During recent podcast Milo had some questions for both | 1being
During recent podcast Milo had some questions for both John Michael Greer and Simon Michaux. Can see below the questions and compare their answers.
John Michael Greer answers to Milo's questions:
Milo questions: Dear Dr. Michaux & Mr. Greer, Inquiries: - A.) How can we have modernity without the scale of market size that we currently have to enable the mining, processing, distribution then manufacturing of the huge rage of parts that go into making every aspect of modernity?
We can't. It really is as simple as that. Modernity, as Dr. Richard Duncan used to say, was a transient pulse waveform -- a one-time, self-terminating affair.
B.) How do we make the machines that make the final product machines in a scale down world? -
That asks the question the wrong way around. The right way around is "what kind of final products can we afford to have, given all the constraints on producing them in a deindustrializing world?" The answer won't be clear for several centuries, but it's unlikely that any technology invented since 1900 or so will be included.
C.) How is it possible to maintain complexity, such as a thorium reactor and all the machines it powers on only a small scale?
I'm not a specialist in this technology, of course. I'm open to the possibility that it can be done, but I want to see an affordable example first. As we've seen over and over again, every nuclear technology is cheap, clean, and safe until somebody actually builds it...
D.) Where do the materials come from after many cycles where entropy and dissipation have worked their magic over many cycles of recycling?
Oh, in the long run -- say, another 10,000 years -- we'll have to go to entirely renewable resources, and that will involve sweeping changes in everything; for example, some future society may cultivate chemosynthetic iron-fixing bacteria (the kind that currently produce bog iron) to keep it supplied with iron. Our immediate descendants won't have to worry about that, though. Given the scale of population contraction we can expect (around 95% worldwide) and the gargantuan supplies of metal and other materials that have been hauled up from deep within the earth and stored in what will soon be urban ruins, our descendants for the next thousand years or so will have all the metal they can dream of using.
Simon Michaux answers to Milo's questions:
Milo questions: A.) How can we have modernity without the scale of market size that we currently have to enable the mining, processing, distribution then manufacturing of the huge rage of parts that go into making every aspect of modernity? –
I don’t think we can. It was all dependent on oil as a fuel. We have no replacement for this.
B.) How do we make the machines that make the final product machines in a scale down world? –
We have to change our thinking in what we need all this stuff for. Do we need it? Can we do it in a more simplified form? Then ask how we can get there. If we can simplify how the tools are made using more abundant resources (iron vs. lithium for example) then use those machines differently, using modern knowledge. What have we actually learned over the last 200 year? The last 20 years in particular? Can we take a backyard workshop, make a small foundry, have a blacksmith forge, run a basic lathe, drill press and welder, power it with a wind turbine on a lead acid battery? Strip out useful products from all the places around us that no longer are in operation (cars in a carpark that have been abandoned). Make an electric motor and a lead acid battery. Can we shred rubber tyres and make gaskets? Can we run a furnace to recycle ceramics and building waste into geo polymers? Then you have tech like 3D printers. Can these be reinvented where we can make our own feedstock and make our own printer unit? And so on.
C.) How is it possible to maintain complexity, such as a thorium reactor and all the machines it powers on only a small scale? –
A Th MSR unit is about 12 m long, about the size of a shipping container and delivers 40 MW of electricity, or 100 MW of heat at 560 deg C. They are made mostly from steel, nickel and a small number of exotic metals and alloys. They have a working life of 50 years. Complexity to run it is about that of running a modern medial isotope lab. Their production is much simpler than most other devices. I think it can be done in some cases. The problem is getting permission to use them.
D.) Where do the materials come from after many cycles where entropy and dissipation have worked their magic over many cycles of recycling?
Contract our material needs per capita. Simplify what we need to resources that are more abundant. Most of the purple transition needs iron, which we have lots of. Copper will be the limiting metal. Industrial systems have to come into line with food production limitations. Once we get to the point where recycling and mining can no longer deliver, then society has to work out a way of living without these things or go extinct.