Solar energy flux, Earth's population

[phy]

Solar energy flux, Earth's population...

Hi everyone

I have this one question from my optics course that has me totally stumped. It reads "Solar energy flux at Earth's position is about 1.7kW/m^2. Estimate the maximum possible population of the Earth."

I've looked through my textbook and asked a few people in my class but nobody has been able to come up with anything. Apart from one equation that I found (J=0.25n<c> where J is molecular flux, n is the particle number density and c is the mean molecular speed), I couldn't even start the question. If somebody could maybe just throw out some hints or equations, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

[phy]

Can somebody please help me? I don't want anybody to do it for me. Just give me a hint on which direction I should be going in. Lol please? Thanks =)

 

[Claude Bile]

Estimate how much energy, per second, a human needs to stay alive, that is, how much energy a human metabolises in one second.

For extra complexity, you can estimate an energy conversion efficiency, i.e. the percentage of energy incident on the Earth that is converted into energy useful to humans.

Hope that gets you going.

Claude.

 

[phy]

Uhhhh that actually makes sense but how much energy does the average human metabolize per second?

Does 2500 Calories sound resonable?

 

[Claude Bile]

10,000 kJ/day is probably reasonable to a first approximation. In a question like this, you are not looking for precision, just a ball park figure.

Claude.

 

[phy]

Okie dokie I think I know how to do the question. Thanks a lot for your help