Solar Power to Rule in 20 Years, Futurists Say

Now futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil is part of distinguished panel of engineers, the solar power scale-up, says to all the needs of the energy of the earth people make in 20 years.

Kurzweil, author of "The Singularity Is Near" and "The Age of Intelligent Machines", worked on the solar energy solution with Google co-founder Larry Page as part of a panel of experts convened by the National Association of Engineers to respond 14 "grand challenges the 21st century, "including making solar energy more economical. The panel results were announced here last week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Solar in the five years of competition

To provide solar and wind energy percentage is currently about one of the world's energy needs, said Kurzweil, but advances in technology are in the process with the introduction of nano-engineered to expand materials for solar cells, allowing them to install more efficient, easier and simpler. Google has invested in companies pioneering these approaches.

The reason why solar energy technologies have advanced exponentially, Kurzweil said, is because it is an "information technology" (one is for which we measure the information content), and thus is of accelerating returns under the law.
The stored energy can be nano-engineered fuel cells, says Kurzweil.

Other grand challenges

The NAE panel thinks that meeting the energy challenge and the other great challenges of the 21st Century is "just vital for our survival on the planet," said panel member Charles Vest, former president of MIT and current NAE president. Other challenges mentioned that the panel include access to clean water, engineering better medicines, reverse engineering the brain, securing cyberspace and enhancing virtual reality.
Improving rapid responses to potential biological weapons attacks.
    Tutoring to help computers, training needs justice.
    Kurzweil, author of "The Singularity Is Near" and "The Age of Intelligent Machines," worked on the solar energy solution with Google Co-Founder Larry Page as part of a panel of experts convened by the National Association of Engineers to address the 14 "grand challenges of the 21st century," including making solar energy more economical.

Solar to compete in five years

Solar and wind power currently supply about 1 percent of the world's energy needs, Kurzweil said, but advances in technology are about to expand with the introduction of nano-engineered materials for solar panels, making them far more efficient, lighter and easier to install. The technological singularity is a hypothesized point in the future variously characterized by the technological creation of self-improving intelligence, unprecedentedly rapid technological progress, or some combination of the two.[In the 1980s, Vinge popularized the Singularity in lectures, essays, and science fiction.
Others, most prominently Ray Kurzweil, define the Singularity as a period of extremely rapid technological progress.