uncleclover
New member
...find a minimal energy alternative? Suppose some alignment or another ended up slowly flinging Earth out into interstellar space, and it happened in a way that didn't cause the immediate collapse of civilization (i.e., it wasn't very high-energy in terms of geological effects - our cities still stand and our oceans are where they've always been, we're just moving away from the sun).
Would we be able to establish alternate forms of energy production quickly enough to keep at least just a thread of civilization active? If it could be done but only under extremely "ideal" conditions, what are they? For instance, if it happened very slowly so that the sun grew a little bit smaller every year so that in, say, 10-20 years, it takes up only half the size it presently occupies in our skies - would that kind of a gradual slippage allow us time to improvise some sort of minimalistic setup for our continued survival?
Could hydrogen energy cells be produced at a sustainable pace? How much would it take to manually control the climate so that the temperature variations remain relatively consistent with the cycle of change experienced by our ecology when it was still orbiting the sun? Massive, yes, but possible?
Would we be able to establish alternate forms of energy production quickly enough to keep at least just a thread of civilization active? If it could be done but only under extremely "ideal" conditions, what are they? For instance, if it happened very slowly so that the sun grew a little bit smaller every year so that in, say, 10-20 years, it takes up only half the size it presently occupies in our skies - would that kind of a gradual slippage allow us time to improvise some sort of minimalistic setup for our continued survival?
Could hydrogen energy cells be produced at a sustainable pace? How much would it take to manually control the climate so that the temperature variations remain relatively consistent with the cycle of change experienced by our ecology when it was still orbiting the sun? Massive, yes, but possible?