You would argue that horses are a better return on investment.
However, if we consider POWER (the time dimensions) like how fast this work can get done, the locomotive is better than the horses even if it costs more. Who cares what it costs?
Also
nobody pays $ for the energy component of fossil fuels, they only pay for PROCESSING the fuel. The energy in the fuel was put there without any human work, it’s just as free as any sunlight only a lot faster, it’s basically arbitrary how fast we choose to use it
converting free sunlight into alfalfa into horses into work takes months, the rate is limited
wasting energy you got for free has no penalty as long as you get anything above a zero return
5000 or 50000 horses are not as fast as a locomotive, and they can never be
if a locomotive cost 500,000 horses, it would still be faster and it might be so fast it could replace 5 million horse’s work per a given time period
in biology and nature, organisms win by maximizing power, not by maximizing efficiency
in human societies, the societies with more absolute power have dominated those with higher efficiencies. E.g., think of the Amish people within the USA versus the dominant society.
Horses don’t produce the energy of one locamotive, also locamotives don’t produce energy. They both consume energy and convert it to work, your whole framing is confused.
I’m trying to frame it so that it’s completely obvious that energy and power are not fungible by picking a very unequal example. Many people are confused on this point.
Energy is not power. Power is not energy. Just because two things are equal in energy terms does not mean they are equal in power terms.
The relevance of this idea is that it’s fundamentally the same idea that’s baked into the accounting around the green energy transition or other similar ideas. Basically its that “if we had enough horses, we’d have a locomotive” is a clear fallacy.
I think right now we are using 400 years worth of sunlight energy every year in fossil fuels. So yes, If you could make solar panels that are more efficient than photosynthesis, it might make efficiency sense from an engineering standpoint to cover farm fields in solar panels… Like plants are less efficient…
But the bigger question is whether we are even within an order of magnitude on the power side. Like, we are focusing on a very weird metric as if that’s a goal. The REAL goal is the power we need. We need that energy to be delivered as fast as fossil fuels delivers it and converts to work
Ok. So your question is about energy density (in terms of time). In which case, nuclear reactions simply produce much more. And is entirely reasonable to say that. Solar power, wind power and geothermal power are all methods of indirectly collecting energy from nuclear energy sources.
To which conversations about liquid thorium fluoride being used in thermal cycles in industrial processes is definitely a valid one.
The reason why most people discuss solar is because it scales down nicely to satisfy domestic energy needs (which reduces the total energy consumption of the more dense energy sources that are needed in industrial processes).
Dominating other civilizations is actually rather wasteful, it is much more efficient to just bring up the living standards and then they will happily incorporate themselves in your civilization. Which brings more useful minds and new perspectives that would enrich your scientific tapestry; which is likely the keys to the next sets of breakthroughs. (You don’t have to defeat your enemies militarily if you can bribe the right people and get them to destroy themselves for you).
Efficiencies free up resources to be utilized for whatever your civilization values. Much like how certain keystone crops (like corn, wheat, rice and potatoes) make up the hyper majority of calories consumed because they are the most efficient.
Only a foolish civilization would throw away efficiency and returns on investments. And the biggest return on investment has always been feeding people and public libraries.
The amount of joules per unit of times is POWER, measured in watts
Efficiency is a concept that has no units. Efficiency just looks at how many joules get wasted that isn’t the work you want to do.
However, notable is that nearly every physical process does not maximize efficiency when it maximizes power. This means you have to throw out power or reduce power to optimzed efficiency, which is the cost of pursuing efficiency to living systems.
Life’s goal is that life maximizes the rate, not the efficiency. The amount of waste product is generally not important.
Efficiencies free up resources to be utilized for whatever your civilization values.
Or you can simply grow your resources you’re exploiting.
Let’s say you have
Turtle species A that eats three pizzas a week.
Hare species B that easts three pizzas a week.
Turtles decide to order 2 pizzas and save $ off the budget and carefully manage the leftovers to reduce spending. If they went to the downward limit, they could save no more than 3 pizzas reduction.
Hares put 5 pizza restaurants on speed dial and throw the budget out and have a massive pizza party paid for with credit cards. There is not any upward limit to this growth.
Basically the more efficiently a civilization uses a resource, the higher overall consumption of that resource becomes. It also applies to production. (The more efficiently something is produced, the lower the cost and ultimately greater the consumption of it occurs)
Ok, let me explain my confusion here.
Let’s assume
You would argue that horses are a better return on investment.
However, if we consider POWER (the time dimensions) like how fast this work can get done, the locomotive is better than the horses even if it costs more. Who cares what it costs?
Also
Horses don’t produce the energy of one locamotive, also locamotives don’t produce energy. They both consume energy and convert it to work, your whole framing is confused.
I should have said, “produce the work energy”
I’m trying to frame it so that it’s completely obvious that energy and power are not fungible by picking a very unequal example. Many people are confused on this point.
Energy is not power. Power is not energy. Just because two things are equal in energy terms does not mean they are equal in power terms.
The relevance of this idea is that it’s fundamentally the same idea that’s baked into the accounting around the green energy transition or other similar ideas. Basically its that “if we had enough horses, we’d have a locomotive” is a clear fallacy.
I think right now we are using 400 years worth of sunlight energy every year in fossil fuels. So yes, If you could make solar panels that are more efficient than photosynthesis, it might make efficiency sense from an engineering standpoint to cover farm fields in solar panels… Like plants are less efficient…
But the bigger question is whether we are even within an order of magnitude on the power side. Like, we are focusing on a very weird metric as if that’s a goal. The REAL goal is the power we need. We need that energy to be delivered as fast as fossil fuels delivers it and converts to work
Ok. So your question is about energy density (in terms of time). In which case, nuclear reactions simply produce much more. And is entirely reasonable to say that. Solar power, wind power and geothermal power are all methods of indirectly collecting energy from nuclear energy sources.
To which conversations about liquid thorium fluoride being used in thermal cycles in industrial processes is definitely a valid one.
The reason why most people discuss solar is because it scales down nicely to satisfy domestic energy needs (which reduces the total energy consumption of the more dense energy sources that are needed in industrial processes).
Dominating other civilizations is actually rather wasteful, it is much more efficient to just bring up the living standards and then they will happily incorporate themselves in your civilization. Which brings more useful minds and new perspectives that would enrich your scientific tapestry; which is likely the keys to the next sets of breakthroughs. (You don’t have to defeat your enemies militarily if you can bribe the right people and get them to destroy themselves for you).
Efficiencies free up resources to be utilized for whatever your civilization values. Much like how certain keystone crops (like corn, wheat, rice and potatoes) make up the hyper majority of calories consumed because they are the most efficient.
Only a foolish civilization would throw away efficiency and returns on investments. And the biggest return on investment has always been feeding people and public libraries.
The amount of joules per unit of times is POWER, measured in watts
Efficiency is a concept that has no units. Efficiency just looks at how many joules get wasted that isn’t the work you want to do.
However, notable is that nearly every physical process does not maximize efficiency when it maximizes power. This means you have to throw out power or reduce power to optimzed efficiency, which is the cost of pursuing efficiency to living systems.
Life’s goal is that life maximizes the rate, not the efficiency. The amount of waste product is generally not important.
Or you can simply grow your resources you’re exploiting.
Let’s say you have
Turtle species A that eats three pizzas a week. Hare species B that easts three pizzas a week.
Turtles decide to order 2 pizzas and save $ off the budget and carefully manage the leftovers to reduce spending. If they went to the downward limit, they could save no more than 3 pizzas reduction.
Hares put 5 pizza restaurants on speed dial and throw the budget out and have a massive pizza party paid for with credit cards. There is not any upward limit to this growth.
Who wins the life race?
Well, as we don’t exist with perpetual abundance and ecological overshoot routinely occurs.
And the hares suffer the same fate as the bunnies.
https://bsidneysmith.com/writings/essays/all-the-bunnies-in-the-meadow-die
You probably mean that the hares suffer the same as the tortoises.
But inverting that, the tortoises suffer the same fate as the hares, right?
So it’s not efficiency that matters. Here are two groups that pursue different efficiency optimums, and it makes no difference?
Are you familiar with Jevons paradox?
Basically the more efficiently a civilization uses a resource, the higher overall consumption of that resource becomes. It also applies to production. (The more efficiently something is produced, the lower the cost and ultimately greater the consumption of it occurs)
I’m familiar with Jevons as a demand side phenomenon.
I think the supply side is known as Wrights Law: costs drop when production increases?