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superstructgame.net: superthreats 2019
Some weeks ago the wellknown “Institute for the Future” (IFTF) started an experiment with the crowdsourcing of future scenarios and solution finding. I was too busy with projects and customers to analyze all these ideas, let alone to write a review. Simple question: Does it work? I do not know. It depends on the initial purpose. In terms of quantity it was a success. User generated future in numbers:
- # 7,061 players
- # 536 superstructures (i.e. concepts to save the world)
- # year 2053 = new survival horizon; thanks to the creative ideas of the players the survival horizon of mankind is now set to 2053 (I will send you the formula, if I found it)
Obviously this is a serious game. But is it more than a game? Can anyone, politicians, CEOs, plain citizens seriously base future decisions on cumulated non-experts opinion? This is an
Daniel G. Nocera, MIT - Photo Donna Coveney
FACT: Daniel Nocera (MIT) developed a new catalyst for the storage of solar power. The catalyst is much cheaper than the precious metal platinum.
Chemist Daniel Nocera, head of the M.I.T.’s Solar Revolution Project, has found a substitute for platinum (>USD 1,700/ounce). The components of the catalyst are the cobalte (USD 2.25) and phoshor (USD 0.05). Concerning the components this means a cost effectiveness factor of around 1,000. The discovery is seen as breakthrough.
CONTEXT: The advance is a key discovery in the context of efforts to create artificial photosynthesis.
Researchers have made a major advance in inorganic chemistry that could lead to a cheap way to store energy from the sun. Technology Review
RELEVANCE: Efficient local solar systems (“solar at home” – with no storage problem) change the game.
- There is an increased competitiveness of solar power and an impact for conventional energy generation and infrastructures
- Technology to store energy is relevant beyond solar energy generation, e.g. volatile wind power
- Winners: The more autonomous “solar prosumer” (esp. in sun rich zones).
- Loosers: Fossil based energy companies
- Comeback of the hydrogen vision as a realistic scenario is possible – even with the hydrogen car getting the energy from the rooftop
- Solar society* before 2020 in some regions of the world
(* “solar society” i.e. with a solar energy share >> 50%? – I have no definition up to now)
RELATED POSTS
SOURCES
- MIT News Office: ‘Major discovery’ from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution
- Technology Review: Solar-Power Breakthrough
- Scientific American: Hydrogen Power on the Cheap–Or at Least, Cheaper
Update 2008-08-03
- Picture + hyperlink MIT News Office
FORECAST: Gartner Says More than 1 Billion PCs In Use Worldwide and Headed to 2 Billion Units by 2014 Two billion PCs sounds a lot, but think about the billions of embedded chips, the consumer electronics and the mobile devices esp. the mobile phones.
FORECAST: IDC’s new whitepaper offers updated growth projections and new findings expected to impact business and society based on new data and analysis that indicate:
- At 281 billion gigabytes (281 exabytes), the digital universe in 2007 was 10% bigger than originally estimated
- With a compound annual growth rate of almost 60%, the digital universe is growing faster and is projected to be nearly 1.8 zettabytes (1,800 exabytes) in 2011, a 10-fold increase over the next five years
- Your “Digital Shadow” – that is, all the digital information generated about the average person on a daily basis – now surpasses the amount of digital information individuals actively create themselves
- … eWaste … Electronic waste is accumulating at more than 1 billion units a year (emc.com)
Amazing data, not to mention the standard and new sources of spam and distraction, email, im, microblogging etc.
RELEVANCE: There is a physical ecological aspect of the exploding it universe – energy consumption of the billions of devices and mountains of electronic waste, mostly containing some toxic components.
There is a social / cultural / psychological ecological aspect too. The stream of data and growing speed and complexity.
It is time to think more seriously about this avalanche of technology and the resulting environmental and “psycho-ecological” effects. Ecology in IT is ment as a holistic term and means more than “greener chips”.
