high tech married to sustainability and biomimesis is the future - also called clean tech. this is probably going to be the largest employer in the next 50 years. as shown in this video - multiple clean techs are coming online now. i wish permaculture was talked about within the rubric of clean tech - very few people are talking about the need for systemic change in agriculture...
can we manage human tech enabled populations the way a forest self-organizes for perfect sustainability and symbiosis? we are starting down that road now!
the doe is setting up research groups (starting at argonne national labs) to develop energy storage technologies that are five times as powerful and five times as cheap as what currently exists. they are putting up $120 million for this initiative and are talking it up (comparing it to the manhattan project). the money put up seems a bit limited - given that the manhattan project spent over $ 25 billion in today's money. but it's clear that battery tech is getting more attention. this is critical as the world begins a system change to renewables.
an exceptional documentary about the coming power of the solar energy revolution. herman scheer is a true revolutionary - far sighted and persistant enough to take on dirty energy vested interests. solar energy, today, is comparable in cost to conventional sources - however, system change takes time. i expect at least 20 years for significant penetration of solar - of course, the process will be quicker in europe. it would be interesting to see if desertec gets built - it does sound good on paper. applied materials also must be a great company to invest in - they seem to have a monopoly on the equipment that is used to make solar panels and cells. the most interesting point this video makes is that solar tech transitions the energy industry from resources to pure tech plays - and this puts it on an exponential curve - expect solar to get cheaper and more powerful at an accelerating pace.
i am also very keen to see how solar deployment is handled in the developing world. both india and china have huge investments in solar tech - given the scale of environmental degradation in both countries - they should be moving faster than europe - but their political and infrastructure systems are not as evolved - i hope i am wrong.
staples is rolling out 3d printing services in select countries in europe and will scale up to other countries quickly after that. i believe this is the start of a new revolution. some thinkers are already talking about "cloud manufacturing" where distributed 3d printers will enable point of consumption manufacturing for designs downloaded by customers from the cloud. i see china manufacturing going away within 15 years as printers become faster and capable of using multiple materials. costs will also start to come down dramatically. 3d printers are today where computers were in the 70s - but now, the progression is going to be far more dramatic...
here is a video demonstration of the mcor printers that staples will offer their services on:
note how slow they currently are. this should change dramatically within 5 years...
