sicetaitsimple wrote:sen-no-sen wrote:[
Basically it's the production of entropy that's the problem.
Stop with this entropy bullshit, there is plenty of renewable and non-renewable but abundant energy available on earth to meet the needs of humanity, provided we know how to collect and use them, whatever the entropy generated by this use.
1) Entropy is one of the major concepts of physics....
The current entropy production can be considered from two aspects: the first in the sense of
Rudolf Clausius which corresponds to the amount of energy that cannot be fully transformed into free energy. In sum, energy lost in the form of heat, and above all of greenhouse gas in this case.
A second that could be described as "use" which is to be related to the energy dissipated directly by our actions in the world which corresponds to the entropy of the biosphere*.
The strategy currently put forward consists in reducing the first form of entropy as much as possible by focusing (allegedly!) on the limitation of carbon emissions (which is in itself an excellent thing) while imagining that the production of energy could continue to increase without having any perverse consequences with respect to the entropy linked to our usage(
what is crazy).
2) To provide "for the needs of humanity" is a misuse of language which corresponds to a
reference point offset.It would actually be more accurate to speak of the adaptive tendencies of consumers to an industrial system which by definition does not really know any limits...
What were the needs in the 19th century, in 1950,1970, XNUMX? How can we fix "needs"? Where is the middle ground?
To my knowledge, there is no scientific work that has clearly raised the question of the thresholds not to be exceeded.
*We often talk about the carbon emissions of commercial aviation. This represents about 1% of GHG emissions in the world. With very hypothetical "green" hydrogen aircraft, such emissions could be greatly reduced... by imagining such a situation, there would then be no reason to limit commercial aviation. But then, what about "induced uses": hotels, road infrastructure that results from it, etc.
By a rebound effect, the decrease in indirect harmfulness would be automatically compensated by direct or indirect perverse effects induced by the "virtuous" quality of the new modes of production...war is one of them.
"Engineering is sometimes about knowing when to stop" Charles De Gaulle.