Environmental Carrying Capacity

[ofgreenstar]

Is there any way for humans to prevent reaching the carrying capacity or rise it to an infinite level?

 

In time it seems like the only way we won't reach a carrying capacity is if we either stop our exponential growth or figure out a system to reuse valued resources.

[bombus]

It depends on what the carrying capacity actually is! Intensive agriculture increased k far above what Malthus thought possible, but there will be a limit - unless we crack fusion. Its all energy really. We are just energy. With unlimited energy there will be unlimited humans.

 

What a horrible thought!

[ecoli]

and space... so space travel, and our ability to terraform planets could conceivably be an issue as well.

[ofgreenstar]

unless we crack fusion

 

Why hasn't this been able to happen? What would it do if we could do this?

[bombus]

Why hasn't this been able to happen? What would it do if we could do this?

 

I think the basic problem is containing such high temperatures. You can't contain the stuff in conventional materials because it would just melt the container. There are ideas of containing it in magnetic fields, but currently the energy needed to do this is more than the energy created by the fusion reaction itself.

 

If we could crack fusion we would have (more or less) unlimited energy. Energy is what life is all about. We are just starlight and stardust. Energy is the limiting factor. Unlimited energy means no limiting factor...

[PhDP]

It depends on what the carrying capacity actually is! Intensive agriculture increased k far above what Malthus thought possible, but there will be a limit - unless we crack fusion. Its all energy really. We are just energy. With unlimited energy there will be unlimited humans.

 

Unlimited energy would increase our carrying capacity, but there's still density-dependent mortality and a limited amount of space in the universe.

 

Anyway, education decreases fertility, so I'm not sure our carrying capacity will be such a problem for future generations.

[Icemelt]

I watched a program on TV recently claiming that fusion of deuterium and tritium had recently been achieved in small quantities. There had been some sort of break through in containment, and fusion power stations were expected to be coming online with the next 50 years !

[1veedo]

I thought France was already building a nuclear fusion plant.

[foodchain]

where did conservation laws go in all of this. The return on anything nuclear is still minimal overall also, and the byproducts of anything nuclear on a massive or growing scale currently have no real programs or acceptable means in which to deal with the byproduct of nuclear/toxic waste. Hanford Washington is a perfect example of this, and moreover they basically look for areas currently less then inhabited by people in which to basically dump or bury such stuff.

 

The reality to me is people will continue to breed, consume and be human until the environment buckles. This is already evident on the planet and I am sure has a heavy hand in issues that lead and will lead to warfare. Its not another issue of planet of the apes, being that we can decide to possibly move away from such, but even on a hydrogen economy, getting the planet to having a person for every square ten feet of habitable land is going to lead to nothing but utter extinction on a massive scale, if we can even push out that far.

 

As extinction of other life continues on, such is going to hold an impact as much as changing weather patterns are going to. The reality of this as I see it is nothing but an effect that humanity will experience for the simple reality that we happen to exist on the earth also. Such as what happens when a massive frost destroys a large amount of crops, or there happens to exist a drought, or the population of a certain insect is allowed to bloom to high extremes. Ecologically speaking action and reaction have not ceased because we have tools, nor has natural selection really.

 

The funny part is aside from the illusion of grandeur posed by modern television for instance, all it takes is a few inches of rain to shut a massive city down. I would also like to point out, past probability models based on prior knowledge, extinctions will most likely lead to situations we currently cannot fully grasp until we get there. The dodo may have not been the real pain yet to be felt by making other life extinct.

[bombus]

I thought France was already building a nuclear fusion plant.

 

Yup, they are.

[bombus]

Anyway, education decreases fertility, so I'm not sure our carrying capacity will be such a problem for future generations.

 

Actually its wealth, but education tends to increase wealth. If you are really poor your children are your only asset, so you have as many as you can. As wealth increases the need for lots of children decreases in general.

[bombus]

where did conservation laws go in all of this. The return on anything nuclear is still minimal overall also, and the byproducts of anything nuclear on a massive or growing scale currently have no real programs or acceptable means in which to deal with the byproduct of nuclear/toxic waste. Hanford Washington is a perfect example of this, and moreover they basically look for areas currently less then inhabited by people in which to basically dump or bury such stuff.

 

I think there are no problems with fusion as it creates non-radioactive waste. Correct me if I am wrong!

[foodchain]

I think there are no problems with fusion as it creates non-radioactive waste. Correct me if I am wrong!

 

Nuclear fusion right?

 

"Fusion power refers to power generated by nuclear fusion reactions. In this kind of reaction, two light atomic nuclei fuse together to form a heavier nucleus and release energy. In a more general sense, the term can also refer to the production of net useable power from a fusion source, similar to the usage of the term "steam power." Most design studies for fusion power plants involve using the fusion reactions to create heat, which is then used to operate a steam turbine, similar to most coal-fired power stations as well as fission-driven nuclear power stations."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power

 

I mean if you and I happen to be talking about different things, then I guess I am the one that made that mistake, so I guess sorry then.

[bombus]

I was wrong, but my gist was correct. Fusion does produce some nuclear waste, but as one is combining rather than splitting atoms, the waste is less dangerous:

 

Waste management

 

The large flux of high-energy neutrons in a reactor will make the structural materials radioactive. The radioactive inventory at shut-down may be comparable to that of a fission reactor, but there are important differences.

 

The half-life of the radioisotopes produced by fusion tend to be less than those from fission, so that the inventory decreases more rapidly. Furthermore, there are fewer unique species, and they tend to be non-volatile and biologically less active. Unlike fission reactors, whose waste remains dangerous for thousands of years, most of the radioactive material in a fusion reactor would be the reactor core itself, which would be dangerous for about 50 years, and low-level waste another 100. By 300 years the material would have the same radioactivity as coal ash. [2]. Some material will remain in current designs with longer half-lives. [3]

 

Additionally, the materials used in a fusion reactor are more "flexible" than in a fission design, where many materials are required for their specific neutron cross-sections. This allows a fusion reactor to be designed using materials that are selected specifically to be "low activation", materials that do not easily become radioactive. Vanadium, for example, would become much less radioactive than stainless steel. Carbon fibre materials are also low-activation, as well as being strong and light, and are a promising area of study for laser-inertial reactors where a magnetic field is not required.

 

In general terms, fusion reactors would create far less radioactive material than a fission reactor, the material it would create is less damaging biologically, and the radioactivity "burns off" within a time period that is well within existing engineering capabilities.