[Grovenet] America's Trillion-Dollar Baby

[David Morelli]

On Jan 24, 2007, at 9:21 AM, Ron D'Eau Claire wrote:

>
> My question is "What level of energy consumption is sustainable?"

So long as sun shine reaches the earth, the moon orbits the earth,  
and radioactive decay generates heat we have dependable sources of  
energy.  We can measure average solar energy delivered to the planet,  
average tidal motion, and heat loss from the core, so we can  
reasonably presume a sustainable energy budget based upon that  
total.  Anything greater is not sustainable over millennia.

The total energy from sun, tide and geothermal is very large.  The  
earth converts a predictable amount of this energy to drive the  
weather cycle and the plant cycle.  In the end we can predict the  
energy available for human consumption from those five sources.

Unless I have forgotten another energy source, that is the measure of  
"sustainable".

David