Waste heat could lead to extreme global warming by 2400 AD

Talk about scientific and technological developments in the future
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wjfox
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Waste heat could lead to extreme global warming by 2400 AD

Post by wjfox »

I remember first reading about this idea on the now-defunct website PeakOil.com, which had a post called "Galactic-scale energy", exploring the very long-term potential for energy production.

Essentially, waste heat may become a huge problem in the distant future, even if we have 100% clean energy.

So imagine a world that is, for example, covered in large amounts of computronium and/or other infrastructure needed to sustain a God-like superintelligence, along with billions or maybe even trillions of humans, robots, etc. That's going to generate a stupendous amount of heat. Literally enough to boil the oceans.

A number of technical solutions are possible, and would need implementing many decades before 2400 to avoid the most extreme scenario. Mars, and other planetary civilisations could face the same issue, assuming humanity makes it that far and begins spreading throughout the Solar System and into other star systems.

Here's a more detailed explanation by Sabbine Hossenfelder.


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wjfox
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Re: Waste heat could lead to extreme global warming by 2400 AD

Post by wjfox »

Correction: it was TheOilDrum.

http://theoildrum.com/node/8155
Jakob
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Re: Waste heat could lead to extreme global warming by 2400 AD

Post by Jakob »

Seems like the obvious solution is to move all our heavy industry shit into space. That, or, if we want an exotic solution, dump waste heat into micro black holes.
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Re: Waste heat could lead to extreme global warming by 2400 AD

Post by erowind »

Jakob wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 2:03 pm Seems like the obvious solution is to move all our heavy industry shit into space. That, or, if we want an exotic solution, dump waste heat into micro black holes.
Hail fellow heavy space industry lover!
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