Item — HN Reader

Is there any hope beyond developing nuclear (fission / fusion) tech for this world to sustain 10 billion humans consuming as much energy as an average Californian?[0]

As the gp said, the objective is maintaining and improving our quality of life. I don't know if solar/wind + storage can do that[1].

[0] Ok, "maybe" this is a high bar, but the point is: unless it gets too cheap to measure, energy will be scarce for large swathes of the world population [1] I honestly don't know. Any pointers to how much energy per capita would be produced in peak renewable?

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In a world where everyone consumes as much energy as the average Californian, the average wealth everywhere will be decently high.

https://www.eia.gov/state/rankings/

California: 199 million BTU per capita per year [0] -- 210 gigajoules. Multiplied by 10 billion, that's 2100 exajoules per year (2.1 * 10^21 joules). That's equivalent to steady yearlong consumption of 67 terawatts.

This was the first open-access article I found about global solar generation potential:

https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/sepm/article/view/1218/115...

It states "The current global solar potential technically available was estimated at about 613 PWh/y." That's 70 terawatts. So there is technically enough potential from solar alone, but it would be a tight squeeze. There are also some countries that cannot meet even annualized needs this way because they are densely populated and located in areas with relatively poor solar resources. Belgium and the Netherlands, for example.

Note also that the article says nothing about storage. Storage is the biggest question mark hanging over proposals to fully decarbonize without using nuclear technology. Early news from utility-scale storage implementations is encouraging but there is still a very long way to go.

Finally, note that commercial nuclear power too would have to undergo radical transformations to deliver a steady 67 terawatts of electricity. Breeder reactors would be necessary. Currently there is 1 breeder reactor in the world large enough for commercial electricity production [1]. The proposed follow-up design to this reactor is now on indefinite hold [2]. It would take a bit over 76,000 BN-800 reactors to generate 67 terawatts. The world currently has fewer than 500 operating power reactors.

As a general principle, you should treat any proposed miracle-solution that "just needs a few years of engineering work" with extreme skepticism, whether the claimed miracle is a much better battery or a much better reactor. Most of them die between the press release and the factory floor.

[0] Primary energy, not energy available to do work. But to avoid nitpicking I'm just going to do it The Hard Way and assume 1:1 joule replacement with electricity from non-combustion sources.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-1200_reactor

> It states "The current global solar potential technically available was estimated at about 613 PWh/y." That's 70 terawatts. So there is technically enough potential from solar alone, but it would be a tight squeeze.

The study seems to be using very modest assumptions about how much area can be fitted with solar cells (0% in urban areas??), so I think the conclusion should be that there is enough technical potential from solar alone, and it is not a particularly tight squeeze.