I agree about the implausibility of space based solar panels. I guess I raised it because, as far as I can see, it is even less plausible than supplying our needs from such panels mounted on the surface.goslow wrote:Considering 200 Ethiopians live off the energy of a single US citizen (is that the right statistic?), I think we have some leeway in terms of demand size conservation! Renewables can sustain a low energy but still technologically and socially advanced society, I firmly believe that is possible. Renewables are so underexploited, we can go a long long way with this.stevecook172001 wrote:Regarding renewables:
This is not to say that renewables don't work (in the sense that the energy ratio means you get out more than you put in). They just don?t work for in excess of 6 billion people. It's a speed of supply problem.
One possible exception to the above might conceivably be space mounted solar panels where the amount of solar radiation per unit of area exposed is so much higher. However, to set up such a global energy infrastructure would constitute the greatest engineering challenge ever undertaken by mankind. It would require huge amounts of energy in terms of R&D to bring it up to operational status. All this at precisely the time when energy prices are going to go through the roof.
Lovelock is right. It?s too late. It?s too late from a resource depletion point of view alone. Never mind climatic considerations.
The very best outcome we could expect is an 80% reduced population living off renewables in about 100 years from now. However, if Lovelock is correct in his climate predictions, we may not even get that outcome.
Steve
Space solar power is energetically unfeasible. Launching all that stuff from the earth's surface will take perhaps just as much energy as ever might be produced by the PV cells. Unless you could set up PV plants on the moon and transport from their to low earth orbit, avoiding Earth's gravity well, but we'll never get as far as the moon now, and it would take ages! US plans to return to the moon are bound to be abandoned if their economy crashes, the Chinese might have a go at some point but they too will have to scale down their ambitions once peak energy hits.
I was dead keen on all things space when I was a kid, although we have a space station up there I don't expect we'll see the dream realised now of a space civilisation. Which is a bit ironic as that is probably the only way that mankind could continue into the future as an industrial society, by exploiting energy and materials in the solar system! Perhaps some small groups of enthusiastic rich people will manage it, but the rest of us will have to make do with what we can find on our home planet.
Regarding the energy consumption of Ethiopians. You are quite correct. However, without wishing disparage the humanity of these people, I would not like to live like the average Ethiopian has to. It may seem nobe, or even romantic to some. I strongly suspect that it is not. Would you wish to live like that?
Don't misunderstand me. That is almost certainly how we will have to live in two or three decade's time. However, along with that will come all of the war, famine, pestilence and disease currently endemic to that part of the great continent of Africa. Otherwise known as the four horsemen of the apocolypse.
Regarding the viability of renewables at the scale necessary for our current population. I have been given a number of sources that I need to read before commenting on this further. I will come back on that.
Steve
