Waste Heat and Habitability: Constraints from Technological Energy Consumption

التفاصيل البيبلوغرافية
العنوان: Waste Heat and Habitability: Constraints from Technological Energy Consumption
المؤلفون: Balbi, Amedeo, Lingam, Manasvi
المصدر: Astrobiology 2025 25:1, 1-21
سنة النشر: 2024
المجموعة: Astrophysics
Physics (Other)
مصطلحات موضوعية: Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics, Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics, Physics - Applied Physics, Physics - Physics and Society, Physics - Space Physics
الوصف: Waste heat production represents an inevitable consequence of energy conversion as per the laws of thermodynamics. Based on this fact, by using simple theoretical models, we analyze constraints on the habitability of Earth-like terrestrial planets hosting putative technological species and technospheres characterized by persistent exponential growth of energy consumption and waste heat generation. In particular, we quantify the deleterious effects of rising surface temperature on biospheric processes and the eventual loss of liquid water. Irrespective of whether these sources of energy are ultimately stellar or planetary (e.g., nuclear, fossil fuels) in nature, we demonstrate that the loss of habitable conditions on such terrestrial planets may be expected to occur on timescales of $\lesssim 1000$ years, as measured from the start of the exponential phase, provided that the annual growth rate of energy consumption is of order $1\%$. We conclude with a discussion of the types of evolutionary trajectories that might be feasible for industrialized technological species, and we sketch the ensuing implications for technosignature searches.
Comment: 76 pages, 4 figure. Matches version published in Astrobiology
نوع الوثيقة: Working Paper
DOI: 10.1089/ast.2024.0082
URL الوصول: http://arxiv.org/abs/2409.06737
رقم الانضمام: edsarx.2409.06737
قاعدة البيانات: arXiv