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"His argument was simple: Energy consumption has been rising at 2 or 3 percent a year. Even at that modest rate, within a few centuries, the energy usage would

"His argument was simple: Energy consumption has been rising at 2 or 3 percent a year. Even at that modest rate, within a few centuries, the energy usage would be equal to the energy produced by high-efficiency solar cells covering the entire surface of the planet. “We’ll be using all of the solar energy that impacts the Earth,” he said. “That’s an actual limit.”" What now? I was under the assumption that the solar energy levels hitting the earth were quite higher/more than we could ever "need" and also that energy usage isn't going to increase at a consistent rate. Anyone have data on this? Does his timeframe (few centuries) exceed than existing reporting? Does it even make sense to project a 2-3% increase in energy consumption over ~300 years? Found: http://illumin.usc.edu/assets/submissions/675/murphy_CSP.pdf http://illumin.usc.edu/assets/submissions/675/murphy_CSP.pdf

debacle 11y ago
While the forecast might be wrong, a big hindrance right now (to pretty much everything) is a lack of cheap, clean energy. There will never be a time in the apparent future where anyone will ever say "We're producing too much energy." And if we ever get there, it will be one of those nice problems to have.
- erikpukinskis 11y ago
  > a big hindrance right now (to pretty much everything) is a lack of cheap, clean energy This is kind of true, except cheap energy is fungible with smarter energy use. So you could argue that everything is hindered by the lack of good design (and by extension design instruction in schools). I would be interested to know what you're thinking about when you say "pretty much everything". For reference, the things I care a lot about limited job mobility, people getting murdered, abuse, including rape and incarceration, forced migration, and addiction and I don't see how any of that is the result of expensive or dirty energy.
erikpukinskis 11y ago
The whole notion of "need" in this context is strange. Need is relative to supply. The cheaper and more abundant energy is, the more people become addicted to energy-rich activities. If that energy disappears there is a period of withdrawal pain and then the "need" is gone. Population growth should start stabilizing near 10 billion around 2050... but if a billion of those people are taking exotic vacations every month in their electric jets and living in nanorobot houses that reconfigure themselves every week based on the trends on Pinterest then yes... we will bump up against terrestrial photon limits. Do we need to use that energy? No. If we move the other direction, towards efficiency-focused technologies that allow us to live embedded in native-ish ecologies then 10 billion people can live with a tiny fraction of Earth's solar energy. Which scenario will we be in? I think it's impossible to know. Right now we're still piecing together how that second scenario works. What is a minimal human-supporting ecology? How do you organize goods and services to maintain it? Wealthy people who want to maintain power will push us as hard as possible to keep production and consumption as high as possible because that's where their power is derived. Networks and artificial intelligence will try to show people how to live efficiently, maximizing happiness with a minimum of resources in loose federations. Which of these two forces will control human hearts post-2050? I have no idea.

debacle 11y ago

While the forecast might be wrong, a big hindrance right now (to pretty much everything) is a lack of cheap, clean energy. There will never be a time in the apparent future where anyone will ever say "We're producing too much energy." And if we ever get there, it will be one of those nice problems to have.

erikpukinskis 11y ago
> a big hindrance right now (to pretty much everything) is a lack of cheap, clean energy This is kind of true, except cheap energy is fungible with smarter energy use. So you could argue that everything is hindered by the lack of good design (and by extension design instruction in schools). I would be interested to know what you're thinking about when you say "pretty much everything". For reference, the things I care a lot about limited job mobility, people getting murdered, abuse, including rape and incarceration, forced migration, and addiction and I don't see how any of that is the result of expensive or dirty energy.

erikpukinskis 11y ago

The whole notion of "need" in this context is strange. Need is relative to supply. The cheaper and more abundant energy is, the more people become addicted to energy-rich activities. If that energy disappears there is a period of withdrawal pain and then the "need" is gone. Population growth should start stabilizing near 10 billion around 2050... but if a billion of those people are taking exotic vacations every month in their electric jets and living in nanorobot houses that reconfigure themselves every week based on the trends on Pinterest then yes... we will bump up against terrestrial photon limits. Do we need to use that energy? No. If we move the other direction, towards efficiency-focused technologies that allow us to live embedded in native-ish ecologies then 10 billion people can live with a tiny fraction of Earth's solar energy. Which scenario will we be in? I think it's impossible to know. Right now we're still piecing together how that second scenario works. What is a minimal human-supporting ecology? How do you organize goods and services to maintain it? Wealthy people who want to maintain power will push us as hard as possible to keep production and consumption as high as possible because that's where their power is derived. Networks and artificial intelligence will try to show people how to live efficiently, maximizing happiness with a minimum of resources in loose federations. Which of these two forces will control human hearts post-2050? I have no idea.