We\u2019re in an odd moment technologically speaking.\u00a0 The only thing anyone talks about is AI.\u00a0 It\u2019s the alpha and the omega.\u00a0 It will bring on the singularity or it will usher in a golden age where we all live like the Eloi in H.G. Wells\u2019 \u201cTime Machine.\u201d\u00a0 On second thought maybe that would be the singularity since being lunch for troglodytes doesn\u2019t sound like much of a golden age (unless you\u2019re a troglodyte that is).<\/p>\n
But I think it\u2019s time to start looking beyond the glory of AI and begin to think of what comes next.\u00a0 After all, in a manner of speaking AI is kind of like this century\u2019s electronic calculator.\u00a0 It made engineering work much more efficient but it didn\u2019t eliminate the need for humans to look for answers to problems that needed to be solved.\u00a0 It just made the process faster.\u00a0 So once all the tech companies get through firing their engineers and computer scientists the industrial world is going to find that they\u2019re still going to need to design \u201cstuff\u201d and solve new problems that are supposed to make the world a better place.<\/p>\n
And contrary to present expectations AI isn\u2019t going to plan and design the next bridge that spans a couple of miles across a bay or between mountains.\u00a0 Sure, the engineers will use AI to find out the state of the art in civil engineering but eventually a human being will have to sign off on the drawings and take the legal responsibility that the bridge won\u2019t collapse and kill a bunch of people.\u00a0 And only an idiot would assume that the answer that AI gives him is worth risking prison time without making sure that he knows that the answers are correct.<\/p>\n
So, let\u2019s put AI into the category of modern tools and instead look at what problems are in our near future to solve.<\/p>\n
Regardless of what everyone has said for the last thirty years, solar and wind energy are not the future energy sources we need.\u00a0 But there will come a time when hydrocarbons will not be sufficient.\u00a0 So, I would say that a replacement for oil and gas is the largest technical problem that humanity will face toward the end of this century.\u00a0 But that means it\u2019s already long overdue to start working out the details of what that will look like.\u00a0 There may be several technologies that will exist.\u00a0 I\u2019ve questioned (and not just in a fictional setting) whether geothermal might become a significant source of global energy but if I were to make an educated guess, I\u2019d say that nuclear fission will be the main energy source.<\/p>\n
But just because fission has been a stable part of the energy grid in places like France for more than half a century doesn\u2019t mean that the form currently employed is even close to what will power the world for the next century and more.\u00a0 The science and technology of fission power is in its infancy.\u00a0 The research in the United States that was going on in the 1950s and 1960s was strangled in its crib by the whole anti-nuclear movement of the time.\u00a0 There will need to be a rebirth of nuclear power technology that will combine government, industry and academia.\u00a0 And it will require energy policy to be handled by intelligent people in government.\u00a0 And that is something we haven\u2019t seen in half a century in this country.\u00a0 Because it is a massive effort.\u00a0 Eventually we will have to decide whether battery technology is a better storage medium for things like transportation than something like synthetic hydrocarbons or hydrogen.\u00a0 And these questions should be answered based on efficiency and other important factors like safety.\u00a0 But definitely not decided by idiots like Al Gore, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s see what\u2019s next after power in Part 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We\u2019re in an odd moment technologically speaking.\u00a0 The only thing anyone talks about is AI.\u00a0 It\u2019s the alpha and the omega.\u00a0 It will bring on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3545],"tags":[3372,5057,120,146],"class_list":["post-37278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-science","tag-energy-research","tag-geothermal-energy","tag-nuclear-power","tag-technology"],"yoast_head":"\n