What great progress would a civilization make if it were run entirely on renewable energy? What great strides would that culture make if its power sources, for all practical purposes, were based on endlessly renewable systems? This article expands upon the theme of the previous article of having renewable energy systems placed on planets other than on Earth. This particular article envisions a man-made civilization which runs entirely on renewable energy.

A brief note about the development models of India and China and how they differ from the development of the OECD. India and China differ from the West in that the development paths of their economic systems have a greater proportion of their power output based on renewable energy rather than the completely fossil-fuel and nuclear based ones of the OECD. In effect, this is technology leap-frogging, i.e. obsolete less efficient technologies are not used in favour of more efficient technologies. Or in terms of energy, carbon producing or fossil-fuel based technologies are dropped in favour of cleaner technologies.

A bit of technological crystal gazing is needed to work out how to go about decision-making in relation to technological deployment on other planets. Of course this is notoriously difficult to do. Who knows what creative concepts the human race will make? So to gaze into this crystal ball, we must establish a few parameters. The first parameter is whether a planet has life or is capable of supporting life? This life doesn’t have to carbon based like us. If it does, then there are three possibilities, that life is more, equal or less intelligent than the sum of human intelligence and its artificial intelligence.

Another parameter, is does that planet have water? If so, what state is it in, i.e. ice, liquid or vapour? The importance of water in the context of renewable energy is this. The most basic form of power generation is to boil water, use steam to turn a turbine and produce electricity. A lot of renewable energy options then open up, for example, biofuels, geothermal, run-of-river hydro power, wave and tide power, and hydrogen-based power systems.

A final parameter is the state of technological development of the entire earth-based power industry. Just because a technology is obsolete on Earth and isn’t being used, doesn’t mean that codified knowledge about that technology isn’t available, whether in the public or private domain. It can still be used in other planetary systems (xeno systems). In this case, it’s the reverse of technological leapfrogging, in other words obsolete technology is used somewhere else. This has been done for quite a while on Earth. One market’s older and obsolete technology is sold to lesser developed markets.

To conclude, these are the parameters needed to establish an entire economic system based completely on renewable energy. The technology or a portfolio of technologies being deployed in x eno systems can then be chosen accordingly. An example of these parameters in operation could be envisaged on a planet that capable of supporting life and has water; then biofuels and running water based systems could be built to generate power.

[Inset: Artist’s impression of an Earth-like planet from JasonArt]