3 ms·

A while ago someone here on HN linked to a blog post with the name "Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist", which seems very relevant here: https://doth

A while ago someone here on HN linked to a blog post with the name "Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist", which seems very relevant here: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist... Quote: > Physicist: Alright, the Earth has only one mechanism for releasing heat to space, and that’s via (infrared) radiation. We understand the phenomenon perfectly well, and can predict the surface temperature of the planet as a function of how much energy the human race produces. The upshot is that at a 2.3% growth rate (conveniently chosen to represent a 10× increase every century), we would reach boiling temperature in about 400 years. [Pained expression from economist.] And this statement is independent of technology. Even if we don’t have a name for the energy source yet, as long as it obeys thermodynamics, we cook ourselves with perpetual energy increase.

bryanlarsen 5y ago
That argument breaks at this step: "But if energy became arbitrarily cheap, someone could buy all of it" We have lots of critical materials in our industrial processes where the total production is less than the wealth of Jeff Bezos. One example is water. In many places it's so cheap that it's not metered. So theoretically somebody could "buy all the water". Another is something like Palladium. Insanely valuable, but we use so little of it that you could "buy" a year's production for $100B. But of course you couldn't because the act of doing so would spike the price.
HPsquared 5y ago
And that's accounting for thermal radiation flux increasing with the fourth power of temperature!