3 ms·

Ah come on. I'd say there's at least a 50% chance that the US military and the Department of Energy find a workable new energy source in that timeframe (I have

by waps 13y ago

Ah come on. I'd say there's at least a 50% chance that the US military and the Department of Energy find a workable new energy source in that timeframe (I have -very- little faith in the European academics who have locked themselves down on ITER and are at this point actively sabotaging other attempts. This is beyond stupid as ITER's timeframe is known and is too little, to late. The project should be cancelled, as there's only 2 outcomes : either it fails before the collapse. Or it doesn't, in which case there's zero chance of completion). Alternatively we could prepare for failure. The only way to do that is to make sure we have 150 new nuclear power plants built all around the country in the next 10-15 years though. That should be Obama's Manhattan project. Again, there's two outcomes : either we find something better and it's wasted money (that would be great !) or it saves our collective asses, and gives us another 100 years to come up with something better. If the US army/govt does find a new energy source, it's likely to be a nuclear one (the only real solution to our needs), and our energy problems are over until our grandchildren die.

einhverfr 13y ago
You still have two fundamental problems that can't be solved just by inventing new energy sources. The first is smelting and materials. You can recycle steel with just electricity (that's a lossy process) but you can't produce it without burning coal. The same goes for copper and most other metals (aluminum is the only exception to my knowledge). If one wants to support exponentially increasing material consumption, that means, supporting exponentially increasing fossil fuel consumption at this point, since we are already way beyond what we can support there by using biomass for reduction smelting. The second problem is that no matter what you do, if you push for ever-increasing consumption this will have massive environmental costs. We saw what happened at Fukushima and frankly I think the real lesson there is that natural disasters will always have a significant chance to overwhelm human engineering. It's easy to say "well, if they had the newer designs" but I am not aware of any real experience there seeing more recent designs of nuclear power plants go through a massive earthquake and tsunami. At best we can say "well, if we didn't miss something..." but reality is always more complex than our models. So I don't see nuclear as the answer. The only real way to prepare for failure is to reduce consumption, and if you listen to the macro-economists, that would cause failure. For exponentially increasing consumption of energy, even without greenhouse gas emissions you have the problem of the second law of thermodynamics, which leads to a warming planet even with a constant atmosphere. Our path is not sustainable and no amount of technological intervention will make it so. The only breakthrough that could possibly matter in that regard would be the development of perpetual motion machines.
- pdonis 13y ago
  exponentially increasing material consumption Which isn't necessary, because first, the population is no longer increasing exponentially; IIRC the current projection is that world population will level off by about 2050; and second, the amount of material required to accomplish particular things is decreasing as we find new materials and new ways of using them. For example, the structure of cars used to be entirely steel; now much of it is composites, which contain less material and are less energetically expensive to make. if you listen to the macro-economists, that would cause failure It depends on which macro-economists you listen to. Some of them understand that increasing wealth does not have to mean increasing consumption of materials or energy.
  - einhverfr 13y ago
    > Which isn't necessary, because first, the population is no longer increasing exponentially... The problem you run into there is that for a long time the elderly population will be increasing exponentially, and care for the elderly falls on the shoulders of a smaller portion of the population. > the amount of material required to accomplish particular things is decreasing as we find new materials and new ways of using them. This would suggest that capita energy consumption of countries with cutting edge technology is well ahead of per capital energy consumption in countries where people have simpler societies and less manufacturing technologies, right? Is that borne out by numbers and evidence? > Some of them understand that increasing wealth does not have to mean increasing consumption of materials or energy. Please define "wealth."
    - pdonis 13y ago
      for a long time the elderly population will be increasing exponentially Not "for a long time"; for the length of one generation. This would suggest that capita energy consumption of countries with cutting edge technology is well ahead of per capital energy consumption in countries where people have simpler societies and less manufacturing technologies, right? No, because per capita energy consumption depends on how wealthy you are as well as how efficient your technology is. What it does suggest is that per capita energy consumption rises more slowly as a function of wealth than one would expect based on your assumptions about increasing use of resources, and that over time, the per capita energy consumption for some fixed level of wealth will get smaller. Please define "wealth." The best definition I know of is that wealth is choices: the more things you could choose to do with the resources available to you, the wealthier you are. One could also try to factor in some measure of the quality of the choices; for example, Bill Gates and I can both choose to fly somewhere, but he can choose to fly there on a private jet whereas I can only choose to fly on a commercial airliner. But the key is that nothing requires the resources needed to fly somewhere to be constant; as technology improves, the same goal--such as flying somewhere--can be accomplished with fewer and fewer resources. That means the same level of wealth--the same choices--can be achieved with fewer and fewer resources.

by waps 13y ago

einhverfr 13y ago

You still have two fundamental problems that can't be solved just by inventing new energy sources. The first is smelting and materials. You can recycle steel with just electricity (that's a lossy process) but you can't produce it without burning coal. The same goes for copper and most other metals (aluminum is the only exception to my knowledge). If one wants to support exponentially increasing material consumption, that means, supporting exponentially increasing fossil fuel consumption at this point, since we are already way beyond what we can support there by using biomass for reduction smelting. The second problem is that no matter what you do, if you push for ever-increasing consumption this will have massive environmental costs. We saw what happened at Fukushima and frankly I think the real lesson there is that natural disasters will always have a significant chance to overwhelm human engineering. It's easy to say "well, if they had the newer designs" but I am not aware of any real experience there seeing more recent designs of nuclear power plants go through a massive earthquake and tsunami. At best we can say "well, if we didn't miss something..." but reality is always more complex than our models. So I don't see nuclear as the answer. The only real way to prepare for failure is to reduce consumption, and if you listen to the macro-economists, that would cause failure. For exponentially increasing consumption of energy, even without greenhouse gas emissions you have the problem of the second law of thermodynamics, which leads to a warming planet even with a constant atmosphere. Our path is not sustainable and no amount of technological intervention will make it so. The only breakthrough that could possibly matter in that regard would be the development of perpetual motion machines.

pdonis 13y ago
exponentially increasing material consumption Which isn't necessary, because first, the population is no longer increasing exponentially; IIRC the current projection is that world population will level off by about 2050; and second, the amount of material required to accomplish particular things is decreasing as we find new materials and new ways of using them. For example, the structure of cars used to be entirely steel; now much of it is composites, which contain less material and are less energetically expensive to make. if you listen to the macro-economists, that would cause failure It depends on which macro-economists you listen to. Some of them understand that increasing wealth does not have to mean increasing consumption of materials or energy.
- einhverfr 13y ago
  > Which isn't necessary, because first, the population is no longer increasing exponentially... The problem you run into there is that for a long time the elderly population will be increasing exponentially, and care for the elderly falls on the shoulders of a smaller portion of the population. > the amount of material required to accomplish particular things is decreasing as we find new materials and new ways of using them. This would suggest that capita energy consumption of countries with cutting edge technology is well ahead of per capital energy consumption in countries where people have simpler societies and less manufacturing technologies, right? Is that borne out by numbers and evidence? > Some of them understand that increasing wealth does not have to mean increasing consumption of materials or energy. Please define "wealth."
  - pdonis 13y ago
    for a long time the elderly population will be increasing exponentially Not "for a long time"; for the length of one generation. This would suggest that capita energy consumption of countries with cutting edge technology is well ahead of per capital energy consumption in countries where people have simpler societies and less manufacturing technologies, right? No, because per capita energy consumption depends on how wealthy you are as well as how efficient your technology is. What it does suggest is that per capita energy consumption rises more slowly as a function of wealth than one would expect based on your assumptions about increasing use of resources, and that over time, the per capita energy consumption for some fixed level of wealth will get smaller. Please define "wealth." The best definition I know of is that wealth is choices: the more things you could choose to do with the resources available to you, the wealthier you are. One could also try to factor in some measure of the quality of the choices; for example, Bill Gates and I can both choose to fly somewhere, but he can choose to fly there on a private jet whereas I can only choose to fly on a commercial airliner. But the key is that nothing requires the resources needed to fly somewhere to be constant; as technology improves, the same goal--such as flying somewhere--can be accomplished with fewer and fewer resources. That means the same level of wealth--the same choices--can be achieved with fewer and fewer resources.