Sorry to bother you with this again. I have posted about this 2 times in the last 6 months already, because it is a fascinating topic and i want to talk about it. The issue is, whether there is renewable energy in the universe (truly renewable). Solar energy is called “renewable” but ultimately the sun will burn out. What then?
I have last time gotten the answers that “it’s a stupid question because we have more urgent problems, such as corrupt politics etc.”. Frankly, i disagree. This question is of existential importance, because it gives us an outlook into the far future. These perspectives are more valuable than playing 15 minutes of a computer game, which you could do instead of reading this article.
I uploaded a neat PDF here: https://files.catbox.moe/p8tg6i.pdf
Additionally i will copy-paste the article text here.
Spider Web Cosmology
From: https://feddit.org/u/gandalf_der_12te
Date: 2026-07-26
Subject: Renewable energy in a cosmological context
Abstract
In this paper i present a simple and clear approach to extract useful energy out of the cosmic expansion using mithril material wires, i.e. wires with very high Young’s modulus and ultimate tensile strength. This energy is renewable, such that it represents a continuous and probably eternal power source.
Introduction and Motivation
The industrial revolution has allowed for a significant growth of humanity. While global population numbers were around 300 million around 1000 CE, it scaled to almost 8 billion by 2000 CE. That is an almost 30-fold increase. This was made possible largely by two inventions: the combustion-engine driven tractor and the natural-gas-based ammonia synthesis. Both consume massive amounts of energy, which mostly came from fossil fuels, which are not renewable. This naturally raises the question of whether humanity will ever run out of energy, which would induce a reversal of this massive growth, i.e. a significant population shrinkage. Related to this is the problem of climate change, i.e. whether there exists a long-lasting energy source that does not poison our own living conditions that we rely on.
Ever since solar energy started around 2020 to become economically competitive, many people have felt deep relief from the anxiety around climate change and the threat that humanity would eventually run out of fuel. However, the sun is predicted to burn out in approximately 10 billion years, and then humanity will have to find a new source of energy. While other stars do exist, those too will eventually run out of energy, with the slowest- burning stars (red dwarf stars) predicted to last for approximately 1000 billion years. Slower-burning stars do not practically exist as they would not be massive enough to ignite nuclear fusion in the first place.
What other sources of energy are there in cosmology? Especially, do sources exist that do not run out after a while, i.e. that are truly renewable?
Scope and Context
This paper uses the insights from general relativity, especially cosmic expansion, and simple mechanics to present a mechanism for renewable power in cosmology. While quantum aspects, such as vacuum energy, are highly interesting and might slightly change the reality, they’re left out of this analysis and regarded as an extra feature of nature that will have to be stacked on top of this one.
Mechanism
The term „spider web cosmology“ is justified if one visualizes the core concepts of this proposal:
An array of wires made from a very thin (lightweight) material called „Mithril“ are laid out throughout the universe, which have extremely high elasticity (Young’s modulus), which means they exert force when stretched without significantly changing length.
Living organisms reside at the intersection points. As the intersection points are pulled away from each other over time, the wires between them will be stretched. The force that each wire exerts can then be calculated from Hooke’s law: F=σ⋅A=E⋅ε⋅A , with F being force, σ being stress, E being Young’s modulus, ε being axial strain, A being cross-section area.
The mithril wires are chains of small link elements. As the living organisms at the intersection point let the wires contract from time to time, while generating power from that contraction, new link elements are produced and attached to the wire.
The mithril wires have to be produced from new matter that gets produced from a matter-anti-matter pair, that gets produced from the energy harvested from the chain relaxation. In other words, the chain has to release more energy when it relaxes than the rest mass of the mithril chain links.
This is why this mithril material has to be extremely lightweight while still having high Young’s modulus and high ultimate tensile strength. Practically speaking, I’m not entirely sure whether such a material could exist. Using simplifications and a linear model of elasticity, common steel does not have good enough properties for this application.
I will proof this in the following calculation. For this, we have to look at the rest mass of a steel chain link and the energy that can be released when the chain is relaxed by the length of one link element. Let x be the length of one link element.
The work W1 released by the chain is W 1=F⋅x=E⋅ε⋅A⋅x , while the rest mass (rest energy W2) of one chain link is W 2= ρ⋅A⋅x with density ρ, therefore for W1 to be larger than W2 one gets the relation E⋅ε > ρ. Comparing this to the actual values for steel:
- E is around 200 GPa (2·10¹¹ J/m³)
- ρ is around 8 000 kg/m³, equivalent to a rest energy of around 8·10²⁰ J/m³
Therefore, ε would have to be larger than 4·10⁹, i.e. the steel wire would have to stretch to 4 billion times its usual length. However, commercially available steel used in construction typically breaks apart for ε > 3·10⁻³ (Source: Wikipedia). These steel wires would have to have a factor 10¹² higher ultimate tensile strength!!
The judgement is still out on whether a good enough mithril material could hypothetically exist.
Isn’t nuclear power easier than this mithril stuff?
Sure, for as long as fuel lasts.
Interesting idea. Wonderful if it ever proved testable.
I think Dyson spheres or shooting energy into black holes would be easier than this even if it was possible
This won’t work for many many reasons. But if we’ll allow a bit of fantasy, it still won’t work.
Gravity dominates at smaller scales. If the expansion of the universe were to work like you describe, we wouldn’t exist and there wouldn’t be very many interesting things in the universe. The expansion is a very very small factor, almost non-existent. This means at smaller scales, like say the size of a galaxy, gravity dominates. Meaning the movement and relative position is determined by the gravity of those objects and expansion plays no part. It’s only on very large scales the expansion becomes a thing.
You can think about the expansion as more space being created within the existing space. But when you’re in a gravity dominated area, the gravity pulls the matter together, so the extra space has no impact at all. But when looking at galaxies very far away, there isn’t any gravity keeping them in relation to us. So when looking over vast distances (and vast amounts of time), we can see the red-shift because they are moving away from us. But those galaxies are still perfectly intact, it’s not like all that time ripped them apart, just the distance in between us and them.
There is this idea about a big rip. In this scenario the mechanism creating more space gets more pronounced in the future. This means after a very long time, it might start to dominate over gravity. At first on large scales, later even on smaller scales, up to the point everything is ripped apart and only the smallest of things can exist. That would mean no more galaxies, no more solar systems and maybe not even molecules or atoms. But there isn’t a whole lot of indication this would actually happen and the time scales involved are huge.
Also important, like theneverfox said, the universe has ways of closing off these kinds of loop holes. Imagine creating a whip from this material you describe. When you would make that whip long enough (and compared to the scale you describe it can be tiny), you’d easily be able to get the end beyond the speed of light when whipping it. Obviously this can’t work, so we know this material simply cannot exist. Nothing with a tensile strength like you describe can exist, not even in theory and applying some fantasy magic. It would break the laws of physics. (And not even getting into the amount of energy per volume such a material would have is beyond black hole levels, so that’s a whole thing)
Also important, like theneverfox said, the universe has ways of closing off these kinds of loop holes. Imagine creating a whip from this material you describe. When you would make that whip long enough (and compared to the scale you describe it can be tiny), you’d easily be able to get the end beyond the speed of light when whipping it. Obviously this can’t work, so we know this material simply cannot exist. Nothing with a tensile strength like you describe can exist, not even in theory and applying some fantasy magic. It would break the laws of physics. (And not even getting into the amount of energy per volume such a material would have is beyond black hole levels, so that’s a whole thing)
interesting argument with the whip, i’ll think about it.
however your second point about the amount of energy per volume that such a material would have, i calculated that and it’s about equal to the rest mass of the material. in other words, charging it with energy the way i intended would roughly double its total mass. not create a black hole.
(that’s because you’re siphoning off that energy to create more mithril wire. so the stored energy in the old wire has to be at minimum equal to the rest mass of the new mithril wire. i hope that makes sense.)
No I mean if you create a material with such a tensile strength, the amount of energy would be well into black hole territory. Like just the energy contained within the material itself, not the energy added to it.
And please note these are just examples, there are so many ways how this cannot possibly work. You would do well to get a foundation in physics first, before trying to tackle these kinds of things. Or just go into writing fantasy books instead, that way it doesn’t matter if it’s possible or not.
My personal preference for fantasy is that the writer does create a rigid framework for rules that work in the imaginary universe and keeps to it as much as possible. That way it prevents major plot holes and inconsistencies within the universe.
Solar energy is called “renewable” but ultimately the sun will burn out. What then?
I can’t speak to physics, but have you read The Last Question?
Something something angels dancing on a pin…
Humans are less than 400,000 years old. Human society is far less than 20,000 years. The chances of humans surviving another 5000 years, let alone another 4-10,000,000,000 to see the death of the sun is impossibly and immeasurably small.
We will never need to worry about the sun running out of energy. We will need to worry about stopping the suns energy due to the loss of our current atmospheric environment long before we need to worry about replacing the energy from the sun with ultra long and strong wires and interstellar living and construction nodes.
I believe the “mathematic proof” you’re talking about is just a fraction of the potential energy from cosmic expansion based on factors of some material that doesn’t exist. You could really make that number anything you want, from 0 to 1, because it’s all made up anyway
yeah i get what you’re saying. i really do. however, the thing is, it’s not entirely pointless what i said. human society has often developed in accordance with philosophical principles. people will act more likely in ways that ensure that they have a long-term future, if they can reasonably believe that they can have (or at least have a vision of) their long-term prosperity. You get what i’m saying? drunkyards both in america and in russia are more likely to poison themselves with alcohol if they don’t see “the good ending”. the same is happening on a political, geopolitical level. people are more likely to act sane if they can see the bright future ahead.
currently, the physics narrative about the long-term development of the universe is bleak. you learn in school that eventually the universe is gonna end in a long, boring cold death. You can see how that paints a negative picture of the future in people’s heads? “nothing i do matters because in the end we’re all gonna die” -> people do stupid things because they don’t care. that’s not psychologically healthy. we need to rewrite the narrative in a positive way. and that’s what i’m doing by showing that it is theoretically possible, theoretically conceivable, worth to consider the option that there is a long-term positive future. that’s how human psychology works, both in geopolitics and for the individual drunkyard (on a smaller scale). so the drunkyard might care about his family, the geopolitics cares about the fate of the universe, kinda.
in other words, to put it in more drastic terms: your framing that humans won’t survive the next 10 billion years anyway and even if we do, we’re ultimately gonna die after that, makes it in fact more likely that we won’t survive that long.
“Science makes people nihilists, and i must fix that by making science sound more hopeful.”
My friend, I think you misunderstand.
Science is not about feelings, and you cannot create science simply to guide psychology. Thinking like this is going to create a personal bias you cannot see through. Also, it is not your job to fix everyone’s outlooks on life. This is called a savior complex, which is a bit narcissistic.
Make sure you’re doing your science for the right reasons.
All life on earth, as we know it, is less than 3 billion years old. In that time, we evolved into simple strands of self-replicating DNA from random chemicals being combined at just the right time in just the right environment. Then from there into multi-cellular life. Then from there into much more complex and diverse forms of life. Less than 3 billion years.
And all that happened in under half of the time that you’re talking about before our sun can no longer support us.
We most certainly will not exist in the way we do now 5 to 10 billion years from now. That’s not nihilistic, that is reality.
Should we continue to look for ways to improve? Of course! But also, let’s not make up situations to solve so we can call ourselves heroes. We have plenty of problems here and now that are a genuine and immediate threat to life as we know it.
That being said, it seems like you’re trying to solve a problem that obviously isn’t. What exactly are you shooting for here? An equation with your name on it? A Nobel prize? A Sci-Fi book series? Something that is about you more than it is about humanity, for sure…
well you know you don’t have to read my article if you don’t like it. you claim i’m solving a problem that’s only a small problem, not a big problem. meanwhile i assume that you’re not bothering if people play video games instead? because people need to take their minds of their immediate reality for a while? or sth
Let me be honest: 10 billion years until the sun burns out is a lot. The world seems to change fast these last centuries and it’s basically impossible to predict how it’s gonna look in 2050. Therefore I believe crafting a solution that on its face seems to be rather impractical, solving something that will only become a problem in the very distant future, using very long theoretical causational links to predict the trend, and assuming the net gain could be worth it is not helpful. It’s so far removed from normal science, it reminds me of conspiracy theories like the idea that you can somehow use the Giza pyramids as a power source.
You need to think about frame of reference first: you cannot speculate on what we might have and be able to do in the future. You are assuming a bunch of things, and science doesn’t assume, in science you start with the assumption that all of your claims bullshit, and then disprove it. For your theories this will take centuries anyway because there is so many assumptions and some of them will take many papers in order to understand if and how they work.
Some examples:
- Start with the expanding force of the universe: is there one? How big? On which scale does it overcome modern power sources? Confirm multiple different ways that this scale is realistic.
- do the physics work on that scale? Is the expanding force big enough to pull it apart and keep it from folding out? How would gravity from surrounding cosmic bodies affect it? How well does it withstand big and small impacts from different bodies?
- how do you actually translate expansion to energy? What’s the loss to thermal energy? What are typical conversion rates for this? How exactly do you do the conversion? Why would you be able to do some functioning conversion?
- how does it transport the energy back to the point of origin? What kind of cables work with minimal loss over these distances?
- what’s the impact on our electric grid, the impact on gravitational forces, etc.? Would this destabilize our solar system?
You are hovering over your assumptions and this is exactly where quack theories live. That’s why people are extremely suspicious. Everyone can make up a theory on how generating electricity might be possible in the future using technologies we haven’t even invented yet. Sure, we might, but before anyone wants to actually think of that you need to put in the leg work to prove this technology is not only practical but at least one some scale it exists. And you have to do this for all of the things you are assuming.
- the harness
- binding materials
- protective materials
- conductive materials
- resources needed in production
- resources needed in deployment
Let me also stress that no one is annoyed that you think of solutions for problems. People are annoyed because you are the 100th guy dreaming up an incredibly outlandish solution to a problem that doesn’t really affect us in any way currently, and then you are winging the parts that scientists spend most of their time on. Lots of math, lots of different ways to confirm the math, field studies, disproving, collaboration, etc., there’s so much more to it.
Trust, if there’s interesting aspects to it, and you find people outside of your circles that find your theories somewhat plausible, you should try to get a peer-review. And then you probably have to do a bunch of follow up research, but that’s how scientific consensus moves: slowly and in tiny chunks.
uhh, i get your point, but my point wasn’t to “build a machine that works”. rather, i’m having a mathematical background (personally) and doing an “existence proof” here: i show that something is possible, not that something is efficient or can be easily built. many such proofs exist throughout the field of mathematics, and also physics, to show the consistency or inconsistency of some other, more practical theory. this is often useful because even when you cannot find an object itself, knowing that it must exist can have distinct benefits.
i’m gonna exemplify this with the proof that the square root of 2 is irrational. the proof assumes that two natural numbers a and b exist such that sqrt(2) = a / b. Then it derives a contradiction from that and that’s how we know that sqrt(2) is irrational. At no point were the numbers a and b ever found. Hence, by your metrics, such a proof is “useless” (because it does not construct a or b). but, the value is not to find a number, but to proof that it does / does not exist. different category of goal here.
Well, there’s a big difference between consistency and probability.
In that case you might wanna be careful to point out the very experimental ground this stands on.
