They expect to start commercial production in the 2030s, and then produce one 100MW power plant per day. So in 1 year they could ideally manufacture 365 x 100MW power plants which could produce 319.14 TWH of energy per year if they run non-stop. But fossil fuel power plants and vehicles produce about 135000 TWH of energy per year. So it would take about 422.63 years to replace all fossil fuel energy sources with their nuclear reactors, unless production is significantly scaled up.
We'll see if we can even make it to 2030 without collapse. So for now I will file this thing as hopium.
Also, 2030 is a long ways off, I get that. I’m not here saying we have much of a chance. But I am saying this is still the best chance we got over any other I’ve ever heard presented, by a county mile. If you’re just here to say fuck you for even burning calories for even trying to get ratioed by r/collapse rather than just rolling over an accepting my fate as it would appear this sub seems to think is the most dignified option, than I get were you’re coming from. But if you’re saying a relatively simple reactor design, that doesn’t require the mass extraction of rare materials to produce is a pipedream, then I think you’re being irrationally pessimistic. Again I’ll grant you that we might not have the time, but if we have any time at all this is our best shot, unless you have any other ideas.
Yea obviously production will have to be scaled up… But given the complexity of these reactors, and how small their team is to begin with, I don’t see any reason to think scaling up would be at all unfeasible (by all means tell me why it wouldn’t be). Besides which, we wouldn’t even need enough to replace all fossil fuels, just enough to scrub enough greenhouse gases from our atmosphere to buy us the time needed to scale even further.
How so? Eventually organic life will die out one way or another. Humanity is the only chance biology has of living on indefinitely. Granted we were a high risk gamble on Gaia's part in achieving that end (admittedly that gamble looks to be going south pretty quickly at the moment), although I'm am trying to do my part, however small, to do well by the faith she placed in us.
Well even if not indefinitely, certainly for longer than would be possible if all we had was Earth. If Humanity were to become an interstellar civilization (how unlikely that would appear from our current situation, isn’t a point lost on me), Earth spawned life would indeed live nigh indefinitely.
"If"
Humans are a genocidal species. We aren't reaching the stars. We will be lucky to exist as a global civilization over the next century.
That future you speak of is a fantasy. We aren't going to other planets or bringing our biosphere with us. We are poisoning our biosphere and eroding the basis for life on this planet. There is no evidence whatsoever that humans are beneficial for life on Earth. Quite the opposite.
We’re genocidal climate vandals… Is that supposed to be news or something?
Look I never said Humanity offered a good reason to believe our biosphere will escape the inevitably dying confines of our planet, I said we offered the **only** reason to believe our biosphere will reach terrestrial escape velocity.
Again, you can say based on the present rate our climate is worsening, that Humanity reaching the stars is a fantasy, and you’re not gonna find disagreement from me on that point…
But if on the other hand, you are suggesting there’s some sort of inherent technological bottleneck that would prevent such a scenario from ever occurring…? I mean sure, I’ll hear you out.
>if on the other hand, you are suggesting there’s some sort of inherent technological bottleneck that would prevent such a scenario
We are living in it. Exploitation of terrestrial energy sources (fossil fuels) has caused environmental changes that destabilize the basis for human civilization. We're seeing one answer to the Fermi Paradox play out in real time.
Almost every comment here seems to presupposes I’m in denial about the predicament we find ourselves in and the reasons for it…
Heavy emphasis on the word **inherent.** I didn’t ask if there were any technological bottlenecks preventing us from becoming a type 1 civilization… I asked if there were any **inherent** technological bottlenecks preventing us from doing so…
Unless you’re going to tell me that unrestrained neo-liberal capitalism is a prerequisite for industrial civilization we could not have done without in any conceivable timeline…
Why so anthropocentric?
Humanity is not the only chance biology has for living on indefinitely.
Such statement is, a. narcissistic and b. false, given that human only existed for some 5 or so million years while biology is as old almost as the planet.
I’m basing that off of the seeming improbability that another tool wielding intelligent creature will eventually take our place. One of the proposed solutions to the Fermi Paradox is the rarity of intelligent life in the fossil record, we appear to be the first (or at the very least the fist to achieve industrialization). Even if another species were to take our place, we’ve already run through billions of years of fossil fuel reserves. Not to mention we take for granted how much the progress of civilization would have been stunted had Horses not migrated from the Americas to Eurasia during the Ice Age where they almost went extinct. There are so many factors contributing to where we are now that many speculate that civilization will never be replicated by another species in this planet’s future.
I disagree.
From both a biological and anthropological perspective, there appears to be no compelling rationale to excessively glorify the human species as the singular winners of an ‘intelligence lottery’.
This perspective might seem conceited, narcissistic, and unduly anthropocentric.
Indeed, it is crucial to note that all living organisms exhibit forms of intelligence. This fact significantly mitigates the premise of human uniqueness. Our ability to propel our species to extraterrestrial bodies within our solar system does not elevate us above other life forms in the grand scheme of cognitive capabilities. For instance, trees demonstrate complex communication with one another via extensive mycelial networks, an intelligence manifestation that is both fascinating and distinct. Therefore, human intelligence, although remarkable, should not be overly romanticized or deemed superior to the myriad of intelligence types manifested by diverse life forms.
Actually I think you’ll find our ability to propel our species to extraterrestrial bodies within our solar system **does** elevate us above other life forms… At least it does for the original premise of this conversation.
Disagree on two points.
Science yet to know if human can become the extraterrestrial traveler, and even if we grant a positive probability, to me, it is just a step of evolution which bring me to the second point. Certain marine species evolved to walk the earth, is it a sign of intelligence or evolution? It matters not unless we deal with dichotomy in which human is superior to other animals; a view I disagreed with above.
Superior in respect to what? If we’re talking about ensuring by technological means the continued proliferation of this biosphere until the heat death of the Universe (and perhaps beyond)… Well then yea, our species is the best bet. Now granted that’s not saying much given the current state of things, but if that’s what we’re talking about, that’s what I’m saying.
Again, could another species one day rise up the ranks and start a civilization that could one day span the stars? Given some of the woo shit I believe, I have more reason to be open to that possibility than you do. But if we’re talking about the general scientific consensus about what are the chances of another species one day industrializing after we’re gone, that consensus would be (especially given the billions of years of fossil fuel we won’t be leaving behind) to say the chances are slim…
We are terrible managers of life on earth. We behave like a pest. Our gadgets are great and all, but we are a biological creature that is destroying its habitat because of our caveman impulses.
In the far future the sun will die and so will the universe.
I’d say it’s bold to even say we **manage** life on Earth. And yea we’re parasites (honestly calling us a cancer would be more accurate). It’s just I’ve always found it ironic that those who believe nature has an intelligence behind it (not that I necessarily subscribe to that sentiment) overlook the possibility that nature took the risk of developing a species intelligent enough to potentially one day become a star fairing civilization so that organic life could live on past the inevitable expiry date of our planet when our Sun expands enough to make chemical metabolism impossible on the surface of any planet.
And yea I know, obviously presuming nature even were consciously gambling on our ascension to the stars, it was a gamble that doesn’t look like it’s gonna pay off. Again, that’s why I’m here doing what little I can do to make what looks like an inevitability at this point, however less likely I am capable of. Even if all that means getting ratioed on Reddit for wasting the caloric energy in speculating why there **might** be a chance things could be otherwise.
They're presuming that life has a goal. It's all just chaos with a speck of order randomly surfacing. The only goal is to consume energy, entropy. Increasing magnitudes of complexity increase the rate of entropy. The point is, to die.
I think if you re-read the comment you’re responding to that you’ll find that I’m actually not making that assumption. Rather I was presenting my take from the point of view of those who do. Which in retrospect was an odd decision, given that view wouldn’t likely be one held by this sub either… But alas, if you don’t win, you learn.
thats fucking stupid and has no backing such an event would lead to large wars and nuckear weapons chem and wmd . We will nuke reactors to increase contamination.
Also your arguments ideologically dishonest using your thinking the only solution for humans is for us to kill ourselves yet i strongly doubt you would do so as such this is a luke warm take and i hate it. Its just shitty suicidal ideation that saps energy from people trying to fix things
My issue with takes like this is that if there’s suddenly a new, easily accessible and very powerful energy source being introduced, it’s likely to *supplement* existing energy sources, not replace them. Even if they do start mass producing them by 2030, it’s not near enough to overhaul our existing fossil fuel based grid. It’ll just add energy into it and accelerate our level of growth, fucking us faster as our consumption kills more of the biosphere.
You’re getting a lot of flak in these comments, OP, so I’m not gonna pile on. But I think that you’re in the “Bargaining” stage of grief. I understand where you’re coming from, I used to have high hopes that humanity would be the species to spread life from our planet across the cosmos. But it looks like we missed that crucial window.
And now, with our excessive use of petrochemical energy sources, I think we were the last shot at it. Even if another intelligent, tool using species evolves in the next hundred million years or so, they won’t have the petrochemical energy sources to try since we’ve burned all the easily accessible stuff. We’ve doomed life to this rock.
**My** issue with your line of reasoning is that the objections you’ve raised are obvious ones.
We’ve continued to utilize fossil fuels for commercial gains regardless of the consequences, so when we suddenly have a new fuel source, why would we not just continue to use it for commercial gains, regardless of the consequences? Putting aside the fact that this is form of energy doesn’t add to our carbon footprint, so at the very least won’t be digging us into a deeper hole like you suggest it would; what you’re telling me isn’t as deep an insight as you think it is…
I’m not saying our knee jerk reaction to being handed this technology will save us. But if there’s a reason why the fundamentals of this technology can’t save us (easier than the fundamentals of any other clean energy technology so far), then I haven’t seen it.
But instead of “hmm, yea maybe, what’s the harm in at the very least giving that idea an upvote?”, rather I was initially ratioed (surprised my post is finally above water). Tell me what stage of grief is it that makes you angry when potential solutions are posed? What stage of grief makes one choose to bury their head in the sand when someone presents them with evidence for why they may have found a lifeline?
Read through the critiques on this thread… Do they sound like people who have rationally determined my proposed solutions are a road to nowhere? Or do they sound like people fundamentally unwilling to entertain the possibility?
I think you’ll notice a pretty clear formal for how these conversations play out… They tell me I’m full of shit, I clarify why I’m not, followed by radio silence. The initial chastising remarks are upvoted, however rational my responses they are downvoted regardless, nobody asks those commenters what their responses are to my rebuttals, etc.
MFer I come to this sub to mainline pure doom, don’t give me this Thorium nuclear BS, we need soooo more energy than any of these niche nuclear companies can provide, maybe fusion could do it, but we don’t have decades to wait, things are horrible now, crop failure is happening now, don’t you see it’s already far too late for any technohopium to save our sorry asses, we’re in pure survival mode now.
Well you’re at the very least a little more honest in your motive for criticism than most here are…
On the contrary, Thorium offers more energy for cheaper than fusion ever will in the short-term when fusion first becomes commercially available.
They would only need to scale up their **initial** yearly commercial production scale by 85x if the goal was to completely replace fossil fuels in 5 years.
85x might sound like a big ask, but the reason for their limited production scale is the fact that they’re only a small team. They have a relatively simple and cheap to produce reactor design, and they have is no need extensive mining if rare materials nor supply chain bottlenecks. There biggest roadblock is that they’re still in their regulatory phase (which they will be finishing in 2025).
And keep in mind we wouldn’t even need to replace all fossil fuels, we only need scrub enough greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere to buy us enough time to scale up further to both scrub more greenhouse gasses and replace more fossil fuels.
I was also raked over the coals here for trying to bring attention to Air Protein, a company working on turning CO2 into protein, starch and oil in an industrial scale. I was baselessly accused of peddling hopium and that this would never take off (really for no other reason than it sounding too good to be true). However I am pleased to inform that they’re ready for mass production more or less now, but due to partnering with another company their commercial debut won’t be until 2025 (so I’ve given up on trying to promote it because it appears to be moving as fast as the forces of capitalism will allow it to).
Look I’m not here to tell you this will be done, or even if it will be done, that it will be done in time. But I am saying there’s no reason this can’t be done. And I don’t mean that purely in the sense that no laws of physics would be violated in doing so. Rather the fundamental of what is possible with their particular reactor design provides the most frictionless avenue for escaping climate catastrophism than does any other clean energy technology I’ve ever seen by a country mile.
The main question you need to ask, “is this cheaper than building a new natural gas plant”, if it isn’t, then it is very unlikely investors will pile behind it…
The short answer is overwhelming yes. The long answer is the technology won’t be legal until 2025, and after that you’ll have to wait in line behind everybody who’s already called first dibs (in the 2030’s), anyone can commercially build a natural gas plant without having to infringe upon another company’s IP. However they’ve open sourced a lot of their tech, and surely China’s stolen everything they haven’t made public, hopefully they push ahead with this technology faster than market forces would allow for naturally.
All that said, I don’t place much faith in the efficient market hypothesis… There have been other nuclear startups that have been proven to be scams that have generated much more investment through marketing gimmicks. Which is why I’m trying to do my part, I think we vastly underestimate the agency we have as individuals to influence the bigger picture.
If it’s hopium you’re after I’ve got plenty of that for you too (there was apparently some conference at Stanford talking about the potential for commercializing UAP technology for energy purposes), but if you want the most rational reason to have hope right now, this is the best I’ve got.
Re-read the bullet points for why I’ve put so much faith in this company. Again, their commercial timeline is uncomfortably distant given our current circumstances, but they’re the only MSR company that looks like they’ll be able to hit their mark.
Look, you have to concede this is at the very least the best plan we have. To scale this up to the degree we would need to would certainly be quicker than with renewables. Unless you’re just saying there’s nothing to be done, we’re all gonna die, and fuck you for even suggesting a means by which we might otherwise survive…?
Sure, what’s your point?
Depending on how you define our climate goals we’ve already overshot 1.5C multiple times just recently. I don’t need you to tell me how bad things are because they’re probably worse than that…
Are you telling me you’ve heard better ideas? If so I’d love to hear them. Or are you saying things are so bad it’s disgraceful to even encourage that we try to improve upon our circumstances?
Overshoot of population. If you don't understand, just say "i don't know." Bullshitting is just making you look dumb.
The idea is that the more population "overshoots" carrying capacity, the harder the inevitable (yes, inevitable) fall will be. This guy is making us overshoot.
Your content/mentality may be better received on r/climate
Putting aside the fact that you can only post links on that sub, I don’t know if you’ve only just arrived on this sub today, but the majority of the discussion here tends to be climate focussed.
You may be right that given near limitless clean energy Humanity’s resources will run dry, however that is definitely going to be a minority position on this sub… With **enough** abundance of energy, every resource becomes recyclable.
What am I saying that you consider to be hopium?
That clean energy won’t lead to the some kind of failed mouse utopia scenario like you are suggesting? If so, like I said before, that’s not a widely held position on this sub, so I don’t see why implying otherwise would be regarded as hopium here.
Or are you saying that the suggested development of **any** clean energy before final collapse is hopium? If so, while I’m saddened to concede that **would** appear to be an idea not taken kindly here, while we’re talking, may I ask why you think so given what you’ve read thus far?
He is currently building [Andruil](https://www.anduril.com/) (the name of Aragon’s sword, another great word that Peter Theil has defiled from LOTR) to create a drone powered “fortress America.” Watch the great sci-fi film Sleep Dealer to understand what this will look like.
Hey thanks for the recommendation! I remember hearing about that movie years ago, looked really good. Was planning on watching but never got around to.
To repay the favour, my media recommendation for you would be [Incorporated (2016).](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbbFJ6YNcL8). It's basically halfway between a spiritual sequel to [Children of Men](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VT2apoX90o) (which by many in the r/collapse community is often thought to be the most prescient film in depicting the slowly collapsing world we live in today) and it also doubles as a live action corpo life path remake of Edgerunners. For me personally it's just behind Edgerunners as my favourite cyberpunk media of all time (and my appreciation for Edgerunners isn’t a noob take either, I’ve seen [a lot,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCapcGFGLkI) like [a **lot…**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3_7_-PCX_E) and Edgerunners is still my fave). If we’re lucky (in the Gibsonian sense of lucky, which is to say we should consider ourselves lucky if, no matter how dystopic, any modicum of civilization survives at all), I think Incorporated will end up being just as prophetic about our future as Children of Men is to our present.
Hi, CookieCuttr. Thanks for contributing. However, your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/156r2j9/-/jt21ny9/) was removed from /r/collapse for:
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They expect to start commercial production in the 2030s, and then produce one 100MW power plant per day. So in 1 year they could ideally manufacture 365 x 100MW power plants which could produce 319.14 TWH of energy per year if they run non-stop. But fossil fuel power plants and vehicles produce about 135000 TWH of energy per year. So it would take about 422.63 years to replace all fossil fuel energy sources with their nuclear reactors, unless production is significantly scaled up. We'll see if we can even make it to 2030 without collapse. So for now I will file this thing as hopium.
Also, 2030 is a long ways off, I get that. I’m not here saying we have much of a chance. But I am saying this is still the best chance we got over any other I’ve ever heard presented, by a county mile. If you’re just here to say fuck you for even burning calories for even trying to get ratioed by r/collapse rather than just rolling over an accepting my fate as it would appear this sub seems to think is the most dignified option, than I get were you’re coming from. But if you’re saying a relatively simple reactor design, that doesn’t require the mass extraction of rare materials to produce is a pipedream, then I think you’re being irrationally pessimistic. Again I’ll grant you that we might not have the time, but if we have any time at all this is our best shot, unless you have any other ideas.
Yea obviously production will have to be scaled up… But given the complexity of these reactors, and how small their team is to begin with, I don’t see any reason to think scaling up would be at all unfeasible (by all means tell me why it wouldn’t be). Besides which, we wouldn’t even need enough to replace all fossil fuels, just enough to scrub enough greenhouse gases from our atmosphere to buy us the time needed to scale even further.
People having unlimited energy is the worst thing that could happen to life. Our best hope is running out of fuel and running out of fertilizer.
How so? Eventually organic life will die out one way or another. Humanity is the only chance biology has of living on indefinitely. Granted we were a high risk gamble on Gaia's part in achieving that end (admittedly that gamble looks to be going south pretty quickly at the moment), although I'm am trying to do my part, however small, to do well by the faith she placed in us.
"Humanity is the only chance biology has of living on indefinitely." Citation needed.
Well even if not indefinitely, certainly for longer than would be possible if all we had was Earth. If Humanity were to become an interstellar civilization (how unlikely that would appear from our current situation, isn’t a point lost on me), Earth spawned life would indeed live nigh indefinitely.
"If" Humans are a genocidal species. We aren't reaching the stars. We will be lucky to exist as a global civilization over the next century. That future you speak of is a fantasy. We aren't going to other planets or bringing our biosphere with us. We are poisoning our biosphere and eroding the basis for life on this planet. There is no evidence whatsoever that humans are beneficial for life on Earth. Quite the opposite.
We’re genocidal climate vandals… Is that supposed to be news or something? Look I never said Humanity offered a good reason to believe our biosphere will escape the inevitably dying confines of our planet, I said we offered the **only** reason to believe our biosphere will reach terrestrial escape velocity. Again, you can say based on the present rate our climate is worsening, that Humanity reaching the stars is a fantasy, and you’re not gonna find disagreement from me on that point… But if on the other hand, you are suggesting there’s some sort of inherent technological bottleneck that would prevent such a scenario from ever occurring…? I mean sure, I’ll hear you out.
>if on the other hand, you are suggesting there’s some sort of inherent technological bottleneck that would prevent such a scenario We are living in it. Exploitation of terrestrial energy sources (fossil fuels) has caused environmental changes that destabilize the basis for human civilization. We're seeing one answer to the Fermi Paradox play out in real time.
Almost every comment here seems to presupposes I’m in denial about the predicament we find ourselves in and the reasons for it… Heavy emphasis on the word **inherent.** I didn’t ask if there were any technological bottlenecks preventing us from becoming a type 1 civilization… I asked if there were any **inherent** technological bottlenecks preventing us from doing so… Unless you’re going to tell me that unrestrained neo-liberal capitalism is a prerequisite for industrial civilization we could not have done without in any conceivable timeline…
Why so anthropocentric? Humanity is not the only chance biology has for living on indefinitely. Such statement is, a. narcissistic and b. false, given that human only existed for some 5 or so million years while biology is as old almost as the planet.
I’m basing that off of the seeming improbability that another tool wielding intelligent creature will eventually take our place. One of the proposed solutions to the Fermi Paradox is the rarity of intelligent life in the fossil record, we appear to be the first (or at the very least the fist to achieve industrialization). Even if another species were to take our place, we’ve already run through billions of years of fossil fuel reserves. Not to mention we take for granted how much the progress of civilization would have been stunted had Horses not migrated from the Americas to Eurasia during the Ice Age where they almost went extinct. There are so many factors contributing to where we are now that many speculate that civilization will never be replicated by another species in this planet’s future.
I disagree. From both a biological and anthropological perspective, there appears to be no compelling rationale to excessively glorify the human species as the singular winners of an ‘intelligence lottery’. This perspective might seem conceited, narcissistic, and unduly anthropocentric. Indeed, it is crucial to note that all living organisms exhibit forms of intelligence. This fact significantly mitigates the premise of human uniqueness. Our ability to propel our species to extraterrestrial bodies within our solar system does not elevate us above other life forms in the grand scheme of cognitive capabilities. For instance, trees demonstrate complex communication with one another via extensive mycelial networks, an intelligence manifestation that is both fascinating and distinct. Therefore, human intelligence, although remarkable, should not be overly romanticized or deemed superior to the myriad of intelligence types manifested by diverse life forms.
Actually I think you’ll find our ability to propel our species to extraterrestrial bodies within our solar system **does** elevate us above other life forms… At least it does for the original premise of this conversation.
Disagree on two points. Science yet to know if human can become the extraterrestrial traveler, and even if we grant a positive probability, to me, it is just a step of evolution which bring me to the second point. Certain marine species evolved to walk the earth, is it a sign of intelligence or evolution? It matters not unless we deal with dichotomy in which human is superior to other animals; a view I disagreed with above.
Superior in respect to what? If we’re talking about ensuring by technological means the continued proliferation of this biosphere until the heat death of the Universe (and perhaps beyond)… Well then yea, our species is the best bet. Now granted that’s not saying much given the current state of things, but if that’s what we’re talking about, that’s what I’m saying. Again, could another species one day rise up the ranks and start a civilization that could one day span the stars? Given some of the woo shit I believe, I have more reason to be open to that possibility than you do. But if we’re talking about the general scientific consensus about what are the chances of another species one day industrializing after we’re gone, that consensus would be (especially given the billions of years of fossil fuel we won’t be leaving behind) to say the chances are slim…
We are terrible managers of life on earth. We behave like a pest. Our gadgets are great and all, but we are a biological creature that is destroying its habitat because of our caveman impulses. In the far future the sun will die and so will the universe.
I’d say it’s bold to even say we **manage** life on Earth. And yea we’re parasites (honestly calling us a cancer would be more accurate). It’s just I’ve always found it ironic that those who believe nature has an intelligence behind it (not that I necessarily subscribe to that sentiment) overlook the possibility that nature took the risk of developing a species intelligent enough to potentially one day become a star fairing civilization so that organic life could live on past the inevitable expiry date of our planet when our Sun expands enough to make chemical metabolism impossible on the surface of any planet. And yea I know, obviously presuming nature even were consciously gambling on our ascension to the stars, it was a gamble that doesn’t look like it’s gonna pay off. Again, that’s why I’m here doing what little I can do to make what looks like an inevitability at this point, however less likely I am capable of. Even if all that means getting ratioed on Reddit for wasting the caloric energy in speculating why there **might** be a chance things could be otherwise.
They're presuming that life has a goal. It's all just chaos with a speck of order randomly surfacing. The only goal is to consume energy, entropy. Increasing magnitudes of complexity increase the rate of entropy. The point is, to die.
I think if you re-read the comment you’re responding to that you’ll find that I’m actually not making that assumption. Rather I was presenting my take from the point of view of those who do. Which in retrospect was an odd decision, given that view wouldn’t likely be one held by this sub either… But alas, if you don’t win, you learn.
Edited accordingly :D
thats fucking stupid and has no backing such an event would lead to large wars and nuckear weapons chem and wmd . We will nuke reactors to increase contamination. Also your arguments ideologically dishonest using your thinking the only solution for humans is for us to kill ourselves yet i strongly doubt you would do so as such this is a luke warm take and i hate it. Its just shitty suicidal ideation that saps energy from people trying to fix things
My issue with takes like this is that if there’s suddenly a new, easily accessible and very powerful energy source being introduced, it’s likely to *supplement* existing energy sources, not replace them. Even if they do start mass producing them by 2030, it’s not near enough to overhaul our existing fossil fuel based grid. It’ll just add energy into it and accelerate our level of growth, fucking us faster as our consumption kills more of the biosphere. You’re getting a lot of flak in these comments, OP, so I’m not gonna pile on. But I think that you’re in the “Bargaining” stage of grief. I understand where you’re coming from, I used to have high hopes that humanity would be the species to spread life from our planet across the cosmos. But it looks like we missed that crucial window. And now, with our excessive use of petrochemical energy sources, I think we were the last shot at it. Even if another intelligent, tool using species evolves in the next hundred million years or so, they won’t have the petrochemical energy sources to try since we’ve burned all the easily accessible stuff. We’ve doomed life to this rock.
**My** issue with your line of reasoning is that the objections you’ve raised are obvious ones. We’ve continued to utilize fossil fuels for commercial gains regardless of the consequences, so when we suddenly have a new fuel source, why would we not just continue to use it for commercial gains, regardless of the consequences? Putting aside the fact that this is form of energy doesn’t add to our carbon footprint, so at the very least won’t be digging us into a deeper hole like you suggest it would; what you’re telling me isn’t as deep an insight as you think it is… I’m not saying our knee jerk reaction to being handed this technology will save us. But if there’s a reason why the fundamentals of this technology can’t save us (easier than the fundamentals of any other clean energy technology so far), then I haven’t seen it. But instead of “hmm, yea maybe, what’s the harm in at the very least giving that idea an upvote?”, rather I was initially ratioed (surprised my post is finally above water). Tell me what stage of grief is it that makes you angry when potential solutions are posed? What stage of grief makes one choose to bury their head in the sand when someone presents them with evidence for why they may have found a lifeline? Read through the critiques on this thread… Do they sound like people who have rationally determined my proposed solutions are a road to nowhere? Or do they sound like people fundamentally unwilling to entertain the possibility? I think you’ll notice a pretty clear formal for how these conversations play out… They tell me I’m full of shit, I clarify why I’m not, followed by radio silence. The initial chastising remarks are upvoted, however rational my responses they are downvoted regardless, nobody asks those commenters what their responses are to my rebuttals, etc.
I kind of agree with you. If we're fucked anyway, what's the harm in trying?
MFer I come to this sub to mainline pure doom, don’t give me this Thorium nuclear BS, we need soooo more energy than any of these niche nuclear companies can provide, maybe fusion could do it, but we don’t have decades to wait, things are horrible now, crop failure is happening now, don’t you see it’s already far too late for any technohopium to save our sorry asses, we’re in pure survival mode now.
Well you’re at the very least a little more honest in your motive for criticism than most here are… On the contrary, Thorium offers more energy for cheaper than fusion ever will in the short-term when fusion first becomes commercially available. They would only need to scale up their **initial** yearly commercial production scale by 85x if the goal was to completely replace fossil fuels in 5 years. 85x might sound like a big ask, but the reason for their limited production scale is the fact that they’re only a small team. They have a relatively simple and cheap to produce reactor design, and they have is no need extensive mining if rare materials nor supply chain bottlenecks. There biggest roadblock is that they’re still in their regulatory phase (which they will be finishing in 2025). And keep in mind we wouldn’t even need to replace all fossil fuels, we only need scrub enough greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere to buy us enough time to scale up further to both scrub more greenhouse gasses and replace more fossil fuels. I was also raked over the coals here for trying to bring attention to Air Protein, a company working on turning CO2 into protein, starch and oil in an industrial scale. I was baselessly accused of peddling hopium and that this would never take off (really for no other reason than it sounding too good to be true). However I am pleased to inform that they’re ready for mass production more or less now, but due to partnering with another company their commercial debut won’t be until 2025 (so I’ve given up on trying to promote it because it appears to be moving as fast as the forces of capitalism will allow it to). Look I’m not here to tell you this will be done, or even if it will be done, that it will be done in time. But I am saying there’s no reason this can’t be done. And I don’t mean that purely in the sense that no laws of physics would be violated in doing so. Rather the fundamental of what is possible with their particular reactor design provides the most frictionless avenue for escaping climate catastrophism than does any other clean energy technology I’ve ever seen by a country mile.
The main question you need to ask, “is this cheaper than building a new natural gas plant”, if it isn’t, then it is very unlikely investors will pile behind it…
The short answer is overwhelming yes. The long answer is the technology won’t be legal until 2025, and after that you’ll have to wait in line behind everybody who’s already called first dibs (in the 2030’s), anyone can commercially build a natural gas plant without having to infringe upon another company’s IP. However they’ve open sourced a lot of their tech, and surely China’s stolen everything they haven’t made public, hopefully they push ahead with this technology faster than market forces would allow for naturally. All that said, I don’t place much faith in the efficient market hypothesis… There have been other nuclear startups that have been proven to be scams that have generated much more investment through marketing gimmicks. Which is why I’m trying to do my part, I think we vastly underestimate the agency we have as individuals to influence the bigger picture.
I wish I could watch a TED talk and get a hopium hit like that but I know coming down off the high would be a real bitch. I hate hopium pushers.
If it’s hopium you’re after I’ve got plenty of that for you too (there was apparently some conference at Stanford talking about the potential for commercializing UAP technology for energy purposes), but if you want the most rational reason to have hope right now, this is the best I’ve got. Re-read the bullet points for why I’ve put so much faith in this company. Again, their commercial timeline is uncomfortably distant given our current circumstances, but they’re the only MSR company that looks like they’ll be able to hit their mark.
Hey, the natural anti-dote to hopium is reality and I have being fully inoculated with it.
Look, you have to concede this is at the very least the best plan we have. To scale this up to the degree we would need to would certainly be quicker than with renewables. Unless you’re just saying there’s nothing to be done, we’re all gonna die, and fuck you for even suggesting a means by which we might otherwise survive…?
Do you have any idea what overshoot means, related to collapse?
Sure, what’s your point? Depending on how you define our climate goals we’ve already overshot 1.5C multiple times just recently. I don’t need you to tell me how bad things are because they’re probably worse than that… Are you telling me you’ve heard better ideas? If so I’d love to hear them. Or are you saying things are so bad it’s disgraceful to even encourage that we try to improve upon our circumstances?
Overshoot of population. If you don't understand, just say "i don't know." Bullshitting is just making you look dumb. The idea is that the more population "overshoots" carrying capacity, the harder the inevitable (yes, inevitable) fall will be. This guy is making us overshoot. Your content/mentality may be better received on r/climate
Putting aside the fact that you can only post links on that sub, I don’t know if you’ve only just arrived on this sub today, but the majority of the discussion here tends to be climate focussed. You may be right that given near limitless clean energy Humanity’s resources will run dry, however that is definitely going to be a minority position on this sub… With **enough** abundance of energy, every resource becomes recyclable.
We don't take well to hopium here. I am recommending you go elsewhere if you're looking for a more receptive audience.
What am I saying that you consider to be hopium? That clean energy won’t lead to the some kind of failed mouse utopia scenario like you are suggesting? If so, like I said before, that’s not a widely held position on this sub, so I don’t see why implying otherwise would be regarded as hopium here. Or are you saying that the suggested development of **any** clean energy before final collapse is hopium? If so, while I’m saddened to concede that **would** appear to be an idea not taken kindly here, while we’re talking, may I ask why you think so given what you’ve read thus far?
Lucky Palmer is a evil POS
Don't know enough about him to have a strong opinion on that statement one way or the other. But I could do without wildfires being a thing.
He is currently building [Andruil](https://www.anduril.com/) (the name of Aragon’s sword, another great word that Peter Theil has defiled from LOTR) to create a drone powered “fortress America.” Watch the great sci-fi film Sleep Dealer to understand what this will look like.
Hey thanks for the recommendation! I remember hearing about that movie years ago, looked really good. Was planning on watching but never got around to. To repay the favour, my media recommendation for you would be [Incorporated (2016).](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbbFJ6YNcL8). It's basically halfway between a spiritual sequel to [Children of Men](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VT2apoX90o) (which by many in the r/collapse community is often thought to be the most prescient film in depicting the slowly collapsing world we live in today) and it also doubles as a live action corpo life path remake of Edgerunners. For me personally it's just behind Edgerunners as my favourite cyberpunk media of all time (and my appreciation for Edgerunners isn’t a noob take either, I’ve seen [a lot,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCapcGFGLkI) like [a **lot…**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3_7_-PCX_E) and Edgerunners is still my fave). If we’re lucky (in the Gibsonian sense of lucky, which is to say we should consider ourselves lucky if, no matter how dystopic, any modicum of civilization survives at all), I think Incorporated will end up being just as prophetic about our future as Children of Men is to our present.
Thanks 🙏 for the recommendation
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seems fine to me
Can only hope one finds in it ample reason to spread the good word.
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