

If you read the article, it’s pretty clear. Instead of the energy of the photons being used to heat the water molecules to state change, that energy is used to break the molecular bonds between small groups of water molecules, and those groups are small enough to then be picked up by the air and evaporate. This way, the energy contained in a photon is converting much more liquid water to water vapor than if that same amount of energy was actually used to excite the water molecules, as in a microwave.
It also seems like there’s some sort of unlock mechanism for what civs will be available for you to choose from in the next era - you’ll assumably have to do certain things in an era to unlock specific civs for the next era