8 ms·
It seems that for both desalination and sanitation (as discussed in the article) of water is now an energy issue. What are some other basic problems (food, wat
by grenoire 5y ago
It seems that for both desalination and sanitation (as discussed in the article) of water is now an energy issue.
What are some other basic problems (food, water, temperature management, etc.) we're facing that are primarily energy-bottlenecked?
- shados 5y agoTime to find a way to move crypto to proof of desalination.
- Ieghaehia9 5y agoBe careful what you wish for: once they're done desalinating the oceans, they'll go after people! It'll be like the salt vampires from TOS.
- hazbot 5y agoThis got me thinking about what we could and could not do if we had a magical a energy-unbottlenecker, say an infinite capacity battery with arbitrary power output. These become much cheaper: - Transport: synthesise fuel from CO2 + seawater. Or charge a battery. - Water: electrolysis of seawater. - Food grown anywhere: Light + water + fertiliser can be made from commonly available materials. Soil is a bit trickier, but I think you could bootstrap up with composting. - Global warming: pull CO2 out of the air. - Raw materials (concrete, metals): all cheaper to extract with free energy. - producing medicine Still really hard: - making new treatments - inflation of housing prices - escaping earth's gravity (need bounce per ounce) - world peace - writing books - politics
- pomian 5y agoTransportation. All of those above require it. Up front capital costs.
- jay_kyburz 5y agoI don't think its fair to say they are "energy" issues, or that they are bottlenecked by a lack of energy. When building the desalination plant, we can build a solar farm right next door. The problems are political. Nobody is willing to go out and spend the money. My hope is that when automation starts taking peoples jobs, governments will employ and train people to build these big infrastructure projects. Desalination, Green Energy, Reforestation, better Agriculture and Land Management.
- cpottamus 5y agoPer vaclav smil -- Energy is the only universal currency. Everything is energy-bottlenecked.
- rocqua 5y agoI feel that, once you have reduced the consumables of something to energy, that doesn't tend to make it energy limited. Instead, it becomes capital limited. You need to be able to pay for the upfront capital costs of installing the thing. Add to that the fact that, once these developments have happened, they tend to improve a lot, quickly. That means anything you build will, soon, be outdated and stop producing as much yield. Hence, you don't want to invest too much.