3 ms·

This is plainly false, if you would actually read what I linked. We simply cannot grow at a 2-3% rate of energy consumption, period, without shortly running in

This is plainly false, if you would actually read what I linked. We simply cannot grow at a 2-3% rate of energy consumption, period, without shortly running into thermodynamic limits of how quickly Earth can radiate excess heat into space. As I said before, this is while completely ignoring greenhouse gases and assuming Earth is a perfect thermodynamic blackbody. And the real Earth is not a perfect blackbody, so reality is inevitably worse than the theoretical limits. This is entirely independent of the method of energy generation. It’s true of nuclear, solar, and even magical faerie dust. And there’s no getting around it, at least not unless our most basic understanding of thermodynamics is completely off base. Some future where we have “unlimited” energy is a complete fantasy.

baggy_trough 6y ago
How shortly is shortly? The linked paper suggests several hundred years or more. So we certainly don’t have to worry about this as there will be unimaginable technology changes by then.
- stouset 6y ago
  “Unimaginable technology” does not free us from thermodynamic reality. The Earth can radiate heat into space, but convection and conduction are unavailable. We have two hundred and fifty years, assuming we completely rid the atmosphere of carbon dioxide, methane, and all other greenhouse gases. Hopefully you can see that this means it will be less than that amount of time. I don’t know about you but “some amount less than 250 years” to get the entire globe to agree to permanently cap energy production is almost comically implausible. No politician will ever get elected on a platform centered around this, much less an entire planet of such governments. And as with all tragedies of the commons, every individual will have a multitude of reasons to personally use more while hoping that everyone else makes the necessary noble sacrifice. Has anything about this last year of a global pandemic given you reason to believe that humans as a whole will accept an indefinite future of permanent restriction for the sake of everyone? We can barely get half the American population to obey stay at home orders for a few weeks at a time, and that’s to say nothing of countries like Brazil whose leaders refuse to even acknowledge a problem. Hell, we’re fifty years into scientists sounding the alarm about greenhouse gases, and we’ve only managed to accelerate our production of them in the time since. I’m honestly just glad I won’t live to see this play out.
  - baggy_trough 6y ago
    Unimaginable technology also includes technology to increase energy efficiency or to completely change what needs to be done in the first place. People don't care about "using energy" - they care about making themselves happy, which is often related to, but removed from that.
  - shkkmo 6y ago
    > We have two hundred and fifty years, assuming we completely rid the atmosphere of carbon dioxide, methane, and all other greenhouse gases. Hopefully you can see that this means it will be less than that amount of time. Global energy usage is already diverging from that exponential curve so your alarmism does not seem very rooted in reality (as long as global population continues to stabilize.) > Hell, we’re fifty years into scientists sounding the alarm about greenhouse gases, and we’ve only managed to accelerate our production of them in the time since. Global warming is a signifanct concern, the thermodynamic contraints on solar energy generation is not.
adrianN 6y ago
Nobody believes that our energy consumption will continue increasing at the current rate for the time it would require to run into any hard limits. In developed countries energy use per capita is constant or decreasing. Population is expected to top out around 10 billion or so.
- stouset 6y ago
  Population capping out doesn’t mean people stop wanting to use additional energy. Raising half of the current global population to a Western standard of living would blow past this hard limit, even if we assume a doubling of energy efficiency. Nothing in this graph[1] should give you the warm and fuzzies that we’ll all somehow band together to avoid this fate. And keep in mind, we are fewer than five generations away on our current path to a physically-unavoidable global catastrophe. This isn’t the sort of thing we can solve with technology. There’s a hard physical limit on global energy production that cannot be exceeded. We don’t know exactly what that number is given greenhouse gases, but it’s definitely less than a few generations of growth away. How close, exactly, do you think we should creep up to this number? [1]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitution?country=~OWID_WRL https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitutio...
  - shkkmo 6y ago
    > Population capping out doesn’t mean people stop wanting to use additional energy. Nobody said it did. What it does do is reduce the exponential growth rate in energy demand. However, energy use per capita is not currently growing exponentially in developed countries and is declining in some places. The combination of those two factors makes the prediction of continued exponential growth in energy consumption at the same rate pretty unlikely. You should just stop mentioning the thermodynamic limit as it is irrelevant to any of our practical considerations for the predictable future. > Raising half of the current global population to a Western standard of living would blow past this hard limit, even if we assume a doubling of energy efficiency What hard limit are you talking about? There are several thresholds we should avoid crossing, but there are no hard limits (besides the thermodynamic limit, which we wouldn't come anywhere close to reaching even if we gave everyone on the planet a western standard of living and also doubled the population.) > Nothing in this graph[1] should give you the warm and fuzzies that we’ll all somehow band together to avoid this fate. The direness of the global warming situation has been repeatedly acknowledged by me. You seem to think that holding out any hope that we have a path to recovery, matter how hard and long, is "magical thinking" but somehow fail to see that taking this stance is actively making our chances of finding and following that path worse.

baggy_trough 6y ago

How shortly is shortly? The linked paper suggests several hundred years or more. So we certainly don’t have to worry about this as there will be unimaginable technology changes by then.

stouset 6y ago
“Unimaginable technology” does not free us from thermodynamic reality. The Earth can radiate heat into space, but convection and conduction are unavailable. We have two hundred and fifty years, assuming we completely rid the atmosphere of carbon dioxide, methane, and all other greenhouse gases. Hopefully you can see that this means it will be less than that amount of time. I don’t know about you but “some amount less than 250 years” to get the entire globe to agree to permanently cap energy production is almost comically implausible. No politician will ever get elected on a platform centered around this, much less an entire planet of such governments. And as with all tragedies of the commons, every individual will have a multitude of reasons to personally use more while hoping that everyone else makes the necessary noble sacrifice. Has anything about this last year of a global pandemic given you reason to believe that humans as a whole will accept an indefinite future of permanent restriction for the sake of everyone? We can barely get half the American population to obey stay at home orders for a few weeks at a time, and that’s to say nothing of countries like Brazil whose leaders refuse to even acknowledge a problem. Hell, we’re fifty years into scientists sounding the alarm about greenhouse gases, and we’ve only managed to accelerate our production of them in the time since. I’m honestly just glad I won’t live to see this play out.
- baggy_trough 6y ago
  Unimaginable technology also includes technology to increase energy efficiency or to completely change what needs to be done in the first place. People don't care about "using energy" - they care about making themselves happy, which is often related to, but removed from that.
- shkkmo 6y ago
  > We have two hundred and fifty years, assuming we completely rid the atmosphere of carbon dioxide, methane, and all other greenhouse gases. Hopefully you can see that this means it will be less than that amount of time. Global energy usage is already diverging from that exponential curve so your alarmism does not seem very rooted in reality (as long as global population continues to stabilize.) > Hell, we’re fifty years into scientists sounding the alarm about greenhouse gases, and we’ve only managed to accelerate our production of them in the time since. Global warming is a signifanct concern, the thermodynamic contraints on solar energy generation is not.

adrianN 6y ago

Nobody believes that our energy consumption will continue increasing at the current rate for the time it would require to run into any hard limits. In developed countries energy use per capita is constant or decreasing. Population is expected to top out around 10 billion or so.

stouset 6y ago
Population capping out doesn’t mean people stop wanting to use additional energy. Raising half of the current global population to a Western standard of living would blow past this hard limit, even if we assume a doubling of energy efficiency. Nothing in this graph[1] should give you the warm and fuzzies that we’ll all somehow band together to avoid this fate. And keep in mind, we are fewer than five generations away on our current path to a physically-unavoidable global catastrophe. This isn’t the sort of thing we can solve with technology. There’s a hard physical limit on global energy production that cannot be exceeded. We don’t know exactly what that number is given greenhouse gases, but it’s definitely less than a few generations of growth away. How close, exactly, do you think we should creep up to this number? [1]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitution?country=~OWID_WRL https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitutio...
- shkkmo 6y ago
  > Population capping out doesn’t mean people stop wanting to use additional energy. Nobody said it did. What it does do is reduce the exponential growth rate in energy demand. However, energy use per capita is not currently growing exponentially in developed countries and is declining in some places. The combination of those two factors makes the prediction of continued exponential growth in energy consumption at the same rate pretty unlikely. You should just stop mentioning the thermodynamic limit as it is irrelevant to any of our practical considerations for the predictable future. > Raising half of the current global population to a Western standard of living would blow past this hard limit, even if we assume a doubling of energy efficiency What hard limit are you talking about? There are several thresholds we should avoid crossing, but there are no hard limits (besides the thermodynamic limit, which we wouldn't come anywhere close to reaching even if we gave everyone on the planet a western standard of living and also doubled the population.) > Nothing in this graph[1] should give you the warm and fuzzies that we’ll all somehow band together to avoid this fate. The direness of the global warming situation has been repeatedly acknowledged by me. You seem to think that holding out any hope that we have a path to recovery, matter how hard and long, is "magical thinking" but somehow fail to see that taking this stance is actively making our chances of finding and following that path worse.