StateofConfusion

Investing In a Resource-Constrained World (Part V)

Mark, I think you have the wrong time scale for modern humans surviving. We have not been surviving for millions of years and all other similar species have gone extinct. The analogy of fish eggs where .0001 % survive makes me pessimistic. We have gross over population yet the U.S. continues to allow high levels of both legal and illegal immigration. Latino groups want to bring in more to increase their power and religious groups both here and in Islamic countries promote population growth.

Cold or hot fusion might eventually save the smaller world but it is not likely to help with oil depletion, only fisson can contribute to that. Solar energy in the form of thin film should have low production costs but central solar farms that use concentrated light for heat and generation may be cheaper to build.

Mark W makes some good point but I will disagree on a minor point. If you have almost unlimited heat from fission then it doesn't matter too much that you go thru energy state changes like described. This just part of the efficiency equation. PVs are not very efficient so who cares that they produce power directly. They still must go thru a conversion process to make AC, this is around 95% to 97% efficient at best.
I'm all for PVs and they will contribute to distributed power, we will need all forms of generation. Two major kinks will be power storage (for non base load sources) and distribution system which are not keeping up.
Without population control, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. Maybe China doesn't use as much as we do but they also live at a much lower standard.