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I think it's entirely possible that someday, maybe someday soon, we will achieve over-unity energy production. Of course, it won't be over-unity in the strict sense of the word -- it will be a new source of energy entirely.
And I fear it because if it's truly inexhaustible, it may allow us to avoid our peak oil problem, and energy will quickly become so plentiful that our use of it won't grow at a mere 10% or 20% per year, but over 100%. There will be lots of waste heat as the laws of thermodynamics are violated locally. There will be no thought given to the heat problem, which will come on so quickly that there will be scant time to pay PR experts and lobbyists or to "mobilize" for protests.
We will enjoy a brief golden age -- then, as the waste heat accumulates, the term "Global Warming" will seem quaintly understated. The golden age will segue into the golden brown age as the Earth becomes an oven, then a blast furnace, and finally turns into a ball of golden-white plasma
I.e., a star.
Sure, Jackson Browne may never write a song declaring it to be anathema (like his songs decrying the self-heating metal we have learned to loathe), but here again, the threat isn't in the technology, it comes from the arrogant apes who prefer action to thought because acting is so much more macho and/or radical.
--p!
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