[ExI] How slow is capitalism?

[Jones Murphy]

" A 2006 report by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT),
that included the potential of enhanced geothermal systems, estimated
that investing 1 billion US dollars in research and development over
15 years would allow the creation of 100 GW of electrical generating
capacity by 2050 in the United States alone.[12] The MIT report
estimated that over 200 zettajoules (ZJ) would be extractable, with
the potential to increase this to over 2,000 ZJ with technology
improvements - sufficient to provide all the world's present energy
needs for several
millennia."--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_electricity

As far as "select locations" go, that is not a long-term issue due to
the development of long-distance transmission which can go across
continents and under oceans for many thousands of miles already and
which are rapidly being improved:

"The longest HVDC link in the world is currently the
Xiangjiaba-Shanghai 2,071 km (1,287 mi) 6400 MW link connecting the
Xiangjiaba Dam to Shanghai, in the People's Republic of China.[2] In
2012, the longest HVDC link will be the Rio Madeira link connecting
the Amazonas to the São Paulo area and the length of the DC line is
over 2,500 km (1,600
mi)."--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current

I agree that there will be a brutal adjustment period out of fossil
fuels, but it will overwhelmingly be due to right wing stupidity, and
not to physics and engineering.

In a few hundred years humans should be able to build quite decent
fusion generators. They should also be contemplating tapping more
directly into the big local fusion generator aka the sun's power than
the long-distance solar we're discussing now.

On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 11:03 AM, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 10:51:02AM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote:
>
>> For some odd reason you left out the cheapest form of power generation
>> known yet, geothermal. Known reserves are already sufficient to power
>
> Deep geothermal is the cheapest renewable only in some select locations,
> and its total potential is limited. Ditto wind.
>
>> humanity for thousands of years at wildly optimistic growth rates.
>
> That would be solar, and there's not enough doubling steps for
> more than a couple hundred years (guesstimate) in the entire
> solar system.
>
>> Alas, grass-roots support for subsidizing oil and gas over geothermal
>> among right winger voters(including right-wing Democrats) remains
>> extremely strong.
>
> Solar photovoltaics will be the cheapest power shortly, and the only
> renewable candidate. No amount of subsidies can distort physical
> realities: we're facing a number of nonrenewable peaks in a short
> succession.
>
> --
> Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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