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[MonkeyHead]

Do we get to strut around naked eating fruit? If so, I'm all for it.


There's an upper limit of how much energy we have to use: the amount that reaches us from the sun (and maybe some geothermal energy on the side). If we stole every drop of sunlight and converted it with 100% efficiency, we'd have ~20x the energy the world currently uses (from all sources). Not really all that much, when you think about it. So we need to be shooting for efficiency. We won't have any sort of scarcity free utopia until we have energy to use in abundance.

We would have WAY WAY more than 20 times the energy the world currently uses if we captured 100% of all sunlight hitting the earth. By vast vast margins.

Not quite - remember to add in the fact that the figure of 1400 Wm^-2 assumes a perpendicular facing to the Sun, and igornes atmospheric absorbtion. Seeing as the Earth is an oblate spheroid, most square metres on Earth receive only a portion of the approx 1400 Wm^-2. Though even if you factor these in you still end up with a truly offensive amount of solar energy reacing the surface.

[abculatter_2]

My source is an educational video I watched last year at college, so I can't link it, and am too lazy to go to wikipedia at the moment

And I've so far gotten estimates which varied from 20x to 15,000x as much power as we use globally, and I'm too tired to do the math myself as well...

Modern technology doesn't just exist independent of our way of living. We need maintenance, specialists, engineers, R&D labs. 

Well, yeah, of course. Of course not EVERYONE would be out in the forests, hugging the trees every day...
The cool thing about the ecological system of agriculture, is that it's completely and totally self-sustaining, if we do it right. We could probably increase yields by being more hands-on, but for the most part all you have to do is harvest the food.

Yes, even the sunlight that hits Earth alone is thousands of times more energy than we use. If we harnessed all of its energy we'd have massive, massive amounts of energy beyond what we could feasibly use.

Right, exactly. We really have more energy then we could every need even if we harvested only 5% of the sunlight.

[Descan]

Note: Just because the stereotypical robot is mechanical, doesn't mean it has to be in this scenario. All robot means here is a semi-intelligent workforce, dumb enough that it's not a morally-reprehensible slave race, but smart enough to deal with most unexpected scenarios, and with more complicated, but still ultimately grunt work, manual labours.

This is starting to sound like the unquestionably bad parts of Brave New World.

Yeah, I thought of that while writing it. I would prefer robotics.

[penguinofhonor]

Yeah, intentionally keeping someone smart enough to do a certain job but dumb enough to not complain or have greater aspirations is pretty terrible in my book.

[Frumple]

... wouldn't that make robotics equally as terrible in this future world if we had the capability to create sentient AI? The only meaningful difference between a gene-engineered slave race (better termed something along the lines of bio-robots) and robots is construction material.

[Leafsnail]

In 2008 human energy consumption was about 132,000 Terrawatt/hours. That is about 1/ 46,144,405.4 of earths insolation.

I have read that a solar panel array capable of providing enough power for the entire world could comfortably fit into the uninhabited parts of the Sahara Desert.  Of course there are massive cost, energy transport and energy storage issues associated with that idea, but solar panels in deserts are a theoretically viable solution if we can overcome those problems.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Sand. Sand would definitely be a problem.

[Descan]

GIANT SAND WALLS.

Also, I heard it was in more than just the sahara. Gobi, Kalahari, and Nevada (I DON'T REMEMBER IT'S ACTUAL NAME FUCK YOU) would be needed? Or maybe that was just maximizing it, or to make access all over the world easier.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Also, I heard it was in more than just the sahara. Gobi, Kalahari, and Nevada (I DON'T REMEMBER IT'S ACTUAL NAME FUCK YOU) would be needed?

HOW CAN YOU NOT REMEMBER THE NAME OF THE MOJAVE DESERT? THERE WAS EVEN A POPULAR VIDEO GAME SET IN IT, AND WE'RE ALL NERDS!

[Descan]

ALL I REMEMBER IS BLACK MESA.

[Jervill]

Also, I heard it was in more than just the sahara. Gobi, Kalahari, and Nevada (I DON'T REMEMBER IT'S ACTUAL NAME FUCK YOU) would be needed?

HOW CAN YOU NOT REMEMBER THE NAME OF THE MOJAVE DESERT? THERE WAS EVEN A POPULAR VIDEO GAME SET IN IT, AND WE'RE ALL NERDS!

Patrolling the Mojave almost makes me wish for a nuclear winter.

[Leafsnail]

Sand. Sand would definitely be a problem.

...Well yes, but not an insurmountable one.  It'd probably go under "cost".

[Lagslayer]

And ultimately "cost" would mean energy.

[MadocComadrin]

Sand. Sand would definitely be a problem.

...Well yes, but not an insurmountable one.  It'd probably go under "cost".

It's quite the barrier for space-based arrays, and that's where there's relatively few fine particulates (compared to a desert). It's a big problem. One that still requires a bit of research to overcome.

[lemon10]

The total solar energy absorbed by Earth's atmosphere, oceans and land masses is approximately 3,850,000 exajoules (EJ) per year.

The world energy consumption in 2010 was 474 exajoules.
Obviously energy consumption would need to massively increase since all food would need to be grown by artifical light, as would all light that humans/animals would recieve, but I figure that by the point that humanity covers all of the land and all of the water with solar panels, then organics won't be really very common anyways.

Now, assuming that the atmosphere absorbs 50% of that, and regular land+sea based arrays would be able to capture the other 50%, that's 4,060 times the current energy consumption (although at the point where every square inch of earth was covered by solar panels, we would probably start to use space-based solar sources, so that's by no means the upper bound of energy production).

Sand. Sand would definitely be a problem.

...Well yes, but not an insurmountable one.  It'd probably go under "cost".

It's quite the barrier for space-based arrays, and that's where there's relatively few fine particulates (compared to a desert). It's a big problem. One that still requires a bit of research to overcome.

I do think that's mainly because the particles in space are going at like 5 miles per second, which isn't a problem in a desert.