Power generated, log scale2030
- Whole swarm
- Panels from Luna
- Panels from Mercury
- Earth’s energy use, 19 TW
Timeline 2100
Earth thriving. The stars in reach. By 2100.
A path through this century to a fully sustainable Earth: more energy than it could ever use, its heavy industry moved off the planet, its air back to the carbon levels of the late 1980s, and the material and power to build a civilization across the solar system. It starts with factories that can build copies of themselves and runs on a ring of solar panels around the Sun.
The economics work. The engineering timelines are achievable. All it takes is the ambition to build it.
- 10 billion× today’s energygenerated by a ring of solar panels around the Sun by 2100
- Heavy industry off Earthmoved to orbit, where the energy and material are, so its heat never warms the planet
- CO₂ back to 350 ppmby 2100, where it was in 1988, from a peak near 560
- 5 more rings by 2102five times the power again, using up Mercury’s aluminum-rich crust
Want to help build it?
If this is a future you want to see, I’d like to hear from you: questions, corrections, ideas, or a hand with the work.