[ExI] Wind, solar could provide 99.9% of ALL POWER by 2030

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 8:50 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

It is more likely that an emergency
> situation will mean our remaining resources will be concentrated on
> delivering one new power source. And the other options discarded for
> another 100 years.

### Thorium is about as common as lead, and LFTR reactors have been
proven as highly efficient and safe a long time ago. The whole energy
and resources scare is a complete non-issue.
-------------------
>
> If we choose wrong, then the worst fears of 'the sky is falling'
> people could be realised.

### The real problem are the sky-is-falling people.

Alfred Toynbee wrote that the fall of a civilization starts once the
elites lose their confidence. In its ascendancy, a civilization is
borne aloft by the exuberance of the few, brashly confident in their
will to change the world, who are followed by the meek masses. In
Goetterdaemmerung, a pall of fear and depression descends on the
thought-leaders, and those who are lost will lead others into
oblivion.

If I didn't fully expect the Rapture of the Nerds to erase us from
this world I would have thought that the resource we may truly lack is
the social capital needed to focus minds and arms on the merely
technical issues - but then, I do think that the robots will soon take
over, and everything will work out OK (for the robots, that is).

Rafal

PS. I will be a robot too, when I grow up.