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We're not necessarily talking about a closed system, though. If you've got an energy supply that rounds to limitless, constructing planet-scale heatsinks starts
by regularfry 5y ago
We're not necessarily talking about a closed system, though. If you've got an energy supply that rounds to limitless, constructing planet-scale heatsinks starts to look tenable.
- codethief 5y ago> We're not necessarily talking about a closed system, though. Short of shooting hot lava into space[0] we pretty much are because, once again, thermalization through radiation is governed by Stefan-Boltzmann's law and there's no way around that. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28468182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28468182
- regularfry 5y agoStefan-Boltmann talks about emission per surface area. So... increase the surface area. We're not limited to a sphere. The same problem crops up when you're talking about moon bases and so on - you've got the same problem of venting heat from an ecosystem into a vacuum. For that situation, one of the solutions that got designed out was to basically spray an oil mist across a gap, catch it, and recycle it into the cooling system. As a fine mist, the oil has a colossal surface area compared to its mass, and all that surface area can radiate heat off into the vacuum. So... scale that up? I realise it's a hell of a leap, to go from human-scale to humanity-scale, and I don't know exactly what it would need to look like, but limitless energy is a hell of a springboard.