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257 comments on DrumBeat: December 31, 2007

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ilargi on December 31, 2007 - 11:13am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

.... there will be effectively no barrier to indefinite sustainability of technological civilization as long as the sun shines.

So when is it that all our needs will be satisfied by CHON? Might want to hurry that one a little. Within ten years, if not sooner, climate tipping points may make sustainability a word of the past. That is, if it isn't already. That is, if the combination of technology and sustainability isn't the biggest oxymoron of all times to begin with.

Can we have a guarantee the CHON paradise will be established before 2018? If not, never mind, we've got more important things to do.

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BillJames on December 31, 2007 - 12:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The production ramp will be fast. There is a lot of money to be made in converting the lifeblood of our economy from oil to ingenuity.

But, it will take time to ramp production and refine techniques.

The largest delay will come from de-monopolizing power generation and transportation. These are regulated monopolies with monolithic distribution rules. Most innovations profit by preempting waste with distributed collaborative distribution (Internet like). Innovations break the rules.

The technology and manufacturing can be addressed, maybe not without real hardship. Regulatory approval to innovate is a more desperate issue.

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redcoltken on December 31, 2007 - 11:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Regulatory approval to innovate is a more desperate issue.

Ya know - I used to think that but its a lot more cloudy then just deregulation - powerful groups have a mutual assured destruction pact with each other. The EV1 (flawed example I know but stay with me) altered a market too much for the vested markets (auto parts supply, oil change shops, oil companys ect...) for it to be accepted. The vested market alliance kept with the relationships it knew.

One of the reasons that IBM fell in influence was due to the desire for the mass market to want to have th evil empire to fall - it was a social background that created the realizations that empowered the market to move beyond the mainframe modal.

Even with innovations the ground is littered with the bodies of companys that had the right idea but fell because people did not have a connection that the innovators success was tied to there own destiny.

I guess what I am trying to say is the regulators are simply one part of a puzzle - a social realization that ones own prosperity is connected to the success of a new market configuration and then the new market needs to create products that capture the passion of the consumer in a non rational way - involve yourself in this market and you will prosper, do not and you will personally fall.

All the deregulation in the world cant ignite that passion within a person - and all of the digital theorizing in the universe amounts to a rain dance for a non existent reality.

I am still hopeful - but looks like we do not have too much time.

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jokuhl on December 31, 2007 - 2:50pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

No, you can't have any guarantees. As they said in my High School Natural History class, 'The only thing constant is change.' But even without a contract written in granite, don't you think we should be looking into the many things we're discovering we can do with carbon? Hydrocarbons, and (CHON) Organic Chemistry in general?

Yes, his statement was also overly broad. 'No Barrier', indeed.

There are MANY important things to do, and MANY people that we have to keep busy if we are to get there. (Since we clearly can't stay here..)

Bob

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fleam on December 31, 2007 - 8:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I seem to remember Indium going for something like $100 an ounce and this was several years ago.

It might be now, where gold was a decade ago.

If it could be displaced by carbon, it would be. There must be applications that really call for it.

One I've heard of it, that it's used in low-temperature soldering, like of mil-spec stuff.

I've long said that high-tech stuff would soon devalue to where it's only worth its scrap value, but that it where high-tech equipment stands now. It's not repairable, it's quickly outdated, and its only value is in the gold, palladium, and stuff like indium that may be on the circuit boards and in the chips.

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257 comments on DrumBeat: December 31, 2007

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