Comment by s1artibartfast | Hacker News Reader

Comment by s1artibartfast | Hacker News Reader

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>Thus, the maximum, long-term sustainable pace of energy consumption is equal to what we can extract from the Sun. And, yet, we consume that much every year by August 1! While the trend has flattened out in recent years, it shows no sign of declining [0].

This is misleading and not what they link supports. The linked calculation is not tied to the possible power extraction from the sun. This estimate is based on CO2 currently produced per person and the earth's ability to sequester the CO2.

Global electricity consumption is is about 2.6 Terrawatts [1]

Global total potential for technically feasible PV solar has been estimated at ~ 613 389 PWh/y or 70 Terawatts [2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292991459_Estimatio...

"Energy from the Sun" is not just "energy from solar power." It includes wind and biomass as well. Biomass is probably the most efficient way to sequester carbon. So, yes, it is accounted for.

Put another way: you can't use fossil fuels to sequester carbon, and nuclear is a drop in the bucket. So, guess where the energy necessary to do it comes from?

I'm not following your rebuttal here. s1artibartfast says that the sun can provide much more power than we currently consume. The limit from your link from earlier is not a limit on how much power the sun can provide, but rather a limit on how much power we can produce before we produce too much CO2. With power production methods that produce less CO2, we won't run into that limit, and we obviously won't run into the solar energy limit.

The average power that the sun shines on the Earth is a huge amount and more than enough to cover all of our current energy needs, even using the technology and efficiency of today, and leaving land for other uses.

You can use solar to reduce or eliminate the carbon emitted. You can use solar electricity to sequester carbon if you want. You could even make oil and pump it back into the ground.

While not readily available everywhere now, there's abundance of geothermal power beneath our feet, and not from the sun either.

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