james_nicoll (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} james_nicoll) wrote,@ 2005-06-30 13:19:00 |
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The Textile Singularty of the 19th and 20th Centuries
Between 1760 and 1850, British imports of cotton increased by a factor of 220, or about 6% a year. This was due to the economics of the textile industry, where reduced prices led to an increase in demand that more than made for the lower prices. Some of the profit went into discovering cheaper ways of making linen and this cycle continued without end. Alas, while this mean a short term increase in profits, it also will trigger an extinction event that made the end Permian look like the Potato Famine. Allow me to explain:
By 1900, the UK produced about 1.06^50 x 220 tonnes or about 4,000 tonnes of linen. The rest of planet had joined in, so the total was about 10,000 tonnes
of linen. Obviously at some point cotton would no longer be sufficient to supply the linen needs but we know human ingenuity is without limits and so ways of transforming other biomass into linen were discovered.
The total living biomass of the Earth is about 3.6x10^12 tonnes. At the inexorable growth rates of the 19th and 20th centuries, this will be the annual production in the year 2340. The total mass of linen will have hit that number sometime in the 2200s, so obviously the Textile Industry will have to resort to using nonliving biomass, of which there is about 10^14 tonnes. That will last the textile industry until about the 2350s, at which point the only recurse will be to spread to the other worlds.
Since we are part of the living biomass of Earth we will have been converted into tablecloths, trousers and other useful products long before the textile industry is forced to turn to the other planets and from there to the stars.
Between 1760 and 1850, British imports of cotton increased by a factor of 220, or about 6% a year. This was due to the economics of the textile industry, where reduced prices led to an increase in demand that more than made for the lower prices. Some of the profit went into discovering cheaper ways of making linen and this cycle continued without end. Alas, while this mean a short term increase in profits, it also will trigger an extinction event that made the end Permian look like the Potato Famine. Allow me to explain:
By 1900, the UK produced about 1.06^50 x 220 tonnes or about 4,000 tonnes of linen. The rest of planet had joined in, so the total was about 10,000 tonnes
of linen. Obviously at some point cotton would no longer be sufficient to supply the linen needs but we know human ingenuity is without limits and so ways of transforming other biomass into linen were discovered.
The total living biomass of the Earth is about 3.6x10^12 tonnes. At the inexorable growth rates of the 19th and 20th centuries, this will be the annual production in the year 2340. The total mass of linen will have hit that number sometime in the 2200s, so obviously the Textile Industry will have to resort to using nonliving biomass, of which there is about 10^14 tonnes. That will last the textile industry until about the 2350s, at which point the only recurse will be to spread to the other worlds.
Since we are part of the living biomass of Earth we will have been converted into tablecloths, trousers and other useful products long before the textile industry is forced to turn to the other planets and from there to the stars.
