Intellectual question, the next, and toughest!

[Nick1599968727]

lets assume that we have discovered a limitless source of clean safe power, so much power we can change as much saltwater to fresh as we like, make desserts fertile, produce goods at next to no cost. grow food anywhere.

what would happen to society?

[beth1974uk]

It would all go tits up..

[Batz]

Rich people would get richer and the rest of us would still pay through the nose for the boundless goods you have discovered.

 

No way would those in real power allow those with no power to access such great things freely.

[Nick1599968727]

lets assume everybody has access to the free power, and its not controlled by any state or company

would there be a utopia?

[PurpleMonkey]

lets assume everybody has access to the free power, and its not controlled by any state or company

would there be a utopia?

 

nah...............

[Batz]

Thats less plausible than the first post.

 

I'd say no, it's human nature to want 1 up on the next man.

[Bigmp]

1. Increase in energy would have an increase in (entropy) heat so Polar ice caps would melt causing a rise in sea levels and the mass extinction of most of the species that require the conditions provided (polar bears, penguins)... OR

 

2. Think the film the day after tomorrow would happen first... collapse of the north atlantic current as the change in salinity or whatever reason they give. The massive change in topography of the planet could disrupt the gulf stream so a massive climatic change all round?

 

3. Then there would be an increasing demand for space... massive population boom would have everyone demanding more space, then more material goods would need to be made so more production and more pollution.

 

UNLESS some of the energy is used to filter the air and purify it, and the materials removed could be converted back to elements for production...

the CO2 taken out could be converted back to carbon and oxygen allowing for more thermal release from the planet reducing the likelihood of 1 &/or 2.

 

The energy itself could allow for massive advancements in science and knowledge by allowing every pc to be permanently powered on a massive scale distributed computing network think folding@home, communitygrid, GIMPS

 

Tech advances would be great as well as the limiting factor is the time to try every permutation of possibilities. (think lighter and lighter materials for planes/kites so less fuel required for space travel then bring back materials from the stars.

 

The list is endless...

[Nick1599968727]

I know, the more you think about unlimited power supply the more possibilities and problems spring to mind

[The Geoff]

Wow, good analysis Bigmp, that's most of my initial ideas gone at a stroke.

 

OK, I'll have a stab from a geekonomics angle:

 

If we've got limitless clean power then an everything gets cheaper. Why? Well some things are rare because they take lots of work. But "work" is another word for energy, QED. Some things are expensive because they're rare and difficult to get, but with free energy you can build bigger and bigger robotic mines quite cheaply.

 

OK, a work of art won't get cheaper, but everything that relies on somebody plugging anything in at some point gets cheaper. Things like electromagnetic rail guns, large scale nano-materials like Carbon nanotubes, hell, if our wonderful new fuel source is transportable (a compact fusion generator for example), then even old fashioned rockets get cheaper. You just fill them with seawater and blast it into plasma, then let it out. No particularly fancy cryogenic fuels or associated gubbins required.

 

So we'll see a massive increase in space flight, we've got the required technology already, it's just too bloody expensive at the moment, and a big chunk of that is electricity bills. But with an arbitrarily powerful source of energy it's easy. Tourist flights into LEO for £500, the construction of the first space hotels would arrive first, followed by a massive expansion of manned corporate hardware in space.

 

The return to the moon would be rapid, and if sufficient deposits of water are found it would be developed as a launcher for Mars missions.

 

If our power source is effectively infinite then interplanetary and interstellar flight become feasible. There are many exotic ways to travel long distances quickly, but the simplest is to just to keep accelerating at 1g by throwing mass out behind you. Now you'll need a lot of mass, but we can play a trick with relativity here. If we make the fuel go quickly enough then relativity says it gets more massive. The more energy you pump in the faster it goes, the faster it goes the more massive it is, and so the harder it pushes you. The beauty is that relativity goes all the way to infinity, so you can use your infinite energy source and make a little bit of fuel go a long way. I might have a go at the sums, but I reckon a few gallons would get you to Proxima Centauri.

 

Of course you do run up against an obstacle when you are throwing single atoms out at a time, but if you nick an idea from Project Orion and stick the engine on shock absorbers, you can go a bit further.

 

 

And we've got infinite energy, we can go as far as we want. Keep accelerating and time keeps slowing down, so a 100,000 light year trip (across the entire galaxy) could be over in a few years. We might need to push the 1g up a bit, and it makes keeping up with the folks back home tricky, they're 100,000 years ago now.

Edited August 25, 2011 by The Geoff

[Atavar]

I think there would be more wars for rare minerals to be able to make the best things to utilise all this clean energy. Look at the Congo war at the moment, funded by the trade in coltan, a vital metal in many items but your mobile phone in particular. Link to telegraph article >CLICK ME

More than 80 per cent of the world's coltan is in Africa' date=' and 80 percent of that lies in territory controlled by Congo's various ragtag rebel groups, armed militia and its corrupt and underfunded national army. [/quote'] So instead of being governed by fuel, we'll be governed by raw materials. I could envisage, after the wars for resources, a first, second and third class citizenry forming, based on their ability to procure resources and build technological equipment, a super race of rare resource rich high technology elites with the second classes of the world living off more common raw materials and the thirds recycling the useless refuse of those above them.

[Bigmp]

Cheers Geoff

I didn't think i should go into too many things or the post would never end.

[The Geoff]

I know the feeling!

[Tjah1087]

I think there would be more wars for rare minerals to be able to make the best things to utilise all this clean energy. Look at the Congo war at the moment, funded by the trade in coltan, a vital metal in many items but your mobile phone in particular. Link to telegraph article >CLICK ME

So instead of being governed by fuel, we'll be governed by raw materials. I could envisage, after the wars for resources, a first, second and third class citizenry forming, based on their ability to procure resources and build technological equipment, a super race of rare resource rich high technology elites with the second classes of the world living off more common raw materials and the thirds recycling the useless refuse of those above them.

 

Whilst this is in reality a huge threat, if you had infinite energy you could just recycle everything really easily.

 

The biggest flaw with abundant cheap energy is that it would be easy for some renegade to build a weapon with power in excess of the biggest nuclear weapons currently available. The human race wouldn't last a week.

[Tjah1087]

I think there would be more wars for rare minerals to be able to make the best things to utilise all this clean energy. Look at the Congo war at the moment, funded by the trade in coltan, a vital metal in many items but your mobile phone in particular. Link to telegraph article >CLICK ME

So instead of being governed by fuel, we'll be governed by raw materials. I could envisage, after the wars for resources, a first, second and third class citizenry forming, based on their ability to procure resources and build technological equipment, a super race of rare resource rich high technology elites with the second classes of the world living off more common raw materials and the thirds recycling the useless refuse of those above them.

 

Whilst this is in reality a huge threat, if you had infinite energy you could just recycle everything really easily.

 

The biggest flaw with abundant cheap energy is that it would be easy for some renegade to build a weapon with power in excess of the biggest nuclear weapons currently available. The human race wouldn't last a week.

[Sand-Yeti]

a limitless source of clean safe power, so much power we can change as much saltwater to fresh as we like, make deserts fertile,

what would happen to society?

 

It would screw up the buggying in this part of the world. It's already bad enough with the few projects going on planting trees in the desert, not to mention them being crossed with power lines.

Screw that idea.

If we want more space, then humans have to stop spreading (breeding) like some rampant virus.

[Buckleheid]

It would screw up the buggying in this part of the world. It's already bad enough with the few projects going on planting trees in the desert, not to mention them being crossed with power lines.

Screw that idea.

If we want more space, then humans have to stop spreading (breeding) like some rampant virus.

 

Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but we humans do not. We move to an area and multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way we can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.

a little plagiarism there from the matrix lmao

[Nick1599968727]

well think of this, with unlimited energy as has been pointed out most things could be made cheaply if at almost no cost, therefore with the ability to produce food and water anywhere and back this up with very cheap medicines the third world wouldnt be, and perhaps the massive birth rate to compensate for the massive death rate could be brought under control. I hadnt thought of the race to space angle, perhaps our only saving, complete with the ability to terraform

Mars perhaps?

[The Geoff]

Well, everything gets cheaper eventually, was my point. It's like the weather - a high pressure area next to a low pressure area causes lots of wind. Areas rich in resources next to areas poor in resources causes flow of money instead of air, and one that's traditionally associated with lots of dying.

 

My "cheaper" idea was more akin to a global increase in air pressure - you get more wind, but it's denser winds - more money transferring. The resources are still geographically/geologically concentrated, they'll just be running out faster.

 

I'd like to think we'd avoid the whole killing thing.

 

In reality though, it would just be an acceleration of the "Get off the planet before you wreck it you numpties." Whether we'd actually use the extra energy is another matter. Frankly I think space will be corporate, commercial organizations are the ones who will actually take a low-stakes gamble on the entire universe while governments are still pointing guns over a fifty mile stretch of desert.