/sci/ - Science & Math

>>2296012
Yes, yes, yes, and maybe for a little while. IIRC, a good portion of the Earth's internal heat comes from radioactive decay. The rest is just leftover heat from the initial gravitational contraction of the Earth (not being replenished now), and losses to heat from internal friction.

>>2296012
I've thought about the same thing a lot. I'm almost certain that we could live in geothermal bunkers 'n' such.

>>2296019
A lot longer than you suggest, actually. It would probably be many millions of years before the earth's geothermal energy runs out.

>>2296040
Agreed, but I was mainly skeptical that we would be able to get the necessary transitions done fast enough. A totally underground and geothermal ecology isn't something you create overnight.

If we had a 20-year warning, maybe 50? Yeah, totally. It could last for thousands of years, if the closed ecology is viable.

dude. some countries heat their homes with the earth

In the top 70 meters or so of earth and rock, most the heat is from the sun, and its temperature changes seasonally, as the heat works its way in from the surface. If the sun was gone, I don't know what the average surface temperature of the earth would be, but it would be very cold. It would take a lot of time for the inner heat to radiate out. Obviously, if you dug deep enough, you would find heat, but the food chain needs actual sunlight.

>>2296047
Yeah, the food chain is why I was skeptical of it working for very long. But if you have enough geothermal power you can use artificial growing lights. And then there's always fungi, though I don't know how much nutrition mushrooms would have.

Earth has a blackbody temperature of ~300K
So it does radiate heat, but not a significant amount at the surface.
Geothermal power makes better use of it though.

>>2296047

herpy derp
entire ecosystems have evolved around hot springs in the blackest depths of the ocean.

>>2296047
To clarify, pretty much none of the heat that you experience on the surface, or in near-surface caves that stay in the 60's year-round, is geothermal. That's all heat from the sun.

>>2296061
Just how many humans can you support by sustainably harvesting giant tube worms? I doubt it's much. How large are the biggest vent ecosystems anyway?

>>2296061
Those life forms live on chemical energy, not the heat from the vents.

>>2296065
Oh theyre not common or large... I just wanted to refute the guy who said all life requires light.

If worms can do it, humans can figure it out and build more.

>>2296054
Right, but you'd have to carefully figure out where all the nutrients for fungi come from, to make sure you can manage a sustainable ecology. It would probably be tricky.

Bitches don't know about my geothermal gradients.

>>2296069
I didn't say that. I said our food chain requires light.

>>2296075
That's true enough.

I think it would take a generation or two of serious effort to get a perpetually self-sustaining non-solar human ecosystem going underground.

>>2296074
That's not accurate for the first 100 meters. The first 100 meters or so is dominated by surface temperatures.

I can't wait to live underground chewing on a warm plump helmet.

>>2296078
Mines regularly go far deeper. You just would have to leave the frozen surface behind forever.

This is starting to sound a LOT like the opening scenario of Gurren Lagann.

>>2296082
Nah. Cold, raw plump helmets are where it's at. With some good dwarven wine (fermented plump helmet).

Dammit, now I need to go play some DF. The new version has a lot of changes apparently.

>>2296084
More like Arx Fatalis.

>>2296084
I wonder if you could ever possibly get an interstellar colonization mission going, starting only from underground ecologies? You would need some great power sources. Maybe if you can get fusion working, or at least efficient long-term fission, you could take one of your closed ecosystems into orbit and then off on a many-generation trip to another star.

>>2296078
The thing is the surface temperatures cycle between winter lows and summer highs. The first layers of rock follow these oscillations but then tend toward a long-term mean of what's going on at the surface. Then when you get deep enough the temp starts rising. If the surface was down around a constant -300 degrees, I think we'd find the whole slope of the geothermal gradient changed a bit.

>>2296090
>looks it up.
Huh. Interesting. Thanks for this. Any good?

>>2296075
easily solved!

Geothermal powerplants powering grow lights

>>2296098
Sure. Maybe after 1000 meters down you'd still be OK.

>>2296100
I think "meh" describes it pretty accurately.

Worth trying it out, but it's nothing exceptional.

>>2296108
>>2296100
>looks up pics on Steam
does... that zombie have six arms?

>>2296115
nvm, lol, was another zombie on the ground behind the living one. Would've been interesting.

I love to imagine a glorious future for humanity, forced to dig deeper and deeper as the layers closer to the surface cool down and creating a massive underground empire.

Fuck the stars, this is where it's at!

>>2296131
One journey gets cramped and cut short much sooner than the other.

Bump!