Quote:
Originally Posted by novaderrik
we will have developed "free" energy sources that give us enough energy to do whatever we need to do in any given week.
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Actually, in a sense we do have a free energy source already, for at least the next few billion years. We have this huge fusion reactor, which requires no work at all on our part, sending out a phenomenal amount of radiation in our direction day in and day out. We already harness it to some extent, but simply using that energy more effectively will probably give us essentially unlimited power if we want it. For example, building solar panels in space and beaming the energy down to the earth. There may be technical difficulties, but it's by far a more realistic solution than doing something like mining hydrogen on Jupiter or trying to find hydrocarbons on asteroids.