30 ms·

I doubt we're going post-scarcity any time soon though. We don't have any of the technologies that form the foundation of a post-scarcity society: abundant rene

by Joeri 12y ago

I doubt we're going post-scarcity any time soon though. We don't have any of the technologies that form the foundation of a post-scarcity society: abundant renewable energy, fully automated just-in-time production of nearly all goods and materials, extremely low cost delivery of goods to the home and/or business, and the intelligent software that ties it all together. Some of those things are close, others, not so much. Aside from a "magic" solution, like the singularity, I do not expect in my life-time to see a post-scarcity society arise. I do agree that the automation of jobs is not a serious cause of concern, though obviously for those whose jobs are displaced it will be. People can't stand to sit around and do nothing for any great stretch of time (although everyone claims otherwise). They will find ways to be busy, and if you automate away one part of activity, other forms will take up its place. Someone will figure out how to monetize it and presto, a new job category. Selling software was once a crazy idea. Selling virtual characters was crazy just a few years ago, and is becoming normal. We will gradually become ever more refined in the sort of virtual goods and services we create through human labor that can be sold online.

atemerev 12y ago
> abundant renewable energy We have enough uranium and thorium for millions of years with breeder cycle. Even if not renewable, who cares? And it's quite ecological, compared to burning oil products. The rest is quite close.
- afterburner 12y ago
  Renewables are basically already viable, despite what its opponents have been trying to say. It's already more competitive than natural gas in some places, and the next 5 years will be crossing many other such thresholds.
  - jbattle 12y ago
    Is that true even if you normalize subsidies between the different forms of production/transportation/use?
  - jhartmann 12y ago
    Renewables are not already viable, they are never going to be viable but for a small portion of our energy needs. Because Physics. They just don't have enough concentrated energy. Take solar for example, take a look at http://www.withouthotair.com/c6/page_38.shtml http://www.withouthotair.com/c6/page_38.shtml, In the UK solar basically works out to 100 watts per square meter on average. Somewhere really nice in the American Sotuhwest is maybe like 400 watts per square meter. At 25% efficiency, to equal the baseline load of a 1 GW nuclear power plant, you need something like 7.7 square miles of panel area when you factor in the need to capture enough sun during the day and store it for the night. You need to also have a high voltage DC grid to ship the electricity from the Desert to where we need it, and much better storage systems to hold the load for the night. Basically Solar is never going to work for baseline load, and to top it all off photovoltaics are dirty as hell to make. Wind is even more bad (There was a study that said you needed 270 square miles of land to generate 1 GW reliably), and hydroelectric is limited in where we can deploy it. Nuclear is exactly what we need, renewables just can't be anything but a small part of the solution considering our power usage is increasing not decreasing.
    - groby_b 12y ago
      Ah. That's why Germany manages to generate >30% of their energy via renewables. They are this immensely huge country with wide open spaces, flooded with sunlight. Wait. They're not. Turns out that you don't need a high-voltage DC grid, you need decentralized power. And you don't need huge contiguous chunks of land, either - you need everybody to be involved. That doesn't rule out that we might need other energy sources, too - there are the issues of base load, and industrial consumption - but claiming that renewables are "not viable" is a tiny bit of an exaggeration, don't you think?
      - ztko 12y ago
        There's no doubt that the US can learn from the shear audacity and willingness to invest in our country's long term energy plan like Germany has done with the Energiewende. However, we can't pretend that Germany, in terms of its size, existing infrastructure, and structure of the electricity industry, is at all comparable to the US. While I agree with you that decentralized power will be the way of the future, there's no way the US, where California alone is larger than Germany, can make such a drastic and impressive transition in even a tenth of the time it takes Germany. The power grid in the US is one of the (if not the) most complex networks/systems the world has ever seen. Heck, it's not even a "singular" entity, with three interconnects spanning parts of Mexico and Canada comprising it. We're not going to easily transition away from this--not that I'm saying we shouldn't try. Our current infrastructure is not capable of handling mass amounts of renewable (read intermittent) sources of energy--the energy storage technology, bi-directional communication, and security measures among other necessities just don't exist yet. And while at a certain point our country needs to make the leap and take the risk, we should also be cautious about trying to brute force a solution--look how Spain's renewable energy investments are paying off. Edit: It may also be too early to call Germany's energy plan a success. They still face many substantial challenges moving forward (http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21594336-germanys-new-super-minister-energy-and-economy-has-his-work-cut-out-sunny-windy-costly http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21594336-germanys-new-s...)
- neutronicus 12y ago
  It's the cost of building new plants that dominates the cost of nuclear energy, though. Cheap fuel is honestly a red herring.
  - eromni69 12y ago
    Molten Salt Reactors are cheaper. They do not need a pressure vessel or a huge containment structure. They can fit in a shipping container. BTW red herring is delicious!
- a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
  I have seen credible estimates that there may only be about 80 years of uranium supply left for current usage, let alone massively expanded generation. Breeder reactors are a red herring. France is shutting theirs down because they are uneconomical.
- eromni69 12y ago
  It is renewable. Every time there is a supernova a whole solar system loaded with Thorium is recreated!

by Joeri 12y ago

atemerev 12y ago

> abundant renewable energy We have enough uranium and thorium for millions of years with breeder cycle. Even if not renewable, who cares? And it's quite ecological, compared to burning oil products. The rest is quite close.

afterburner 12y ago
Renewables are basically already viable, despite what its opponents have been trying to say. It's already more competitive than natural gas in some places, and the next 5 years will be crossing many other such thresholds.
- jbattle 12y ago
  Is that true even if you normalize subsidies between the different forms of production/transportation/use?
- jhartmann 12y ago
  Renewables are not already viable, they are never going to be viable but for a small portion of our energy needs. Because Physics. They just don't have enough concentrated energy. Take solar for example, take a look at http://www.withouthotair.com/c6/page_38.shtml http://www.withouthotair.com/c6/page_38.shtml, In the UK solar basically works out to 100 watts per square meter on average. Somewhere really nice in the American Sotuhwest is maybe like 400 watts per square meter. At 25% efficiency, to equal the baseline load of a 1 GW nuclear power plant, you need something like 7.7 square miles of panel area when you factor in the need to capture enough sun during the day and store it for the night. You need to also have a high voltage DC grid to ship the electricity from the Desert to where we need it, and much better storage systems to hold the load for the night. Basically Solar is never going to work for baseline load, and to top it all off photovoltaics are dirty as hell to make. Wind is even more bad (There was a study that said you needed 270 square miles of land to generate 1 GW reliably), and hydroelectric is limited in where we can deploy it. Nuclear is exactly what we need, renewables just can't be anything but a small part of the solution considering our power usage is increasing not decreasing.
  - groby_b 12y ago
    Ah. That's why Germany manages to generate >30% of their energy via renewables. They are this immensely huge country with wide open spaces, flooded with sunlight. Wait. They're not. Turns out that you don't need a high-voltage DC grid, you need decentralized power. And you don't need huge contiguous chunks of land, either - you need everybody to be involved. That doesn't rule out that we might need other energy sources, too - there are the issues of base load, and industrial consumption - but claiming that renewables are "not viable" is a tiny bit of an exaggeration, don't you think?
    - ztko 12y ago
      There's no doubt that the US can learn from the shear audacity and willingness to invest in our country's long term energy plan like Germany has done with the Energiewende. However, we can't pretend that Germany, in terms of its size, existing infrastructure, and structure of the electricity industry, is at all comparable to the US. While I agree with you that decentralized power will be the way of the future, there's no way the US, where California alone is larger than Germany, can make such a drastic and impressive transition in even a tenth of the time it takes Germany. The power grid in the US is one of the (if not the) most complex networks/systems the world has ever seen. Heck, it's not even a "singular" entity, with three interconnects spanning parts of Mexico and Canada comprising it. We're not going to easily transition away from this--not that I'm saying we shouldn't try. Our current infrastructure is not capable of handling mass amounts of renewable (read intermittent) sources of energy--the energy storage technology, bi-directional communication, and security measures among other necessities just don't exist yet. And while at a certain point our country needs to make the leap and take the risk, we should also be cautious about trying to brute force a solution--look how Spain's renewable energy investments are paying off. Edit: It may also be too early to call Germany's energy plan a success. They still face many substantial challenges moving forward (http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21594336-germanys-new-super-minister-energy-and-economy-has-his-work-cut-out-sunny-windy-costly http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21594336-germanys-new-s...)
neutronicus 12y ago
It's the cost of building new plants that dominates the cost of nuclear energy, though. Cheap fuel is honestly a red herring.
- eromni69 12y ago
  Molten Salt Reactors are cheaper. They do not need a pressure vessel or a huge containment structure. They can fit in a shipping container. BTW red herring is delicious!
a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
I have seen credible estimates that there may only be about 80 years of uranium supply left for current usage, let alone massively expanded generation. Breeder reactors are a red herring. France is shutting theirs down because they are uneconomical.
eromni69 12y ago
It is renewable. Every time there is a supernova a whole solar system loaded with Thorium is recreated!