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I'd say right now that everything looks great -- very optimistic -- unless you look at two areas: energy and politics. If you look at energy and politics, ever

by api 15y ago

I'd say right now that everything looks great -- very optimistic -- unless you look at two areas: energy and politics. If you look at energy and politics, everything looks apocalyptic.

ChuckMcM 15y ago
I'm not so sure about the energy side, we've got a number of folks who are making real progress in both solar efficiency and energy storage. We have new nuclear processes that were once derided (cold fusion) being quite durable (while most folks don't have a good explanation about what is happening, more and more of the community is convinced that something we don't know about is happening at these low energy levels) We are getting hints of some of superconductivity's secrets which has the potential to eliminate distance constraints on energy transport, and we know how to build nuclear plants that are walk away safe and can consume their own waste leaving behind some easily manageable and easily containable waste products.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- kragen 15y ago
  > more and more of the community is convinced that something we don't know about is happening at these low energy levels [citation needed] I agree with the solar-efficiency and energy-storage points, though.
- aqme28 15y ago
  "We have new nuclear processes that were once derided (cold fusion) being quite durable" I'm sorry but this statement is completely false. Cold fusion is not taken seriously almost anywhere, much less is it considered "durable" by anyone including its fiercest proponents. edit: Even so, many of the most promising new energy technologies (superconductive transmission lines not being one of them) aren't on track to be viable or disruptive by this 2030 'disaster.'
kiba 15y ago
Energy no object, it's a matter of harvesting it and dissapating the wasted heat. After all, the sun send more energy to the earth in one hour than we use in an entire year as humanity.
- adamc 15y ago
  Mmm, that's kind of hand-waving away the hard part. In practice, that has been hard enough that energy generation is an issue.
- AkThhhpppt 15y ago
  There is the slight issue that no matter what energy source we use, we need to reduce energy growth. Postulating a meagre 2.3% growth in energy use forever, we'll get the surface temperature of Earth to the boiling point of water in 450 years. Source http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-e...
  - kragen 15y ago
    You can refrigerate the Earth. You don't even have to refrigerate it; approximately the entire sky except for the Sun is a few degrees above absolute zero, so you just have to increase your radiative coupling to it --- effectively putting cooling fins on the Earth. Or you could use the energy somewhere besides on Earth.
Tichy 15y ago
What about pollution? In a way I feel very pessimistic, because I can't find a reason why humans wouldn't exploit every resource to the maximum. For example fish in the sea, wood in the rainforest (or just surface below the rainforest), air, oil... I think humans will survive, but how much will we destroy before reaching equilibrium? What other things look great, besides iPhones? The economy? The state of understanding between countries, with more and more of them acquiring nuclear weapons?

by api 15y ago

I'd say right now that everything looks great -- very optimistic -- unless you look at two areas: energy and politics. If you look at energy and politics, everything looks apocalyptic.

ChuckMcM 15y ago

I'm not so sure about the energy side, we've got a number of folks who are making real progress in both solar efficiency and energy storage. We have new nuclear processes that were once derided (cold fusion) being quite durable (while most folks don't have a good explanation about what is happening, more and more of the community is convinced that something we don't know about is happening at these low energy levels) We are getting hints of some of superconductivity's secrets which has the potential to eliminate distance constraints on energy transport, and we know how to build nuclear plants that are walk away safe and can consume their own waste leaving behind some easily manageable and easily containable waste products.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
kragen 15y ago
> more and more of the community is convinced that something we don't know about is happening at these low energy levels [citation needed] I agree with the solar-efficiency and energy-storage points, though.
aqme28 15y ago
"We have new nuclear processes that were once derided (cold fusion) being quite durable" I'm sorry but this statement is completely false. Cold fusion is not taken seriously almost anywhere, much less is it considered "durable" by anyone including its fiercest proponents. edit: Even so, many of the most promising new energy technologies (superconductive transmission lines not being one of them) aren't on track to be viable or disruptive by this 2030 'disaster.'

kiba 15y ago

Energy no object, it's a matter of harvesting it and dissapating the wasted heat. After all, the sun send more energy to the earth in one hour than we use in an entire year as humanity.

adamc 15y ago
Mmm, that's kind of hand-waving away the hard part. In practice, that has been hard enough that energy generation is an issue.
AkThhhpppt 15y ago
There is the slight issue that no matter what energy source we use, we need to reduce energy growth. Postulating a meagre 2.3% growth in energy use forever, we'll get the surface temperature of Earth to the boiling point of water in 450 years. Source http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-e...
- kragen 15y ago
  You can refrigerate the Earth. You don't even have to refrigerate it; approximately the entire sky except for the Sun is a few degrees above absolute zero, so you just have to increase your radiative coupling to it --- effectively putting cooling fins on the Earth. Or you could use the energy somewhere besides on Earth.

Tichy 15y ago

What about pollution? In a way I feel very pessimistic, because I can't find a reason why humans wouldn't exploit every resource to the maximum. For example fish in the sea, wood in the rainforest (or just surface below the rainforest), air, oil... I think humans will survive, but how much will we destroy before reaching equilibrium? What other things look great, besides iPhones? The economy? The state of understanding between countries, with more and more of them acquiring nuclear weapons?