the money to build the treatment plants, desalination plants etc.

 

I'd also vote it as 'silly question', because the caveats are unenforceable. Unlimited energy means unlimited seawater desalination and pumping to whatever destination desired. And ample artificial rain means ample hydropower.

 

If we can really give anybody his few megawatts to play with every time he desires, the Earth would soon boil down. The energy has to go somewhere (you can only *convert* energy from one form to another, but you cannot *destroy* any), and eventually, every kind of energy turns into heat. The Earth cools down by radiating that energy to outer space to maintain balance, and can only radiate so much (Planck's law). So even if we had the cleanest energy source ever, we could only spend so much to maintain pleasant temperatures at our planet.

BTW, our problem is not *energy*, it is *entropy*. The entropy is what drives the *energy flow*, which is what we really need. Basically, everything on Earth is Sun-driven (be it direct conversion of solar radiation into electricity, be it coal or oil, because that comes from the plants which in turn grew by utilizing solar energy, be it bio-fuel - the same matter, be it wind, which is driven by temperature gradients, which come-surprise-from the solar heating an so on). So, the Earth works by getting *negative entropy* from the Sun and getting rid of *positive entropy* by radiating heat to outer space. That's how we can (in accordance to the second law of thermodynamics) maintain our merry iland of chaotic energy flows within the hostile space around us .

So, to conclude - firstly, it won't be good if we had an "unlimited energy source", or, to be precise, an "unlimited source of negative *entropy*" (if there was such a thing, which can't be by the laws of physics), hovewer clean, because with the usual human prudence we would boil ourselves down eventually - and secondly, you can tell people that you are driving on solar energy even if your vehicle guzzles gas !

 

Can I use the unlimited energy to power a Britta water filter factory?

 

I like RP's idea

 

The water content of the atmosphere (mostly gas; some as droplets or ice in clouds) is equivalent to about 25 mm (one inch) liquid transferred to the Earth surface. So the magic technology alluded to in post 1 would work today, but not again tomorrow if you get my drift.

Best evidence now is that water content of the atmosphere is now increasing, mostly in lower troposhere but some in the lower strat. as well. But that is a whole nother matter I suppose, and doubling it (so you can get your inch of rain the second day) is far off in the future. Maybe not even possible due to other limitations, but that is a whole nother matter also.

Perhaps just my pedant nature again, but just a little knowledge about earth system science can really help us to sort out speculations like this. No offence meant to burritos.