What will the world be like when energy is inexhaustible?

[Breakingthewall]

the latest scientific findings are beyond promising. The possibility of exploiting the earth's geothermal energy and constant progress in achieving nuclear fusion. especially the first. In 10 years it will be possible to drill a 15 km hole anywhere, install a power plant and produce electricity without fuel. this is going to happen and it is going to revolutionize the world to a point that we cannot now imagine. we will go from scarcity to abundance. It will not be necessary to fight for resources since we can create them. Is a golden age approaching for humanity? I would say yes. but the geopolitical balance is delicate. It seems that the economy is capable of adapting to everything, but how would it adapt to such a radical change?

 

[Yarco]

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

In 10 years it will be possible to drill a 15 km hole anywhere, install a power plant and produce electricity without fuel.

What's your source for this? The world's deepest hole is only 12 km right now. Are we on the brink of some breakthrough of metallurgy or other science that will suddenly make it way easier to dig superdeep boreholes?

The average cost to drill a residential water well 100ish feet deep is like $30k, I don't want to know what it costs to drill 15 km down.

There's some low-hanging fruit we might want to take advantage of first, like climate batteries. I don't see why we couldn't incorporate this into all new homes being built to capture heat during the day and reduce heating costs at night or in the winter:

The examples above are for greenhouses, but the residential equivalent would be something like this: https://www.waterfurnace.com/residential/about-geothermal/

If we can, I think it's better to find smaller-scale technologies that individuals can use to create their own abundance. Even if everything you say about geothermal and nuclear fusion is correct, the energy producers still have a monopoly. They have an incentive to keep the resource scarce and expensive, so they won't exactly be building a geothermal power plant for every city to make electricity near-free.

So I would say don't wait for abundant energy to come at some future date. Start installing windmills and solar panels on your own property, or burying pipes under your entire yard with water/air that gets heated by the sun and circulated into your home.

[Breakingthewall]

8 hours ago, Yarco said:

What's your source for this? The world's deepest hole is only 12 km right now.

They assure that using the lasers developed to heat the plasma necessary for the fusion of hydrogen, they have made a drill capable of vaporizing the rock and drilling up to 20 km without problems. They are studying how to cover the walls of the hole, and the idea is to do it where there are old thermal installations to take advantage of the infrastructure. seems possible. Same the hydrogen fusion. until very recently there was only the iter project, which went very calmly. now there are Chinese and British companies and from other countries and a race has been established to be the first to achieve it. if not, it never gets done. one way or another, we will have infinite energy

[Leo Gura]

Your notions of the energy and resource ecology are a pipedream. That's not how things work in the real world.

[Breakingthewall]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Your notions of the energy and resource ecology are a pipedream. That's not how things work in the real world.

Why do you say that? In the real world, in recent times, there have been technological advances that have completely revolutionized society. Who would have said 100 years ago that the world would be the way it is? creating inexhaustible energy, independent of limited resources, is within reach. It is already almost possible with fission (need resources but seems there are to spare)  and China and other countries are getting involved, seeking energy independence. but this is not a rea solution, it's very dangerous, etc. fusion and geothermal energy will be definitely. oil and gas will stop burning, and the entire political scenario will radically change. It's as simple as tomorrow in the newspaper appears a new saying that any company has achieved a stable hydrogen fusion reactor

Edited July 17, 2022 by Breakingthewall

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

has achieved a stable hydrogen fusion reactor

Fusion is far away. Current fusion reactors consume more energy than they generate.

[Breakingthewall]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Fusion is far away

fusion  has been developed last years exclusively by the ITER project, a group of officials who worked very calmly and without any pressure. From few years ago MIT and private companies from Germany, china, gb, are in the race. progress is made every month. On the other hand, there is more and more talk of fission energy with thorium, of reusing waste, the autonomous power plants of bill gates, etc. Maybe they ve not a future because of the danger. and the other, the geothermal. If what they say about drills with lasers capable of heating up to millions of degrees is true, unlimited electricity could be generated anywhere. human advancement passes through ceasing to depend on limited energy sources. this must happen in the next few years, or economy will collapse. i bet it will happen soon

[mmKay]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQmFVcD-Mbo

[ChadT]

I've been thinking a lot about peak oil lately.  It's going to be a real challenge for humanity to transition away from fossil fuels.  It's running out far faster than most people realize.  The cheap, easy to get stuff anyway.   Chris Martenson has done some pretty solid work on this.  I'm not as pessimistic as he is.   I think the US will fair better than most countries, but I do think we will be forced to transition away from oil in the near future and it's going to be a economically painful process.  

 

[integral]

next political milestone:

Geo Change Deniers.

Edited July 18, 2022 by integral