[adastra22]

Diamond-based molecular nanotechnology, combined with fusion and high efficiency solar as sources of power will make all of our technology and infrastructure carbon sinks. By the end of this century I expect we will be concerned about CO2 going too low and causing a glacial period.

PS Mercury is too far in-system to be that useful. It takes less energy to get to/from the outer planets than it does Mercury. The cold traps on the poles are interesting though--mercury potentially has all the raw material needed for a self-sufficient industrial colony.

[sidewndr46]

You have suggested in the same comment that somehow we will have nearly limitless carbon-negative energy but also that the amount of energy to get to Mercury is too high to make the trip worth it. This does not follow from the initial assumption.

[adastra22]

Why spend X/kg to get something from mercury when you could spend 1/4 or 1/8 as much to get it from the asteroid belt?

[ben_w]

A lot more Mercury than sum of all asteroids. On the scale of "this century" this may only matter for von Neumann probes building a Dyson swarm, but that's not a 0% possibility and you did ask for a reason.

[Dylan16807]

We can just turn off the carbon sinks in that case, there's plenty of carbon around to grab off the ground. And release some methane if needed.

[ben_w]

Eh, if it's economical to have the sinks at that scale, we probably won't turn them off for the same reason we "could" turn the CO2 sources off but don't.