{"id":66905,"date":"2024-03-03T07:24:14","date_gmt":"2024-03-03T12:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66905"},"modified":"2024-03-03T07:24:14","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T12:24:14","slug":"unsustainable-goose-chases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66905","title":{"rendered":"Unsustainable Goose Chases"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Unsustainable Goose Chases<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
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\"\"<\/a>As we look toward the uncertain future, it may occur to some among us that we\u2019ll need energy on Mars. How are we going to get it? Presumably Mars has no fossil fuels\u2014although on the plus side its atmosphere is already 95% CO2<\/sub>, compared to Earth\u2019s 0.04%, so they\u2019re likely to be less uptight about carbon emissions on the red planet.<\/p>\n

At this point, we could launch into an extensive discussion, full of quantitative detail and analysis about the solar potential: insolation, materials availability, dust storm mitigation, and on and on. But the\u00a0real<\/em>\u00a0answer to how we will get energy on Mars is probably:\u00a0we won\u2019t<\/strong>. We\u2019re extremely unlikely to set up a permanent presence on Mars, if humans ever even go there at all. So the exercise would be of questionable value.<\/p>\n

I feel similarly about discussions of full-scale renewable energy and associated storage and grid shenanigans. How will we rise to the challenge to keep modernity powered into the future? In all likelihood,\u00a0we won\u2019t<\/strong>. Besides the misdirection of \u201cinexhaustible flows<\/a>,\u201d keeping modernity powered by\u00a0any<\/em>\u00a0means looks like game-over for ecological health, and therefore humans, if pursued at all costs. So, enough with the fantasy schemes.<\/p>\n

Why so bold? Glad you asked.<\/p>\n

Past posts of mine have dealt with the question of what sustainability means, and associated timescales:<\/p>\n

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  1. Ultimate Success<\/a>: thinking 10,000 years ahead, what\u2019s still possible?<\/li>\n
  2. Can Modernity Last?<\/a>: an attempt to synthesize why continuance is not in the cards<\/li>\n
  3. Sustainable Timescales<\/a>: the relevant scope is that of biological evolution<\/li>\n
  4. Inexhaustible Flows<\/a>: the dead end of materials-hungry \u201crenewable\u201d energy technology<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Additionally,\u00a0The Simple Story of Civilization<\/a>\u00a0frames the current epoch as so mind-numbingly new and rapid that it boggles the mind how we could ever think of modernity as a normal time that might have staying power, rather than a fireworks show. It\u2019s only because that\u2019s all our short lives have shown us.<\/p>\n

    \u2026click on the above link to read the rest\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Unsustainable Goose Chases As we look toward the uncertain future, it may occur to some among us that we\u2019ll need energy on Mars. How are we going to get it? Presumably Mars has no fossil fuels\u2014although on the plus side its atmosphere is already 95% CO2, compared to Earth\u2019s 0.04%, so they\u2019re likely to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[9128,34145,674,769,31103,7474],"class_list":["post-66905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-do-the-math","tag-goose-chase","tag-renewable-energy","tag-sustainability","tag-tom-murphy","tag-unsustainable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66906,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66905\/revisions\/66906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}