4 ms·

>then once we've hit our physical constraint on power generation Are we supposed to accept this? Because I do not. I think the way that we allocate resources t

>then once we've hit our physical constraint on power generation Are we supposed to accept this? Because I do not. I think the way that we allocate resources towards energy collection/generation/consumption is a bigger constraint than what physics can currently allow.

stouset 7y ago
This is covered in an earlier post of his. At current growth rates, we’ll start noticeably heating the Earth in only a few hundred years. Not from the greenhouse effect, but from literally saturating the Earth’s capacity to radiate excess energy as heat into space. This is a raw physical limitation. How we use and how we generate the energy are irrelevant details. The only thing that matters is Earth’s ambient temperature, the additional wattage being used planetwide, and the Earth’s radius. Past a certain point, Earth’s equilibrium temperature will rise well past current levels, and rapidly.
- cinquemb 7y ago
  > How we use and how we generate the energy are irrelevant details. Just as irrelevant as assuming the basis behind current growth rates where it is impossible to mitigate agaisnt "literally saturating the Earth’s capacity to radiate excess energy as heat into space". All of this is based on assumptions. You can't just accept one set of assumptions that underlie a model and throw out others that could refute it (well one could, but it isn't intellectually honest).
  - mnl 7y ago
    That's the great thing about thermodynamics, you can determine bounds for a few magnitudes in a physical system ignoring all the details about its evolution. For instance you can't disrupt the 2nd law, so at some point it's actually true that it is impossible to mitigate overheating and you won't be able to improve Stefan-Boltzmann law (except for increasing our emissivity, at night I'd guess). You can try to play with mass transfer but more thermal escape is not a good idea and a heat exchanger with extraterrestrial masses won't work. I know it's hard to take and that physicists sound arrogant when they do this, but that's how it is.
    - cinquemb 7y ago
      "Wavelength- and subwavelength-scale particles,[1] metamaterials,[2] and other nanostructures are not subject to ray-optical limits and may be designed to exceed the Stefan–Boltzmann law."
      - mnl 7y ago
        Oh well, if you come up with magic materials you can do anything, of course.
        cinquemb 7y ago
        Its magic when you say embed Au angsrtom scale layering in an Si structure in order to control the wave plane? Any decent E&M research lab can pull out many examples of magic then…
        mnl 7y ago
        I still don't get why people do this. You can't use snippets of Wikipedia to make a point you don't understand. We're talking about macroscopic systems here. The laws of thermodynamics depend on the law of large numbers (if you take the stat mech route), they can be considered laws about statistical averages. It doesn't matter that somebody in nanowhatever claims a deviation from the macroscopic behaviour, that's their job. You still have a macroscopic Earth. An Earth brimming with grey goo would still obey the laws of thermodynamics.
        cinquemb 7y ago
        > I still don't get why people do this. You can't use snippets of Wikipedia to make a point you don't understand. I referenced wikipedia and cited an example of such from my experience in physics lab in college nearly a decade ago… I don't get why people try to use some "law" built upon a particular set assumptions that work on a particular set of circumstances expect their leaky abstractions on top of it to govern everything that could ever be possible… >The laws of thermodynamics depend on the law of large numbers (if you take the stat mech route), they can be considered laws about statistical averages. On systems operating under certain assumptions… just like navier-stokes predicting singularities from a specific set of IC's in theory that don't happen in real life from said IC's, which have to be handled with a bunch of corrections and adjustments that are more accurate… we're still working out the math as to why that is…

stouset 7y ago

This is covered in an earlier post of his. At current growth rates, we’ll start noticeably heating the Earth in only a few hundred years. Not from the greenhouse effect, but from literally saturating the Earth’s capacity to radiate excess energy as heat into space. This is a raw physical limitation. How we use and how we generate the energy are irrelevant details. The only thing that matters is Earth’s ambient temperature, the additional wattage being used planetwide, and the Earth’s radius. Past a certain point, Earth’s equilibrium temperature will rise well past current levels, and rapidly.

cinquemb 7y ago
> How we use and how we generate the energy are irrelevant details. Just as irrelevant as assuming the basis behind current growth rates where it is impossible to mitigate agaisnt "literally saturating the Earth’s capacity to radiate excess energy as heat into space". All of this is based on assumptions. You can't just accept one set of assumptions that underlie a model and throw out others that could refute it (well one could, but it isn't intellectually honest).
- mnl 7y ago
  That's the great thing about thermodynamics, you can determine bounds for a few magnitudes in a physical system ignoring all the details about its evolution. For instance you can't disrupt the 2nd law, so at some point it's actually true that it is impossible to mitigate overheating and you won't be able to improve Stefan-Boltzmann law (except for increasing our emissivity, at night I'd guess). You can try to play with mass transfer but more thermal escape is not a good idea and a heat exchanger with extraterrestrial masses won't work. I know it's hard to take and that physicists sound arrogant when they do this, but that's how it is.
  - cinquemb 7y ago
    "Wavelength- and subwavelength-scale particles,[1] metamaterials,[2] and other nanostructures are not subject to ray-optical limits and may be designed to exceed the Stefan–Boltzmann law."
    - mnl 7y ago
      Oh well, if you come up with magic materials you can do anything, of course.
      - cinquemb 7y ago
        Its magic when you say embed Au angsrtom scale layering in an Si structure in order to control the wave plane? Any decent E&M research lab can pull out many examples of magic then…
        mnl 7y ago
        I still don't get why people do this. You can't use snippets of Wikipedia to make a point you don't understand. We're talking about macroscopic systems here. The laws of thermodynamics depend on the law of large numbers (if you take the stat mech route), they can be considered laws about statistical averages. It doesn't matter that somebody in nanowhatever claims a deviation from the macroscopic behaviour, that's their job. You still have a macroscopic Earth. An Earth brimming with grey goo would still obey the laws of thermodynamics.
        cinquemb 7y ago
        > I still don't get why people do this. You can't use snippets of Wikipedia to make a point you don't understand. I referenced wikipedia and cited an example of such from my experience in physics lab in college nearly a decade ago… I don't get why people try to use some "law" built upon a particular set assumptions that work on a particular set of circumstances expect their leaky abstractions on top of it to govern everything that could ever be possible… >The laws of thermodynamics depend on the law of large numbers (if you take the stat mech route), they can be considered laws about statistical averages. On systems operating under certain assumptions… just like navier-stokes predicting singularities from a specific set of IC's in theory that don't happen in real life from said IC's, which have to be handled with a bunch of corrections and adjustments that are more accurate… we're still working out the math as to why that is…