3 ms·

What both of these miss is that all energy expended creates pollution. If we exponentially scale our energy (say using a Dyson sphere), we will exponentially sc

by mempko 3y ago

What both of these miss is that all energy expended creates pollution. If we exponentially scale our energy (say using a Dyson sphere), we will exponentially scale our pollution. This is physically unavoidable. What's the point of using all the energy of the sun when the pollution alone will kill us or excess heat will boil our oceans. We found a great source of energy (oil) and have since pushed the planet outside the temperature humans have lived in for over 300,000 years in less than 100. Case in point, Freedom Dyson misses the whole pollution problem so much he is a climate skeptic of the "CO2 is good for plants" variety. "Dyson believes we can just do some genetic engineering to create a new species of super-tree that can suck up the excess.". Yeah, because it's that fucking easy. Dyson: "The change that’s now going on is very strongly concentrated in the Arctic. In fact in three respects, it’s not global, which I think is very important. First of all, it is mainly in the Arctic. Secondly, it’s mainly in the winter rather than summer. And thirdly, it’s mainly in the night rather than at the daytime. In all three respects, the warming is happening where it is cold, not where it is hot." Dyson's understanding is just wrong. It's happening globally, in hot areas and in cold areas. The delta is higher in the Arctic, but there is a delta everywhere. And not only that, he is a skeptic because of the way those concerned about global warming behave. They upset him. Sorry, we as a species are just not smart enough. https://e360.yale.edu/features/freeman_dyson_takes_on_the_climate_establishment https://e360.yale.edu/features/freeman_dyson_takes_on_the_cl...

smokel 3y ago
I'm sorry but I don't think your reasoning holds up. It does not make sense to say that it is physically unavoidable to exponentially scale pollution. Pollution is having unwanted substances in our environment. If we ever get to the point that we can actually construct a Dyson sphere, it seems likely that we could also dispose of unwanted substances, and place them outside of our environment, i.e. the outside of the sphere. As a more realistic example, wind and solar power do not seem to increase pollution (at least not in the most obvious way), but they do increase our access to more energy. Also, Freeman Dyson is no longer with us, so he will probably not be able to change his mind anymore. He was a skeptic, and I dare not say that I agree or disagree with him, but I must say that you're portraying him very poorly, and the linked article is much more nuanced than that.
- mempko 3y ago
  Lets say you have a process that uses all available energy and energy grows exponentially at say 2% per year. This means energy doubles every 35 years and so does the usage of it. If the process is 95% efficient at using the energy for useful work, that means 5% of the energy used is waste/pollution (could be in the form of heat or something else). By definition, for every doubling of energy created and used, you have a doubling of pollution. This should be obvious. To prevent the doubling the amount of pollution generated for any given year, you must increase efficiency by the same amount (double efficiency in 35 years). It should be obvious that it's impossible to use 100% of energy available for useful work without waste. There is always waste. That's what I mean that it's physically unavoidable to exponentially grow pollution if you exponentially grow energy use.
  - smokel 3y ago
    I understand the math, but waste and pollution are two different things. There may be exponentially more waste, but if that waste would consist solely of heat that could be dissipated to the outside of the sphere (we're still discussing the Dyson Sphere structure), then there need not be any pollution at all. I understand that it is impossible to ever reach 100% efficiency in harvesting energy. But in principle, if the inefficiency would be in the form of heat only, then one might easily dissipate more than 100% of that, and we'd even cool down. Note the use of the word "easily" in a context where we're actually building Dyson spheres. Unfortunately, this is all very hypothetical, and perhaps that is the source of our confusion here. Building a Dyson Sphere will probably not start in our lifetimes, and present energy sources tend to do pollute our atmosphere, so there are still some practical problems to solve :/
    - breuleux 3y ago
      > if that waste would consist solely of heat that could be dissipated to the outside of the sphere (we're still discussing the Dyson Sphere structure) If we build a Dyson sphere, I very much doubt we would live inside of it. We'd rather be beaming the energy to Earth and other inhabited areas.
pixl97 3y ago
After year in tech interfacing with very smart people in their respective fields, you begin to realize how much you don't know and the depths of any particular topic are near infinite. Lawyers can be brilliantly gifted in understanding of the law, and completely incompetent behind a keyboard. Engineers can understand the machine/software they make down to the instruction/component level, and completely fail at understanding the people that are going to use said product and despair when it fails. Dyson is a particularly interesting kind of failure, being he should know that heat exchange occurs fastest where you have the largest temperature delta. Take a piece of meat and measure the surface temps. Have it very cool at one end and room temp at the other then put it on a hot grill. The cold end will rapidly increase in temp at a rate much faster than the warm end. You could see 20F in heating on one side where the other only increases a degree or two.

by mempko 3y ago

smokel 3y ago

I'm sorry but I don't think your reasoning holds up. It does not make sense to say that it is physically unavoidable to exponentially scale pollution. Pollution is having unwanted substances in our environment. If we ever get to the point that we can actually construct a Dyson sphere, it seems likely that we could also dispose of unwanted substances, and place them outside of our environment, i.e. the outside of the sphere. As a more realistic example, wind and solar power do not seem to increase pollution (at least not in the most obvious way), but they do increase our access to more energy. Also, Freeman Dyson is no longer with us, so he will probably not be able to change his mind anymore. He was a skeptic, and I dare not say that I agree or disagree with him, but I must say that you're portraying him very poorly, and the linked article is much more nuanced than that.

mempko 3y ago
Lets say you have a process that uses all available energy and energy grows exponentially at say 2% per year. This means energy doubles every 35 years and so does the usage of it. If the process is 95% efficient at using the energy for useful work, that means 5% of the energy used is waste/pollution (could be in the form of heat or something else). By definition, for every doubling of energy created and used, you have a doubling of pollution. This should be obvious. To prevent the doubling the amount of pollution generated for any given year, you must increase efficiency by the same amount (double efficiency in 35 years). It should be obvious that it's impossible to use 100% of energy available for useful work without waste. There is always waste. That's what I mean that it's physically unavoidable to exponentially grow pollution if you exponentially grow energy use.
- smokel 3y ago
  I understand the math, but waste and pollution are two different things. There may be exponentially more waste, but if that waste would consist solely of heat that could be dissipated to the outside of the sphere (we're still discussing the Dyson Sphere structure), then there need not be any pollution at all. I understand that it is impossible to ever reach 100% efficiency in harvesting energy. But in principle, if the inefficiency would be in the form of heat only, then one might easily dissipate more than 100% of that, and we'd even cool down. Note the use of the word "easily" in a context where we're actually building Dyson spheres. Unfortunately, this is all very hypothetical, and perhaps that is the source of our confusion here. Building a Dyson Sphere will probably not start in our lifetimes, and present energy sources tend to do pollute our atmosphere, so there are still some practical problems to solve :/
  - breuleux 3y ago
    > if that waste would consist solely of heat that could be dissipated to the outside of the sphere (we're still discussing the Dyson Sphere structure) If we build a Dyson sphere, I very much doubt we would live inside of it. We'd rather be beaming the energy to Earth and other inhabited areas.

pixl97 3y ago

After year in tech interfacing with very smart people in their respective fields, you begin to realize how much you don't know and the depths of any particular topic are near infinite. Lawyers can be brilliantly gifted in understanding of the law, and completely incompetent behind a keyboard. Engineers can understand the machine/software they make down to the instruction/component level, and completely fail at understanding the people that are going to use said product and despair when it fails. Dyson is a particularly interesting kind of failure, being he should know that heat exchange occurs fastest where you have the largest temperature delta. Take a piece of meat and measure the surface temps. Have it very cool at one end and room temp at the other then put it on a hot grill. The cold end will rapidly increase in temp at a rate much faster than the warm end. You could see 20F in heating on one side where the other only increases a degree or two.