I came across a TED talk given by Cambridge Physics professor David MacKay from 2013. Unfortunately he died of cancer in 2016, but he gave a last interview less than two weeks before his death.
He did some interesting analysis on how much energy you get from different types of renewable energy sources and how much energy society really needs. He came up with 125 KWh/person/day for the UK. That isn't just the energy you use at a person's house, but transportation, the energy that went into the goods used, energy used at work, other energy uses like keeping street lights running and delivering water to and taking away sewage from the home, etc.
It's a pretty big demand when you look at all the energy needed to keep modern society running.
He concluded that some places that have low population densities and a lot of energy like Australia, or even Las Vegas, solar might work, but in someplace like the UK which has few hours of sunlight throughout the year and is so far north a lot less solar energy falls on the country even when weather is clear. There is no magic bullet answer.
Just like the scale of what it will take to fully electrify cars, the scale of what it would take to supply just minimal energy needs through renewables only in at least some parts of the world is not feasible.
I find this sort of thing interesting. He felt like I do, that having a mix of renewables is a good thing, but some places are going to have to have something other than wind turbines, biofuels, and solar.
I haven't had a good set of numbers, it's been more of an intuitive thing, but I've felt for a long time that the Earth has too many people to support long term. I suspect a lot of smarter people than I am have come to the same conclusion, but there are no short term answers that aren't horrific so nobody is talking about it.
Longer term we might be able to pare down the population if every country in the world was willing to a plan to encourage birth control and educate their populations that 1 or 0 children is the ideal family size. China tried a draconian one child policy, but the population grew anyway (because it only applied to certain parts of the country). It spawned a lot of ills and the children of that generation are very different from their parents' generation.
The TED talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0W1ZZYIV8o
The last interview:
Idea of renewables powering UK is an 'appalling delusion' – David MacKay
He did some interesting analysis on how much energy you get from different types of renewable energy sources and how much energy society really needs. He came up with 125 KWh/person/day for the UK. That isn't just the energy you use at a person's house, but transportation, the energy that went into the goods used, energy used at work, other energy uses like keeping street lights running and delivering water to and taking away sewage from the home, etc.
It's a pretty big demand when you look at all the energy needed to keep modern society running.
He concluded that some places that have low population densities and a lot of energy like Australia, or even Las Vegas, solar might work, but in someplace like the UK which has few hours of sunlight throughout the year and is so far north a lot less solar energy falls on the country even when weather is clear. There is no magic bullet answer.
Just like the scale of what it will take to fully electrify cars, the scale of what it would take to supply just minimal energy needs through renewables only in at least some parts of the world is not feasible.
I find this sort of thing interesting. He felt like I do, that having a mix of renewables is a good thing, but some places are going to have to have something other than wind turbines, biofuels, and solar.
I haven't had a good set of numbers, it's been more of an intuitive thing, but I've felt for a long time that the Earth has too many people to support long term. I suspect a lot of smarter people than I am have come to the same conclusion, but there are no short term answers that aren't horrific so nobody is talking about it.
Longer term we might be able to pare down the population if every country in the world was willing to a plan to encourage birth control and educate their populations that 1 or 0 children is the ideal family size. China tried a draconian one child policy, but the population grew anyway (because it only applied to certain parts of the country). It spawned a lot of ills and the children of that generation are very different from their parents' generation.
The TED talk:
The last interview:
Idea of renewables powering UK is an 'appalling delusion' – David MacKay
