[ExI] Paleo diet and sustainability

[Keith Henson]

2011/4/14 Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>:

snip

> What about reorganising the matter in the solar system into a Dyson sphere
> around our star? Such solution would certainly sustain a much larger
> population than six, or sixty, billion people for a rather long time,
> including in the framework of very inefficient food-production choices.

By the time we *could* do that, it's not obvious we would be eating
food rather than using energy directly.

How many people equivalent intelligences could a Dyson sphere support?
 The area at 1.5 x 10^8 km is about 2.8 x 10^23 square meters.  A
biological human intelligence runs on about 20 watts, even low
efficiency PV would give 200 watts per square meter.  So it would be
at least one per square meter or 4.7 x 10^14 times the current
population.

> Nevertheless, I think that J. Stanton may have a point as far as more
> immediate scenarios are concerned.

That's true.  On *current* technology we can't sustain the food supply
for as many people as exist now and are projected to exist in a few
decades.  But just *identifying* an obvious problem isn't enough on
this list.  You need to propose some way around the problem, even if
it is of the Dyson Sphere or flying pig class.

Keith