"What we're going to have to do at a global scale is create a new system," Gates said in a speech at the TED Conference in Long Beach, California. "So we need energy miracles."...he then went on to predict that no home would ever need more than 640 in² of solar panels.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
A regular Nostradamus...
Bill Gates is playing Technological Visionary again:
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19 comments:
And he will have his foundation lobby Congress to pass a law to pass these highly efficient solar panels into existence?
Fucking delusional geek. To paraphrase PJ, Bill, go back to teaching junior college, you certainly have the clothes for it.
Shootin' Buddy
Home: Noun. A cubicle of approximately 96 sq-ft of floor space, with a six-foot ceiling. R-30 walls and ceiling.
Art
640 sq in ... heh.
It's actually not the number that scares me in BillG's Brave New Technological World; it's the kernel derived from DOS. That single tasking is a bitch when you want to run the lights AND the washing machine ...
Borepatch, that kernel is gone. The NT kernel is a child of VMS. But, don't fear, if Windoze will run on the hardware, so will Linux.
No home? Ever?
If there's one thing that should be patently obvious by now, it's that if MOAR POWER is available, people will FIND a way to use it.
One or two electric lights became washing machines and refrigerators and central air and TVs and stereos and computers etc etc etc ad infinitum.
Standard household service went from 50A to 100A to 200A, and there are people getting TWO 200A services in their McMansions because gosh darn it, you can't scare away the dark on only 200A!
Computers went from ENIAC to C64 to AppleII to 286 to PowerPC/RISC to dual/quad/octa-core behemoths, and those still won't run World of Warcraft in quite as many pretty shiny colors as I should be able to see in my mother's basement.
Cars made the leap from the Model T to the Earthfucker, and there's always some guy out there who want MOAR POWER!
So if BillyG thinks five square feet of solar panels will provide the household power I need, I think I'll put on the SIX HUNDRED square feet that my roof will hold facing east and/or south, and build my own ignition facility in the back yard. And run a few extra space heaters in January, on the deck, so that I can grill baby seals in my Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts while singing Mele-kalikimaka at the top of my lungs drinking carbonated anything and throwing the half-empty cans into the creek to distract the fish.
(WV: worthreg : there's a joke here and I'm too damn tired to find it.)
"No Honest Man Needs A Home That Requires More Than 640" Of Solar Panels."
Obambi is going to guarantee loans for two nuclear power plants. I guess there won't be 2,000 ppd (protesters per day) because Obamessiah says we need it. We haven't built any for 30 years (or refineries, for that matter) because the constantly shifting regulations made it too expensive (I know we approved the design of the back-up to the back-up cooling system, but what if the ocean freezes solid? Where will you get your water? Re-do it.).
It really doesn't matter.
By 2012, we'll be in a barter economy. Forget gold; stock up on MRE's, ammo, and lamp oil.
And then a miracle occurs
Sigh. Bill, Bill, Bill. STFU!
The scary thing about Bill is not what he thinks.It's the fact that he could persuade people to buy his junk over and over again.He's a master at selling half baked ideas.If the model T had been as unreliable as Bill stuff we'd all be driving Maxwells.Tam would have a Hudson.
5 sq/ft is 360 sq/in
Glenn Kelley
Just got a "new" pooter. Linux, for the first time in my life. Works great.
Bill, fold your "Genuine Advantage" into five sharp corners and shove it where the moon don't shine.
Solar electricity is a losing game. Solar heat would be a far more useful expenditure of the same amount of money. (In new builds at least.)
Jim
I think you are missing the point.
He "wants" that 640 sqin to be producing 1 Megawatt instead of the 70-90 watts it does now.
Good f'ing luck!
Now see, THIS is the kind of environmentalism I can respect.
Not "let's go live in the stone age so Mother Gaia will be safe," but "hey, this is making a mess.. let's make a way to get MORE energy for all of us without so much unwanted side effects." Yeah, I think the AGW is pretty much bunk to... but really, if there's a way to make more power without spewing much of anything into atmo and it can be done cost-effectively... go for it, man. And pulling more power out of spent uraniam so we don't have gov't panels trying to design freaky modern art "stay out" statues for the dump sites? Even better.
Bonus - it sends the Wahabbi-supporting oil exporting nations back into being a regional backwater instead of global powers the whole industrialized world needs to kowtow to. Sometimes literally.
So yeah, go Bill.
His stuff might not be the best, he might even be almost as insufferable personally as Jobs sometimes, but he still changed the business world and made us ALL richer by boosting our productivity crazy high compared to our granddaddies.
God bless 'im if he can do the same with power.
... though does this mean he'll start giving speeches in a Scotty shirt instead of a Spock shirt? :)
Bill Gates AIA, I guess.
To paraphrase the Simpsons, "Mother Nature started this fight for survival and now she's whining just because she's losing."
You guys do know that Tam made up the part of 640 square inches of PV cells, right?
Tam, why can't you keep your excellent snark down to a low roar, so I could honestly link it once in a while without sounding like a freakin' sycophant? Maybe I can get away with just bolding your link a tiny bit or something....
D.W. Drang,
"You guys do know that Tam made up the part of 640 square inches of PV cells, right?"
I'm afraid that wasn't the right joke for my audience. It probably would have worked better over at Borepatch's place.
Just not enough computer geeks here, I guess.
We already have a power miracle, BTW.
Fast breeder nuclear powerplants, and pebble bed reactors to make use of SR-90 and other heat producing nuclear byproducts ( waste ).
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