An interesting fictional examination of this sort of thing is Marshall Brain's novella "Manna": https://marshallbrain.com/manna https://marshallbrain.com/manna

An interesting fictional examination of this sort of thing is Marshall Brain's novella "Manna": https://marshallbrain.com/manna https://marshallbrain.com/manna and it all makes me wonder what homesteading in the 21st century could be like, and what the resource limits are --- Isaac Asimov once posited that if one converted the entirety of the earth's crust into biomass the limiting element is phosphorous --- what is the limiting material for our modern lifestyle? There's at least one recent book which looks at this: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125937631-material-world https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125937631-material-world Who is going to determine how resources are divided/allocated? Using what mechanism? My grandfather lived in a time when commercial hunting was outlawed (and multiple species were made extinct before that decision was arrived at) --- will my children live in a time when commercial fishing is halted? The homestead act in the U.S. had families setting up farms on 160 acres or so --- how do modern technologies affect the minimum acreage which a family would need for self-sufficiency to any measurable degree? What sort of industrial base is needed for technologies such as bottled hydrogen being made by solar power? How long do the bottles and the bottling/capture system last? How long does a geothermal system last and what sort of on-going maintenance is needed and how does replacing it get budgeted for? Modern industrial farming practices are burning/using as many as 10 calories of petro-chemical energy for 1 calorie of food energy --- what happens to food prices when we get past peak oil? Solar is supposed to work as a replacement --- when the cost of a barrel of oil is ~$400 last I checked --- what does food cost at that price point?