Thanks for the reply. I'll keep you posted on the progress of the play.

I agree about reduced demand, but I'm concerned that in the future this will be distributed through money market mechanisms thereby exagerating the wealth gap.

Ever more advanced Technology is not always the answer though (as Fukushima is telling us).

I thoroughly recommend John Michael Greer's Ecotechnic future.

It gives a great overview of what sorts of technology we should focus on, and why and how certain aspects are just better left to nature.

Here's a review:

——

The underlying assumption of this book is that fossil fuels cannot be effectively replaced, neither cost-effectively nor in the gross amount of available energy. And once the fossil fuels are gone, they are gone forever, meaning that industrial civilization as we know it … will experience a slow decline into what Greer calls "The Ecotechnic Future." Along the way there will be "scarcity industrialism" and a "salvage society."

I also think we can do a hell of a lot better than nature in terms of efficiency. Not the process of photosynthesis itself but in getting the energy into a useful form. 0.00004% seems beatable.

But there's is no silver bullet, I guess. Becoming sustainable will require numerous technological solutions in combination with reducing demand.

Great title by the way – hope you manage to finish it.

Intriguing, but there are numerous problems / issues. See comments on it below:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=198623

I still stand by the assertion that the amount of energy one can receive per year from the sun is still not a patch on what has been stored up over millions of years.

Interesting to hear about your play, "Entropy". Good luck with that and I look forward to hearing the progress. I've been dabbling with something similar by the working title of "You can't milk a tractor, my friend". A bit surreal, and given my various other distractions it could be a while before it materialises.

I agree about the Neo-Malthusian co-opting of Georgescu. His main message for me was that we should equitably live within our means.

I do have a slight point of difference though:

"the earth receives 1,000 times more energy from the sun each day than humans can produce in a year"

This may be true, but only a small fraction of this is usuable. Most goes to heating up the air, land and sea, and so we can't directly extract that efficiently.

The secret is to understand the role played by photosynthesis. Georgescu states that this absorbs about 1.2Q per year. Not a lot given that a large proportion of the planet is covered in plant material. This amount is used to sustain all plant life, marine life & animals (feeding off plants & other animals). And I mean "sustainably" in the true ecological sense of the word.

Our rate of consumption of about 0.2-0.3Q is subsidised by fossil fuels (Georgescu estimates a dowry of about 200Q). Now, as "crude oil and natural gas are products of heating of ancient organic materials over geological time", we can do a quick estimate of the amount of solar Q absorbed by this material:

Approx 500,000,000Q (2Q x 250million years)

That’s a fantastic amount of energy, but to yield only a few hundred Q of fossil fuels means an efficiency ratio of 0.00004%. Rather than see this as nature’s failing, we should be completely humbled by that feat.

Think of the planet’s history as just one big fossil fuel factory operating for arguably billions of years. I could be way out on some of these figures, but the fact is that compact and efficient fossil fuel took unimaginable amounts of solar energy, heat, pressure and time to form.

No amount of technical innovation can bootleg that. Nature has a billion year head start on us.

Survival of the Fattest Headed

"Angela Merkel, German chancellor says all seven of the country's nuclear power plants which began operating before 1980, will be shut down for checks.

She also confirmed that France and Germany have agreed to put nuclear safety on the G20 agenda.

And the European Union is calling for so-called "stress tests" on all 143 nuclear reactors across Europe, in response to what the EU energy chief describes as an "apocalypse" in Japan."

Stress tests? What a marvelous idea! I'm sure as long as there is investor confidence in nuclear power stations then there's no chance of them malfunctioning.

Survival of the Fattest Headed

Might also be of interest.

(Incidentally, I find that he unfortunately pops up in the arguments of many neo-Malthusians. It's important to remember the distinction between a closed system and an isolated system in thermodynamics and that the earth receives 1,000 times more energy from the sun each day than humans can produce in a year).