Re:This Can’t Go On
by yetihehe on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @07:59AM
(#28059946)
Fourth power of temperature of heat spreader. It can be isolated from earth's atmosphere and still export heat. Of course, it's not enough if we want to limit ourselves to "IR wavelengths to which atmosphere is transparent".
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That's a good point, although in the context of exponential growth, it's a small difference that just buys a few more centuries. The heat spreader would either have to grow exponentially in area radiating into space, or grow exponentially in temperature; at some point it will hit geographic or material limits, or else eventually end up bathing the Earth in gamma rays.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03911-8
“When the materials point at the sky, the infrared rays can pass straight through the atmosphere and into space. That effectively links the materials to an inexhaustible heat sink, into which they can keep dumping heat without it coming back.”
I agree with jbay808 on the impracticality, but note that in context, I am responding to the question of whether it would be harder to remove the heat than to generate it. Both obviously quickly become impracticable if we expect exponential increases.