A Step Farther Out Read Online Free PDF

conventional ways to supply Earth with energy.
    No matter. My point is that we can find the energy. The method used is unimportant to the argument I make here: that we can survive, and survive with style.
    Given energy we will not starve; we will lick the pollution problem; and we will generate the wealth which historically has brought about population limits. At least three of the dooms facing us can be avoided.
     
    That brings us to the fourth doom: depletion of non-renewable resources. Can we manufacture the materials needed for survival with style? And can we do it without polluting the earth?
    Surely we can. We can go to space to get the materials—and in doing it w£ can avoid pollution entirely. (There are, of course, those who worry about "polluting outer space", an example of non-quantitative thinking. Were we to devote the Gross World Product exclusively to the task and vaporize the Earth in the attempt we could not manage to pollute more than a fraction of a percent of the space in the solar system, and our effect would be temporary. One suspects that those who worry about "polluting outer space" are either incredibly arrogant, or actually are motivated by a desire for Zero Growth for its own sake.)
    Metal production makes an excellent example. Mining and refining metals are some of the most polluting actions we manage, and metals are the most irreplaceable non-renewable resources we have. Give us enough iron and steel, copper, aluminum, zinc, and lead, and surely we'll have our problems licked. Give us enough metals and energy and we'll have wealth.
    After all, it's mine tailings that produce some of the really horrible pollution; copper refineries that poison so many streams; and those belching steel mills that made Pittsburgh a legend (although Pittsburgh is also an excellent example of how pollution may be cleaned up once it is determined that cleanup has to be accomplished; a whole generation has never seen the smoke and fire of old Pittsburgh). Furthermore, processing metals uses up vast amounts of energy.
    Give us metals free and clear, and the rest is easy. Give us enough metals and we'll industrialize the world. Besides, if we can do that in space, we can probably do anything else that has to be done. Consequently, I'll use metal production as my illustrative example.
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Figure 6
METALS FOR THE WORLD. . . .
    In 1967, the United States produced 315 million tons of iron, steel, rolled iron, aluminum, copper, zinc, and lead.

Total metal produced, USA, 1967: 2.866 x 10 14 grams.

Assume 3% ore, of density 3.5 gm/cm 3 , and the USA produced the equivalent of a sphere 1.7 kilometers in diameter.

At 230,000,000 population, we produced 1.25 x 10 6 grams per capita. To supply the world with that much requires 5 x 10 15 grams or FIVE BILLION TONS.

Assuming 3% ore at 3.5 gm/cm 3 , five billion tons of ore is a sphere 2.25 kilometers in radius or 4% kilometers in diameter.

There are 40,000 or more asteroids larger than 5 km in diameter.

We may not run out of metals after all. . . .
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    In 1967, a year for which I happen to have figures, the United States produced 315 million tons of iron, steel, rolled iron, aluminum, copper, zinc, and lead. (I added up all the numbers in the almanac to get that figure.) It comes to 2.866 x 10 14 grams of metal. Assume we must work with 3%-rich ore, and we have 9.6 x 10 15 grams of ore, or 10.5 billion tons.
    It sure sounds like a lot. To get some feel for the magnitude, let's put it all together into one big pile. Assuming our ore is of normal density we end up with a block less than 1.5 kilometers on a side: something more than a cubic kilometer, something less than a cubic mile. Or, if you like a spherical rock, it's less than two kilometers in diameter.
    There are 40,000 or more asteroids larger than 5 km in diameter.
    We may not run out of metals after all. . . .
    But—the title of this chapter is "Survival with Style." Style to me does not