[ExI] Malthus and Marx

[spike at rainier66.com]

> On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] Malthus and Marx

 

On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 11:11 AM BillK via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> > wrote:

 

> as the whole world turned to using coal and oil, the unexpected cumulative pollution means that
usage now has to stop. Currently there is no equivalent cheap resource alternative.

 

Actually there is an alternative, nuclear. but there are powerful superstitions against even suggesting such a thing.

 

 John K Clark

 

 

Nuclear power is looking more attractive over time.  Those of us who do calculations have concluded that in the long run, it must be nuclear.  There is no substitute.

 

Recall a discussion in this forum 25 years ago, a thread which was called something like “Is technology infinite?”  That discussion focused on energy generation tech.  We have an underlying assumption that technology would always come along, progress would be made, everything will be OK, but even then, we already had a good example of a technology in which astonishing investment had been made and technology didn’t come: nuclear fusion.  Today we have tokamacs in operation, but fusion didn’t come.

 

We have had progress in energy generation, but we still rely on coal, natural gas, falling water, wind and solar.  Technology improved but a quarter of a century later I will still argue as I did then, that technology advance is not infinite.  At some point we really do get to the point we have discovered everything there is to know.

 

The implications of that notion are appalling.

 

In the meantime, nuclear fission will need to carry part of the load.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

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