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Re:Cornell wants to drill 2-4mi underground for enhanced geo... by dpark on Monday September 19, 2016 @05:14PM (#12534777)
It doesn't actually matter much if our usage projections are good. What matters is 1) that the energy store is so massive that it's hard to imagine how we could possibly exhaust it, and 2) the current dominant alternative (i.e. fossil fuel) is known to be terrible for us. If we switched to geothermal and set the world up to end humanity in a thousand years, we'd still be better off than continuing our desperate use of fossil fuels and ending humanity even sooner.
Re:Cornell wants to drill 2-4mi underground for enhanced geo... by jsudhams on Monday September 19, 2016 @11:17PM (#12536752)
The issue is we use up fossil fuels we could still continue for more years, I don't see any reason for it to end much before that. If we make mistake with earth core we would mostly surely setup end of humanity atleast. I would rather focus on getting the world to a place where willno borders and safe religion etc.. which would get lot more runtime for humans than this. If we optimize food production find a better alternative for capatalism we may live better with or with out need for fuel
Re:Cornell wants to drill 2-4mi underground for enhanced geo... by dpark on Monday September 19, 2016 @11:46PM (#12536892)
Our food production is driven by fossil fuels. Everything from the farm equipment to the fertilizers we spread to the trucks we ship it in are powered by fossil fuels. When we run out of fossil fuels, we better have a back up energy source (or sources) ready, because our food production will plummet if not. So will basically every industry, since they all depend on cheap transport and automation at this time. So we'll all starve while the economy collapses around us and our infrastructure falls apart as we have neither the money nor the energy supplies to fix it.

Yeah, our dependence on fossil fuels is a huge problem, and not just because of climate change (which might also kill us).