we can't transport them or mine the material to make them without solar power..

I don't follow.

We could eliminate the requirement for biomass consumption by downloading our conciousness-es into solar powered android bodies and giant orbital solar reflectors would beam sunshine down upon us 24 hrs a day. Our positronic brains would be much faster so we would need to learn Dolphin to speak to each other.

This technology is only 5 years away, perhaps 10.

thomas deplume -

As you probably know, many here at TOD hold the view that we can't get from Here to There because we are presently dependent upon a dying technology, i.e., the burning of fossil fuels to produce useful work. They say that we can't go solar, wind, etc. in a big way because a significant amount of fossil fuel is required to create the infrastructure for such systems.

I say that this view is sorely off base. If one studies the history of technology, one sees that new technologies don't just suddenly snap into being like spring flowers. Rather, they are generally bootstrapped and gradually carried into being by the older technologies, of which they gradually displace.

Much horsepower (of the kind with hooves) had been used to bring the steam engine into being, and much fossil fuel technology was required to bring nuclear energy into being. One builds on the other, hopefully in not too wrenching of a way.

One of my favorite little examples of this sort of thing is that of the Japanese Zero fighter plane of WW II. The Japanese got into the aeronautics game quite late, but they were amazingly quick learners. Contrary to blatant racist views to the contrary, they had mastered the state of the art of aeronautical engineer and were good flyers. Their Zero fighter was developed a year or so prior to Pearl Harbor under great secrecy. At the time it was arguable the best fighter plane in the world. However, I read that when they took the first prototype Zero from its hanger to the test field, they had to tow it by horse-drawn wagons because trucks were in such short supply in Japan. So here we had 18th-Century technology helping to bring 20th-Century technolgy into being.

That's the way things usually work. As such, I think the best possible use of our dwindling fossil fuel reserves is to create a sustainable energy infrastructure. Sort of like towing a Zero fighter plane with a horse.