It's noteworthy though that this estimate assumes a constant energy supply for the next couple million years. That is rather unlikely since we'll be on our way to a Kardashev Type III civilization, provided we manage to survive all the bottlenecks ahead. As Ray Kurzweil remarked we tend to underestimate exponential growth because we are hardwired for linear relations. A civilization with exponentially growing resource usage (like our current one) will not be able to rely on geothermal energy for geological time frames. (It will not be able to rely on solar energy either, if we extend the time frame just a bit.) If we assume an increase of 2% per year, Wolfram Alpha plots this nice curve which shows when the supply needed in a single year would amount to the Earth's thermal energy corresponding to a 1K difference. AparentlyApparently that point would be reached in 800 years, not 7 million. Note how the curve doesn't make a dent until year 500 or so.4
Peter - Reinstate Monica
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Peter - Reinstate Monica
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Peter - Reinstate Monica
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Peter - Reinstate Monica
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Peter - Reinstate Monica
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Peter - Reinstate Monica
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