Henry Spencer wrote:
In article ,
G EddieA95 wrote:
The population will go down if Earth goes to subsistence. If don't agree that
it will have to go down otherwise. And aren't you afraid of the necessary
*means* of getting it down?

It will start declining of its own accord around the end of this century,
by a middle-of-the-road current-trends-and-no-surprises projection. The
growth *rate* has been falling for decades now, as industrialization and
its consequences reduce the birth rate in one country after another.
(A number of the industrialized countries would already have negative
growth rates, were it not for immigration; a few do anyway.)

And a lot of these don't like it and are trying to reverse the trend, even
if it should come at the expense of reduced productivity - France would be
an example. As people live increasingly longer after retirement,


Solar can make the world work, especially if efficiencies improve.

Only if it's accompanied by massive investments in power transmission
infrastructure. The sunlight and the power demand aren't in the same
places, and current power grids are hopelessly inadequate for matching
the two up.

Most industrial nations appear to need massive investments in their power
grids anyways, as they seem to have been rather overoptimistic of their
state and trends of their use. Coupling large solar power stations in
Sahara to European power grids directly may not be an option - so say
hydrogen based transport may be needed in between.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++