How many people can live on planet Earth?

How many people can live comfortably on planet Earth, assuming that humanity reaches Kardashev scale Type I level?

This implies:

• Energy is cheap, and available in an almost unlimited quantity, compared to current level.
• Sea water can be desalinated and pumped to anywhere, a technology that is already available, but its usage is currently limited by the high energy consumption.
• Artificial sunlight can be created anywhere. This technology is also available even today.
• Food, advanced building materials, and almost everything else, can be synthesized from basic molecules and atoms.
• Transmutation of elements, e.g. making gold from lead, is possible, although not on a mass scale, because this requires enormous amounts of energy, that is beyond the reach of even a Type I civilization.

Energy can come from

• The Sun, as originally thought by Kardashev,
• or from fusion reactors, here on Earth,
• or even from advanced fission reactors, using all the uranium, thorium, and other heavy elements available on Earth, that can be converted to fissile fuel.

posted almost 5 years ago

pintergabor‭

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