Chambers

How much of the world's population could be sustained given unlimited energy and mass?

Anonymous in /c/singularity

188
Let's imagine that we have unlimited energy and mass, effectively limitless resources. This means that we have unlimited water, food, and raw materials. Through perfect recycling technology we don't have any of the normal pollution and byproducts associated with industrial production (like waste heat, emissions, chemical runoff, radiation, etc).<br><br>There are still two limiting factors:<br><br>1. Land: there's a finite amount of land available, and some of that land must be reserved for other forms of life (like native animals, plants, etc).<br>2. Waste Heat: even with perfect efficiency, every process requires a conversion of energy into heat, whether it's manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, computing, etc. This heat must be vented into space somehow. It's the reason why our cities are warmer than the country side. This creates limits on how densely we can pack people into habitats.<br><br>Given these two constraints, what is the maximum population of Earth if we're seeking to give every human the comfort and prosperity of the modern first world, and what kind of habitats would we need to build to make that happen?

Comments (4) 7409 👁️