An abundant world is the hope that many peoples do have in order to keep going on with the current needs of energy without deep changes in roots on the way we do things.
How would you create all the solar panel you need to create such an amount of energy to cover everybody needs? You need expensive materials and a lot of energy to install them, and still you do not have electricity at night.
Furthermore, the energy density with solar is much less, to power highly intensive activities, like for industry. To store electricity you would need lot of short living polluting batteries.
How much land you have to drill to extract enough geothermal power? Do we have a better use for it? Even having a lot of electricity, it cannot be eaten: to transform solar energy into food, no one can do better than the efficiency of what nature does with photosynthesis in plants.
To just mention the problem of the transportation system, almost totally based on oil, that it would require a widespread effort, resources and time for a complete conversion to electricity.
I agree with the point that we need to change the market rules in a more sustainable form. Today the energy from fossil fuels is still relatively cheap, with respect to other sources, still the inequalities in having food and housing are quite large. The inequalities will not be smaller with cheaper energy clean without changing the distribution of wealth.
I think we need to better design the way we produce food and warm up houses, while looking at the energy problem.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-boom-so-successfull-its-been-halted
RispondiEliminahow the circulating money is disconnected from real goods http://xkcd.com/980/huge/#x=-11052&y=-7038&z=5
RispondiEliminahttp://www.ilnavigatorecurioso.it/2013/04/06/perche-la-cina-sta-costruendo-citta-fantasma-in-africa/
RispondiEliminaQuesta e' una vera e propria colonizzazione e con le regole del gioco (economico) che sono in corso non credo si possa fermare. In sostanza la ricchezza ai cinesi l'abbiamo data spostando da loro le produzioni dei beni che poi compriamo. Avendo ora forza economica se la possono spendere dove la mano d'opera costa ancora meno. Bisognerebbe cambiare le regole, riducendo il margine di profitto e rallentando questo processo. Diventa sempre piu' una necessita' e allo stesso tempo sempre piu' difficile.
questo articolo smonta un po' di illusioni http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-01-03/the-psychology-of-global-warming utile quando si discute con tecnoambientalisti o negazionisti del cambiamento climatico
RispondiEliminaHo to produce meat while restoring soils:
RispondiEliminahttp://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change.html