Futurist Ray Kurzweil says “we have plenty of time” to replace fossil fuels with renewables
Ray Kurzweil speaking to a conference as a hologram in 2006. Photograph: Ed Murray/Corbis
Lauren Feeney for Grist
Guardian [UK]
21 February 2011
Author, inventor, and futurist Ray Kurzweil famously and accurately predicted that a computer would beat a man at chess by 1998, that technologies that help spread information would accelerate the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that a worldwide communications network would emerge in the mid 1990s (i.e. the internet).
Most of Kurzweil’s prognostications are derived from his law of accelerating returns — the idea that information technologies progress exponentially, in part because each iteration is used to help build the next, better, faster, cheaper one. In the case of computers, this is not just a theory but an observable trend — computer processing power has doubled every two years for nearly half a century.
Kurzweil also believes this theory can be applied to solar energy. As part of a panel convened by the National Association of Engineers, Kurzweil, together with Google cofounder Larry Page, concluded that solar energy technology is improving at such a rate that it will soon be able to compete with fossil fuels.
I caught up with Kurzweil when he was in New York promoting a new documentary about his life to ask him about his optimistic views on the usually gloomy subject of energy and climate change…
The interview is at the Guardian.
H/T Tiger Hawk
