Re: How to get Post-Scarcity?

On Jun 26, 12:09 pm, Luke Campbell <lwc...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jun 26, 11:02 am, Remus Shepherd <re...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

We can probably set up giant algae/bacteria vat farms, and tweak the
bugs to produce any kind of organic stuff we need. But rare elements are
still rare. The only way to get enough of these elements, from what I can
see, is to either mine asteroids (and get lucky) or postulate some kind of
transmutation technology. Could we supplement our solar power grid with
fusion plants capable of ingesting (and thus producing) anything up to iron?

I could suspend my disbelief of nuclear transmutation for the sake of
a good story, but it really isn't plausible with any foreseeable
technology.

What about replacement? If we are using platinum as a catalyst,
figure out a way to use biological enzymes instead. Or perhaps nickel
nanoparticles with the right structure can replace the platinum (with
nickel being quite a bit more abundant than platinum).

What's the name of that quantum-dot tech that essentially makes
artificial atoms of whatever you want (actually it programmably mimics
the electron orbitals of the desired atom), but they're confined to a
surface? Ah, programmable matter. Sounds ideal to me for catalyst
applications.

For structural elements, steel, aluminum, and titanium are abundant in
the earth's crust and will likely remain relatively available,
especially with readily available electricity for reduction of
aluminum and titanium. Where structural strength is not a priority,
the metals can be replaced with plastics. Perhaps the metals can also
be replaced in many applications by ceramics, composites, carbon fiber
materials, or advanced forms of carbon (like manufactured diamond,
carbon nanotube ropes, graphene sheets, and so forth).

For plastics you need a simple feedstock which today is petroleum.
What we really need is a way to turn assorted plastics back into
petroleum so the nanotech geeks have enough raw material to experiment
with. ;>)

I can easily see a world where gold, platinum, and the like remain
rare and valuable, but useless except for decoration (note that this
is quite unlike the current world, where platinum has great value as a
catalyst that has driven its price up beyond what you would get from
its decorative value alone).

Pt issue solvable as above, but remember the Pt group metals do have
other uses and not just pen nibs.

One set of elements I can think of that cannot be plausibly replaced
with light elements or common metals are the fissionables. If you
rely on nuclear fission for your energy needs, you need to extract
uranium or thorium. You seem to have eliminated this concern in your
world by using solar power, however.

Transuranics have other uses too, but ISTR that there's a form of
breeder reactor that can make the usual suspects.

There may be applications where very high density is required. In
this case, tungsten, uranium and the like cannot be replaced by carbon
or plastics, because the light elements just are not dense enough.
These applications may be quite limited - the only one that
immediately comes to mind is armor piercing munitions and that's not
something your typical citizen in a post-scarcity world needs to have
for material happiness. For normal hunting and self defense, lead and
steel seem adequate in the density department and lead is quite
common.

IMNSHO Cu-jacketed steel's better than lead or bismuth (see current
EcoCrisis over lead shot).

Oh, yeah, Cu prices are through the roof. How much is in seawater
again? How much can we deplete seawater of its metal content before
organisms start to notice the lack?

I'd be more concerned with scarce _molecules_, like carbs and
proteins, though I'm not so sanguine about huge vats of (presumably
genetically) tweaked algae and bacteria. Suppose the Urey process is
tunable? Instead of a perfectly sterile glass globe, do it in the
presence of assorted clays or whatever to provide "templates"? Nah,
too primitive. Pass C, H, O, and N-containing gases over programmable
matter artificial enzymes (halfway between quantum dots and
claytronics) and collect the edible runoff?


Mark L. Fergerson
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