Discussion
Today I picked a bad example in citing photosynthesis as a case for greater efficiency in nature than in manmade tech. Bad enough to be flat out wrong.
I learn that photosynthesis (Ps) has an approximate “theoretical maximum efficiency of solar energy conversion” of 11% but in practice (due to trade-offs) it’s more like 3% to 6% (quoting Wikipedia). Whereas recent PV can regularly exceed 20%.
I knew the latter (PV) but confess I did not know the former (Ps)…
@urlyman great idea to pursue!
…In this sense I was talking bollocks, and I deserved to get an epistemological kick in the nuts.
But my intended point remains. The trade-offs really matter.
I wonder, perhaps there may have been chloroplast-embedded configurations in the past that exceeded 6% but they’re not here because it compromised robustness?…
…Anyway, here’s what I understand we have good confidence about:
1. Uniting a deep time store of carbon with a deep time store of oxygen in a geologically tiny span of time is a very very bad idea.
2. We’ve known this for about 170 years but have carried on doing it.
3. We’ve used the short term power jackpot of #1 to develop tech that can exceed the efficiency of photosynthesis in ways that are not metabolisable on human timescales…
…4. The tech is acquiring good to excellent recyclability but it is not regenerative. Unlike life…
5. Life wastes nothing. The waste products of life generate new life on a minutes to years basis.
6. We’ve focused on PV/wind as lower carbon end use but to all intents and purposes not at all on decarbonising their manufacture. So relative to the time we have to drastically alter our impact we don’t have answers. So far.
7. Species that don’t make trade-offs that favour robustness die
…8. We think this is an energy challenge. It’s not. It’s a power predicament. Life has been around for over 4 billion years. It’s a reasonable bet that the modes of non-human living that are still around are around *because they work through thick and thin*. Any species that temporarily breached nature’s power laws – as we have done and are doing – are *not here*.
9. We’ve had the thick and now comes the thin, but we’re too thick to see it
@urlyman Back when I was pretending to study biology we were warned about taking the Panglossian view of evolution. This is probably not the best of all possible worlds. There is a lot of waste and inefficiency if you compare with engineered solutions. There is also complexity and diversity we probably have hardly begun to understand. But there is no purpose. None. It has just happened that way and as you point out it is regenerative.
@urlyman Okay, but I think when we factor in "externalities", Ps is looking much, much more efficient. The knock on effects of photosynthesis include more carbon sequestration in the soil; those for PVs include hexane disposal.
@dnkboston yep. @MySideIsHumanity put it succinctly https://myprivate.social/@MySideIsHumanity/117083347223427950
I’m largely just saying the same thing in more words https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/117084875868232446
@urlyman @dnkboston @MySideIsHumanity@mastodon.cloud I very well may just be too jaded and fatalistic, about the fact humanity has more or less been there done that… and evidently not learned a got-damn thing. 😅
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