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More power usage = greater overall cost of energy production. That's true regardless of method of production. We are not now, and never will be (barring radical
by rebuilder 9y ago
More power usage = greater overall cost of energy production. That's true regardless of method of production. We are not now, and never will be (barring radical changes in our economic system) living in a world with abundant energy. Bitcoin miners compete for energy with other industries, driving total energy usage up. Ultimately, there's a cap to how much energy we can produce on Earth, and you'd be surprised how close we are to that limit, assuming production growth similar to the historical average.
Edit: To expand on the last claim a little, I was thinking of this:
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/
The graph of Earth's surface temperature assuming 2.3% yearly growth in energy consumption is... illuminating. Basically, in a bit over 400 years, the surface temperature on Earth would reach the boiling point of water, not due to the complex effects of climate change, but simply because the amount of waste heat generated by energy production and usage will exceed the Earth's capacity to dissipate into space. Obviously disastrous temperatures would occur rather sooner. Unfortunately our societies hinge on constant economic growth, which, in turn, seems to hinge on growing energy usage.
- hossbeast 9y ago"We are not now, and never will be (barring radical changes in our economic system) living in a world with abundant energy." Unless we build nuclear fusion reactors, which seems quite likely on the 400 year time scale you're talking about.
- rebuilder 9y agoDoesn't matter. They produce heat, which must be got rid of somehow. The point is, steady growth is disastrous on surprisingly short timescales.
- hossbeast 9y agoI think that post greatly undersells the potential energy production of nuclear fusion. It tries to discount that potential by noting that however you go about it, if you want to produce more energy than the sun, on the surface of the Earth, then the average temperature of the Earths surface must exceed that of the suns surface. But this is not a problem- it's well known that nuclear fusion reactors on Earth would burn much hotter than the temperature at the sun's surface. The average temperature of the Earths surface can exceed the average of the suns surface no problem, as long as much of that is concentrated in small areas- namely, the spaces occupied by the reactors!
- rebuilder 9y agoThat didn't seem to be the point at all. The point was, practically all energy produced turns to heat on Earth. Assuming growing energy production/consumption on the planet, the sheer wattage of waste heat will eventually be greater than the planet can radiate into space, whatever the method used to produce that energy.
- gremlinsinc 9y agoWe could build fusion reactors (mini-suns) in space and beam back the energy in a usable state more condensed than solar to recepticles here, or even store it in batteries that we send back via space elevator.
- rebuilder 9y agoThe energy still becomes waste heat when used on Earth.
- gremlinsinc 9y agoCouldn't we beam energy from outerspace/moon as lasers to cooled facilities that absorb/store the energy? How else would a dyson sphere work to get energy to the planet without obliterating it?
- rebuilder 9y agoPresumably when you have a Dyson sphere, you're not planetbound any more.