Solar Power and Electric Cars ...and Planes

After watching Jason Calacanis test-drive a Tesla Roadster last week, I've been thinking a lot about electric transportation. He said he's buying one of these awesome electric-powered sportscars for $110K, and is going to power it with the solar panels at his house. That brings him closer to being off the grid, and away from dependence on oil. Which is really, really cool.

So, naturally, I want one of these fancy Tesla Roadsters too. But not for another few years, when the prices will hopefully come down after they start mass-producing them. I want solar panels on my roof and to replace all the gas burning appliances in my house. I'll be able to do this after working at Google for some time. And then, once I have that all set up, I can save up for an Electric Sports Car.

Enough about me though, here's the big picture I've been thinking about: Oil and Gasoline is getting ever more expensive. Alternative energy is getting more efficient and cheaper. Eventually, solar electricity will be cheaper than gasoline, and everyone will start moving to plug-in electric vehicles at increased rates.

Instead of mining the earth for fossil fuels to power our dirty, polluting current methods of transportation, we'll be turning to alternative forms of transportation that are both cleaner, more environmentally responsible, easier, and cheaper. (cheaper being the most important factor for mass adoption)

But it's not only going to be cars. We'll start seeing electric trains, electric buses, electric taxis... and even electric airplanes. (see BBC article) Yes, I said airplanes... Imagine if it were easier, faster, and cheaper to get to work in a personal auto-piloting air-taxi. I said it here first. You live in San Francisco, for example, and you walk outside and hail an air taxi that's driving around with it's wings tucked in (folded up)... and it drives you (there's no driver of course) out of the city limits and takes off up into the air. This whole time you're on your laptop with WiMax, (or surely something cooler like a 3D computing system we don't know about yet). In 15 minutes you're touching down outside San Jose, and your air-taxi folds up its wings again and drives you to your office.

There's a lot more space in the air, and it doesn't cost anything to build roads up there. It might really not be all that far in the future. If you look at that BBC article, there's already an electric glider that you can buy, that has similar fuel efficiency to an electric car, and similar range. Soon, you may look up into the sky in suburbia and see little white planes whizzing around.

Oh, and of course you already know how solar-power is the future. How it's going to save our planet and all that. Like, when electricity is cheap enough, we can produce clean drinking water for the world's people. We can afford to recycle everything. Transportation will be cheap. Computing and the Internet will be ubiquitous. Oh, anyway, what I wanted to say, was that we don't have to wait for solar panels to get cheap enough (though there's some pretty cool new advancements)... there's some other really promising alternatives like this solution for harvesting wind power:

Here's the company that's making those. Put them up in the jetstream and we've got a free source of electricity. It's genious... using a blimp to keep it up.

Anyway, cheers to a cleaner future. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Mobile Internet Will Save The World

I've been having visions of the future... the Global Village alive and well.

Background: I'm taking some classes that are teaching me how f***ed up the world really is. I mean like, how most of the rest of the world is starving or dying from disease. While I can't really make much difference by donating some food or money or time, I firmly believe that technology can save the world. And that you and I have the power to influence the way this story plays out. In some way, I feel that by just writing my predictions below, it will help them to become reality. And I want to know what you think about this.

Here's what I see right now: Mobile phones are getting cheaper. Mobile internet is becoming more popular. Social networks are mainstream. Social media is becoming mainstream. People are starting to distrust the corporate news media. People are starting to distrust the government. The internet is providing better and better entertainment for people. People are making better content for the internet. People are communicating in new and meaningful ways through the internet. Social networks are becoming local.

Here's what I see in the near future: Mobile phones will become available for free. Your mom will start blogging. You'll have video chats with people around the world about meaningful things. Your neighbors will be in your same social networks. And you'll really know what's going on in the world, and so will everyone else.

Some, or all, of these things might sound ridiculous to you. Let me explain... First, Google (and others) are placing a lot of bets on mobile advertising. Who's going to accept ads on their phones if they're not getting free service? I don't know Google's business plan yet, but they are launching their new phone platform (Android) this summer, with a whole bunch of phones from many manufacturers involved... there's a lot of potential for revolutionary change here. Expect mobile technology innovation to increase exponentially. Anyway, I'm hoping Google will decide to give out free phones and subsidize service through mobile ads.

Mobile internet. Apple's iPhone has shown us what mobile internet can look like... it's really put the internet into my pocket for sure. However, the iPhone is still very expensive, and lots of people are waiting before getting one for various reasons. Nonetheless, mobile internet is something more people are thinking about than ever before. And service providers know this, and data plan prices are coming down with competition. But think about the rest of the world, places where nobody can afford a computer but everyone has a mobile phone. Imagine them hopping on Twitter... on Flickr... on Digg... or YouTube.

Local Social Networks. Popular social networks thus far have been pretty removed from the physical world. You meet people online based on interests, but not because you were in the same vicinity. Imagine ad-hoc local chat rooms. Imagine neighborhood social networks. Imagine collaboration, like citizen journalism, coming from within these social networks. Imagine your phone setting up your cellphone to vibrate when someone you know is in your vicinity. It's happening, and it's going to change society in ways I can't begin to imagine.

Oh, and when I said your mom will start blogging... It's true. She just won't know it, or think of it that way. You'll be getting a stream of photos from her. She'll be writing updates to multiple friends at a time, no longer through email, but something else. And of course, it won't just be your mom. It's everyone else, too.


(Update:) I guess I didn't fully address the title of the post yet, "Mobile Internet Will Save The World". So many people are stuck, physically and socially, around the world, in poverty. They are well aware that life is better elsewhere, but can't do anything to "better themselves". Now give them the internet. They can now talk with anyone in the world, and make friends and business connections. You've heard of micro-loans? Imagine how much more likely you'd be to give a young entrepreneur some start-up capital if you could video-chat with them first, and they'd blog and twitter their progress. And then also, you've got the potential web developers and software engineers, that will naturally start wanting to write applications for these new devices. Social networks will spring up. People will get excited. Groups will organize and bring about massive change. But most importantly, the internet will enable people to educate themselves to a point where they can perform skilled, knowledge-work. And then, what's to stop them from making money? And that's how the mobile internet will save the world.