The internal combustion engine was born.
But here is the uncomfortable truth of the 21st century: We are running out of cheap ghosts. And the search for the next great power source has become the most important treasure hunt in history. For millennia, the search was simple. If you needed heat, you found a tree. If you needed movement, you fed an ox. Civilizations rose and fell based on their access to forests and rivers. The Roman Empire literally deforested North Africa to smelt its silver. When the trees ran out, the empire didn’t just lose heat—it lost complexity. in search of energy
But the hangover is brutal. CO₂ in the atmosphere is now higher than it has been in 3 million years. The search for energy is no longer just a hunt for abundance ; it is a hunt for cleanliness . Today, the search has fractured into three desperate expeditions. The internal combustion engine was born