From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Fri Mar 15 2002 - 17:01:13 MST
On Fri, 15 Mar 2002, Damien R. Sullivan wrote:
> But the environmental concerns I read about aren't about overcrowding,
> they're about excessive demand on resources.
Yes, and it certainly a good idea to be concerned about such.
But the average agricultural productivity is currently using
1-2% of the energy available from sunlight. This can definately
be pushed to 8-9% using current photosynthetic systems in
simple bioreactors and perhaps into the 10-30% region using
structured bioreactors. So it is reasonable to assume that
from an solar energy standpoint we could support a population
10x greater than the current population (or somewhat smaller
with everyone at the energy consumption levels of the U.S.).
> Fresh water, fertile agricultural soil, greenhouse emissions, energy.
Fresh water is a red herring. The majority of the photosynthetic carbon
fixation that occurs is the oceans in salt water.
Fertile agricultural soil is a red herring. You can grow what you
need in solar ponds where your only requirement is the addition
of small amounts of essential minerals required by catalytic
sites in enzymes.
Greenhouse emissions are of course a concern. We have to move
to a sustainable situation in which everything we put into the
atmosphere we subsequently remove before it can cause destabalization.
> Concerns that humanity is already intercepting 40% of the primary
> productivity of the Earth, for example, or whatever the exact number is.
The number isn't anywhere near that high. I'd venture its closer
to the 5-10% range.
> These may be addressable concerns, but not by simply pointing to
> the open spaces of Alaska.
Agreed. One points to population densities as being the source
of local problems (pollution, resource shortages in some years, etc.).
One points to the overall population level and growth rates with
regard to the situation on the planet as a whole. But one does
not leave our ability to improve on what nature has provided
out of the equation. We are after all a race of toolmakers.
Robert
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