Limits On Growth of Energy Use and Economies

snoop.daub writes "Dr. Tom Murphy, professor of astrophysics at UCSD, has a new blog called 'Do The Math,' and the first few posts are doozies. In the first, he shows the impossibility of continued exponential growth in energy use. Even if a new, 'free' energy source is developed, thermodynamic limits on efficiency mean that the heat associated with converting this energy into useful work will increase the temperature of the earth to unbearable levels within 300 years. In the second, he extends the argument to economic growth. The timescales there are faster, only 50-100 years. Fascinating stuff. Time to stop breeding, folks, or to get our butts into space."

Comments

Population is self managing

[MikeB0Lton]

If/when we ever get to the point that the human population is too large to be sustainable, it will correct itself. History shows us that famine, war, and plague occur when we run out of resources or populate an area too densely. Some of the strong, smart, and lucky will survive to repopulate.

Re:No One

[blair1q]

Did he do this one?

Calculate how long it will be until, at given birth and death rates, the bounding surface of the volume of human flesh on the planet will be expanding outward at a rate equal to the speed of light?

Hint: The answer is in the low 4 figures.

Read "The Party's Over" (Heinberg)

[stereoroid]

I'm almost all the way through it. Very sobering stuff, only a few bits I have quibbles with. Or, if you don't have the time, read the synopsis.

The point about the assumption of growth is an important one. The world's financial systems are built on that assumption i.e. anyone who lends money expects to make a profit on the loan, after inflation if applicable. That's true of all loans, from the smallest micro-loan to the trillions in sovereign debt owed by the USA.

Easy Solution via Biology

[rubycodez]

Soon we'll grow everything we need, we'll feed our equipment and housing rather than fuel it, let stuff grow rather than mine and refine.. Problem solved, population of ten or twelve billion humans living wealthy and prosperous lifetyles, energy needs go through the floor. As to the "Monsanto Type Personalty" problem that might arise with this, we use the time honored French Revolution solution.

Re:He misses one HUGE assumption

[green1]

But who is to say that increasing technology even needs increasing energy consumption?

Every appliance today uses less electricity than the equivalent one manufactured 20-30 years ago, and some replace more than one device using less power than either one did individually. I use far less energy at home now than I did 15 years ago, and I've got more technology too, my furnace is more than twice as efficient, my insulation is significantly better, my light bulbs use about 1/3 the energy, my fridge uses less, even my stereo uses less power. The electric bill each month confirms that I'm just not using as much as I once did, despite adding 2 computers, wireless network router, network storage device, a DVD player, 2 smart phones, and various other gadgets that never even existed 15 years ago.

There are just so many different unknowns that making any long term predictions that far out, or that all encompassing is just absurd.

Re:Think about it. Make an effort.

[rsilvergun]

Uh, mankind has survived, but I think the point is that for all but the top 1% survival has been a brutal and unpleasant ordeal. Things like leaving your children on the side of the road to die (happening right now in Africa, as a matter of fact)...

I see no evidence that those bad decisions have stopped. People still treat people like shit and let them breed uncontrollably. OTOH, a nice big WWIII with a few hundred million going off to die in the trenches'll solve that. Don't forget, when it comes to trench warfare it doesn't matter how smart you are. We sent Physicists off to die too.

Re: I love this

[ultranova]

So you approve of an unfair society where people are given things that they did not earn by having it forcefully taken from someone who did earn it?

No, I think he approves the extremely fair society where people are given things that they did not earn by having them forcefully taken from someone who didn't earn it either, such as a CEO, banker, high frequency stock trader, etc. Seeing how most of the nation's wealth is currently in the hands of people who didn't earn it, there shouldn't be a shortage of things that can be justly redistributed any time soon.

Call me crazy, but doesn't the dictionary define that sort of behavior as "theft"?

No, thievery means taking something you don't own, not something you didn't earn.

Also, I find it horribly ironic that you talk about the evil "greedy" people, yet you fail to see the greed in thinking you should get something that you didn't earn.

The alternative to people getting things they didn't earn is the return to feudalism, where the local lord owns the means of production and other people obey him or die. Capitalism concentrates a larger and larger share of the wealth into fewer and fewer hands, so you either have mechanisms to redistribute it or accept that most people will get a life of miserable poverty.