Talk:Energy descent

Frustratingly ignores technological frontiers
...but I don't see what exactly to address about that here. This article and others in the same general topic area do a poor job of addressing the vast solar energy reserves available and completely overlook the societal transformations which they'll enable. Yes, there's technological uncertainty, but it's unfortunate that space-based solar power is not in the discussion, given that (in my view as someone working actively in the field) profitable rocket-launched SSP installations are 10-20 years away, and there's a huge potential (from automated In-situ resource utilization rock->reflector factories) to intercept a vast portion of the sun's 370 trillion terawatt output within the next 25-50 (time ranges and energy levels which are quite relevant to this article).

There's been this long-running discussion, since the 1970s energy crisis at least, in environmental science, energy policy, philosophy, and other academic circles, of what we're going to do when our energy runs out (or similarly, becomes immoral, or environmentally infeasible, to use). The typical pedagogical line is that it's fundamentally a debate between Cornucopians and Malthusians. Regardless, it is fact that coal reserves alone are more than sufficient for 200 years of energy production at present increases, not to mention trillion-barrel oil shale fields, nuclear power, and e.g. algae biofuels (Please, don't let ideology interfere with truth. I think it would be terrible to burn all that coal and extract all that oil, but it's there.) I submit that what really keeps the Malthusian and similar views going is the popular (easy to embrace?) idea that energy is bad for us, in large part reinforced by the widespread (optimistic IMO) view that if we stop burning fossil fuels the climate will be okay, or even that reduced energy use is a necessary precursor to preservation of the climate (and thus species, life, and pretty much everything else we value).

Aside: in my view, surely colored by my space-tech bent, we really really ought to develop geoengineering, things like sunshields and ocean chemistry muckery, or we and all the other extant life forms of the planet are left at the whims of choas. (CO2 influx, in the amounts subject to political influence, is just not a sensitive enough control on climate to be sure of swinging temperatures or climate patterns one way or another, and in fact there is little indication climate is naturally stable without man-made forcings). With the notable exception of those morally opposed to civilization, most people want climate to stay roughly the same as it is; news flash: if the arctic ice cap melts and we run into a positive feedback loop with the resultant depressed albedos, it won't. /aside

In general space-derived power (particularly without the need for questionable microwave transmission, e.g. via infrared laser or the more drastic but ultimately more awesome alternative of in-space manufacture + airdrops), is far more environmentally sound than fossil fuel burning and, critically to this topic, could unlock several orders of magnitude more energy than is currently used (energy that would otherwise go outward as light to the uncaring universe - should we worry so much about that?). Regardless few to none are discussing SBSP at all let alone timetables or drawbacks. Is consensus that SBSP is not worth considering in this sort of article, or are we all just too busy to add anything about it?

Anyway, to wrap up this rant: some say we should revert to subsistence agriculture, but then nuts like me say, let's go to space and leave the biosphere alone, and of course there are in-betweeners. I guess now I'll go do some presentations to environmental science departments and maybe even co-author a paper or two on the subject so I can have some notable citations to add. If you're considering deleting this, please just prune it down instead. end rant - 98.223.153.85 (talk) 08:53, 13 July 2011 (UTC)