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December 01 2019
Of Gopherspace and Spacemen
Since starting this phlog a bit over a year ago I've been wondering just
how much attention it might be garnering. Gopherspace has certainly grown
in recent years, itself a minor miracle, but it's still kind of nerdy
niche. Since this phlog is hosted on servers run by others I generally
don't have any knowledge of site traffic or what bits are of most interest.
Fortunately a few visitors have thoughtfully emailed with feedback which
is much appreciated. Perhaps I'll look into coding up a "guest book"
to make feedback easier; if nothing else it would be a nice diversion
from the wintry weather and current events.
- -
Make it No.
"I believe that, one day, Earth will be zoned residential and light
industry. We'll move all heavy industry into space. That's the only
way, really, to save this planet.. You want a dynamic civilization that
continues to use more and more energy and more and more resources...
and to do that, you have to move out into the solar system."
-- Jeff Bezos [0]
Excerpts from Bezos' speech [1] earlier this month when he was inducted
into the International Air and Space Hall of Fame, presumably for
activities relating to his commercial space company Blue Origin [2].
As the richest dude on the planet -- Wikipedia says his net worth is
around 150 billion US dollars -- Bezos can certainly afford to pursue
his Star Trek inspired vision of a space-faring human civilization no
longer hamstrung by a finite planet. But is this goal likely to be
achievable or even a good idea?
I would argue the answer is no on both accounts, at least not without
some significant structural changes to how humans are currently living
and conducting themselves, changes that may well negate the need for
"saving" the Earth though intergalactic conquest.
It's tempting to launch into a critique of Bezos' character, a guy who
apparently toyed with naming his company 'MakeItSo' [3], presumably with
him as Captain Picard. Ironically, Amazon's business strategy looks more
Borg-like, acres of warehouses and dehumanized worker bees methodically
sucking the life out of the much of the retail space of the economy,
resistance futile, market share assimilated. Even online outfits like
Ebay are feeling the wrath of Bezos with recent Ebay orders mysteriously
processed and delivered via Amazon, a secretive Prime directive at work
behind the scenes. Bezos' core impulse seemingly is to relentlessly
pursue total domination, whatever the cost. Is this really the ethos
humanity should be hitching its future to?
So why does Bezos say we need ".. a dynamic civilization that continues to
use more and more energy and more and more resources" ? Probably because
as an elite he got a first-rate liberal arts education and so is aware of
the fates of past civilizations. Ivy league professors such as Dr. Ian
Morris [4], a British archaeologist/historian currently at Stanford,
have no doubt informed him of some unfortunate reoccurring factors* that
seem to have accompanied prior civilization collapses:
1) sudden major population movements
2) a surge in epidemic diseases
3) a collapse of states and increased warfare
4) multiple crop failures leading to famine
5) a changed climate (natural or man-made)
Sound a bit familiar? It should, but all is not lost; some civilizations
did managed to either stave off collapse or at least arrest its progress.
These exceptions appear to share the following attributes*:
a) exceptional leaders (strategic long-term thinking)
b) economic growth maintained/restored (usually at others expense)
c) containment of violence (central power maintained)
* from Morris' 2016 to the World Economic Forum lecture [5]
These exceptions were still transformed in some manner but they didn't
completely collapse. Of course, all these past civilizations were quite
small when contrasted with today's globe-spanning industrial behemoth.
And perhaps more importantly, there was always someplace less spoiled
for the survivors to disperse to.
So, one can sort of see why virtually all elites constantly call for
more growth, the rule of law, and never miss a chance to tout their
contributions to the metanarrative of Progress.
But lets put Bezos and his Randian ilk like Elon Musk aside and look
at his proposal. Just how feasible is Bezos' vision of a space-based
civilization pursuing endless growth in the universe?
A starting point might be to look at our current energy consumption.
According to the EIA the US energy usage in 2019 broke down like so:
US energy usage by sector (2019; EIA [6]):
Industrial: %32.2
Transportation: %28.3
Commercial: %18.2
Residential: %21.3
Europe's profile is similar but with transport the primary load [7].
All sectors have seen an overall increase over many decades even though
there have been periods of flat or slight decreases in energy consumption.
While industrial activities -- what Bezos wants to move off-planet --
are the largest energy consumer, transportation is pretty close behind.
Much of this energy is currently derived from fossil fuels, particularly
so in the transportation sector which even when electric often traces
back to significant fossil fuel inputs. So far the world hasn't found
anything that matches the versatility and energy density of fossil
fuels, particularly oil and gas. As far as anyone knows there isn't
any to be had in space and what's left here on Earth is increasingly
harder and messier to get at. The remaining residential and commercial
energy sectors have a somewhat better chance to find alternatives to
fossil fuels, and there is a good deal of room for simply doing more
with less via direct solar heating of living/working spaces and water
heating. Cooking can be done in multiple ways as well, though gas is
very convenient and the greenhouse emissions associated isn't huge in
the scheme of things. Still, the ever-increasing energy part of Bezos'
prescription translates into corresponding civilizational excitation --
added heat to the kettle makes the water molecules vibrate ever more
violently, professor Tim Garrett's heat engine [8]. Any relief from
moving some activities off-planet is eventually eclipsed by the growth
of those remaining Earth-bound.
What about resource usage and pollution; does moving heavy industry off
Earth help? Probably not as much as Mr. Bezos might imagine. Concrete,
which by tonnage may be the most widely used building material on Earth,
due to it's heft generally needs to be produced fairly close to where
it gets poured. Same with the associated aggregates like sand and
gravel. Concrete uses a quite a bit of energy in it production and
that currently comes from fossil fuels. There is some R&D being done
towards utilizing direct solar energy [9] and perhaps that will scale
up over time. However the related mining, heavy trucks and construction
equipment are not likely to get electrified [10]. Transportation along
with modern industrial agriculture are also a huge part of the greenhouse
gas load currently being dumped into the atmosphere; neither are likely
to become extraterrestrial yet are also unlikely to be transformed into
significantly more benign endeavors under a paradigm of growth.
What about mining the Moon? Bezos claims lower gravity and frozen pools
of lunar water mean rockets can be fueled and take-off without the huge
solid rocket boosters required to escape Earth's gravity. It's entirely
possible that the Moon could become a source of some mineral ores
and those ores could be refined into the usual staple materials in
space-based foundries powered by solar panels, in turn becoming the
feedstock for various end products that presumably would make their
way back to Earth for consumption. To me the issue is one of scale.
Such activities likely make no sense fiscally unless done at very
large scale. But then what is to be done with the waste stream at the
other end of this scheme? At current population levels we are already
severely overtaxing Earth's ability to deal with out waste production.
Recycling is not a comprehensive solution as it usually requires
significant energy inputs and rarely approaches anything close to a
zero-waste process. That means either burn it or bury it since blasting
it back to space is cost prohibitive. Lastly, many industrial processes
use copious amounts of water. If the only water available is from frozen
crater pools in Moon shadows that will also be the fuel source for the
rockets how long will it last? Estimates of lunar water appear to be
around 1-3 cubic kilometers [11] -- total. Lunar water is effectively
a non-renewable resource. Theoretically comets could be a stand-in once
the Moon is tapped out but the logistics and cost may be prohibitive.
Once certainly can't go chasing after comets like a space cowboy; more
likely it means laying in wait for fortuitous flybys.
Perhaps I'm being too negative, not dreaming big enough, but from these
space-time coordinates Jeff Bezos' vision of a limits-free space-faring
future seems destined to burn up on the launch pad. And on some level
I think he must know this as well as he certainly isn't clueless with
respect to Earth's ecological limits. It's more that he just can't
imagine letting go of the Star Trek fantasy that found a home between
his ears as a young boy sitting in front of a 1960s TV.
In all likelihood reducing the human population as well as it's levels of
consumption will need to occur if humanity wants to keep living standards
approximately at current European levels without overtaxing the Earth's
natural regenerative systems. It's debatable whether a space-based city
of industry would ever be viable, especially at modest scale, possibly
supplying an Earth population of well under 2 billion, the upper end of
various estimates of what might constitute a sustainable human population
[12] living a modestly consumptive lifestyle. In fact, the ethos of
endless growth and ever-increasing energy and resource consumption in
which men like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have thrived is unlikely to
survive a transition to a truly sustainable way of living on Earth.
- -
References:
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_bezos
gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Jeff%20Bezos
[1] https://timesofsandiego.com/tech/2019/11/23/jeff-bezos-in-san-diego-to-save-planet-move-all-heavy-industry-into-space/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Origin
gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Blue%20Origin
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/dgdd9g/jeff_make_it_so_bezos/
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Morris_(historian)
gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Ian%20Morris%20%28historian%29
[5] https://youtu.be/oxieVARtZ7c
[6] https://www.eia.gov/consumption/
[7] https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/final-energy-consumption-by-sector-9/assessment-4
[8] http://nephologue.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-global-economy-heat-engines-and.html
related interviews: https://youtu.be/n1LVxiBU43o ; https://youtu.be/ekuRvsoZyNI
[9] https://www.wired.com/story/a-solar-breakthrough-wont-solve-cements-carbon-problem/
[10] http://energyskeptic.com/2015/all-electric-trucks-not-going-to-happen/
[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_water
gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Lunar%20water
[12] http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160311-how-many-people-can-our-planet-really-support
https://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/3_times_sustainable