3 ms·

If we’re not using the equivalent of 100% of the total solar input striking earth in 400 years, we’ve gone down the wrong path

• carapace 4y ago
  That's beside the point. How do we handle the heat? From the same link (as my previous comment): > 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.
  • buck4roo 4y ago
    Society is a heat engine. Full stop.
    • carapace 4y ago
      Yes, that's the problem. Society's waste heat will cook us, literally, if we try to use ever-growing amounts of energy on the surface of a sphere covered by a blanket of gasses and moisture, because there is no mechanism to discard the waste heat fast enough. In other words, society is a heat engine until it becomes a bomb.