Slashdot Mirror

Solar roofs are looking better and better. All While blending into your neighborhood.

It doesn't take much research to find far better options to the bulky solar panel design.

https://inhabitat.com/npr-retr...

There are more.

The point in comparing them to roof designs isn't in saying that you should put them on private roofs, the point is you can put them anywhere that allows you the benefits of being on a roof. There's more or less 3 ways you can set up a solar panel. The most efficient is tracking, where the panel is smart and tilts itself to face the sun. Next best is to angle it and face the most common directions the sun will face, and of course the worse idea is to just leave it flat on the ground. The china roadway has pretty much been failing miserably, the government is mostly blaming theft of solar panels (another reason why it isn't so viable), but many engineers are still saying the same thing... between the hit of being flat on the ground, having the extra layers of protection, and of course traffic blocking the sun, it isn't breaking even anyway. Anyway as you were comparing it to rooftops because putting the burden on private proporty is bad... what's being completely ignored is best of both worlds options, like what Korea did https://inhabitat.com/could-th... Where you get panels, the option to angle them as needed, you don't have the added challenges of needing needing to withstand rocks/sand attached to multi ton moving objects, and it even adds extra benefits of shielding the bike path from weather.

There are also shipping container homes and offices, and shipping container hospitals
https://inhabitat.com/cite-a-d...
http://www.clinicinacan.org/

They are already doing farms in a container
http://cropbox.co/index.php/cr...

Not forgetting shipping container server rooms
https://www.renewableenergywor...

There are also mobile solar power plants in containers

You might as well say my house was grown because the wood came from trees that grew in the forest... The rest of the materials and construction were manufactured and hand-assembled.

Concrete construction is indefinably not 'green'. But some folks are OK to overlook this because 3D printing of homes is cool, and somehow deemed as an improvement (for some untold reason).

https://inhabitat.com/11-green...

I thought bricklaying was a done deal, a fully solved problem. Seriously, robots build it faster!

This article just appeared claiming a concrete twice as strong as existing concrete while releasing less CO2.

https://inhabitat.com/

And the ability to roast anyone unlucky to be in the beam path.

Not unlucky but unlikely. The ground-based collector would be quite large, perhaps several miles in diameter.
If beamed back as a laser, that would be dangerous but still not likely to vaporize anyone
https://inhabitat.com/nasa-wan...

As an "open minded engineer" you should read these reports.
https://www.ing.com/Newsroom/A...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news...
https://www.iea.org/publicatio...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news...
http://inhabitat.com/stanford-...

I am already rich and have no need to take your money so I will not accept your bet.
You, OTOH, might find cause to divest from oil and fossil cars after reading these reports. It might save you some money.

So encourage people to pick it up.

For populated beaches setup a bunch of stands by the beaches that take plastic trash by the kilo and pay out some way. They might have to be manned to prevent people just stealing the whole unit to get the money.

With bottles you could just melt them and turn them into fresh 3D printer material.

For un-populated areas you'd need to do periodic sweeps. Then build some kind of robotic cleaning crew to catch stuff still floating. Like this one this kid invented to harvest oceanic plastic.

You're going to love this one: http://inhabitat.com/v3solars-...

No they didn't. Jet streams have undergone unprecedented changes that have never before been recorded. How is this crap modded informative?

That include getting rare earth from China where environmental regulation makes America look utopian eco-hippie?

Every time I hear solar (and I favour Solar over Coal, regardless my stance on global warming), I picture those lakes of sludge in China

I enjoy having electricity at night time.

Total non-sequitur: the issue of cleanliness is completely orthogonal to the issue of suitability for nighttime generation.

Moreover, the claim that "renewables" as a category don't work for base load power generation is a blatant lie. Windmills work just fine at night. Tidal works just fine at night. Even solar actually can, in fact, work at night!

Furthermore, even if it were somehow valid to exclude renewables from consideration for base load generation, fossil fuels still lose on cleanliness, by many orders of magnitude, to nuclear.

You assure nobody of anything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Railways#Mainline_locomotives

I quote: "The Swiss Federal Railways rail network is totally electrified."

http://inhabitat.com/european-electric-trains-could-soon-become-hybrids-thanks-to-regenerative-braking-system/

" In Europe, approximately half of the continent's trains are electric."

20 seconds of google saves you looking like an ignoramus.

Forget your pesticides-spraying drones flying over open farm land. This is just a patch over an old method.

The future of farming is enclosed systems. More food, better quality food, faster, with less water and less (no?) pesticides.

link "up 65,000 percent"

Agreed. Who talks like this?

I think they mean 650x but all those extra zeroes look so sp00ky!
Yea verily, it has increased by four gross, three score and a fortnight.
When I was going to St. Ives I met a man with thirteen eyes.
Each eye had five anime-glints.
How many anime-glints were traveling away from St. Ives?

8,000,000 picocuries/L ~ 1,500 mrem ~ about one full body CT scan per liter drunk.
Seriously high, but if every liter the water in this 'most contaminated' well was diluted with 399 liters of non-tritiated water it would be drinkable by EPA standards. (source)

Following the articles first link: "According to initial reports, the radioactivity levels are quite high and the leaked materials contain tritium, a radioactive hydrogen isotope. At one location, levels shot up 65,000 percent from from 12,300 picocuries per liter to over 8,000,000 picocuries per liter". The article doesn't seem to state any other measurements of radioactivity. We're left with this miscellaneous instance. Feels like fear mongering.

http://www.amazon.com/Glow-Fob...

Why is it that when you apply a Kalman filter to http://inhabitat.com/ all the content vanished?

This is from the same publication as the last toad article about worst-disasters-in-us-history/ .

So some troll has a new source of fodder for troll posts.

> This suggests something about the quality of the source's and the submitter's fact checking ability.

Check all of his submissions, they're all trying to astroturf his shitty 'news' site

Insomniac ? I hope you don't have that regularly, if so I suggest you do something about that. Less caffeine and less stress ?

OK, I'll be the first to admit it. I'm no expert, I suggest you talk to one.

I'm also not completely sane at this moment, this is the morning after a night on the town, their is still a lot of alcohol in my body. ;-)

Anyway, about the topic at hand...

Yes, I do think about it like a pendulum as well and about how far it can or will be pushed in one way (maybe even multiple pendulums). I think most people would really want to avoid full on revolution. Because it's hard to predict the outcome. Take for example the Arab spring. Also look at ISIS/IS/ISIL/Daesh they came out of the chaos largely created by the US (but that is a whole different topic).

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think at least some people in government get it.

Sometimes when I see police in countries like the US get more and heavier arms, I'm thinking someone is preparing for that future in a very negative way.

But let's look at the positive.

Let's take for example the people that claim that automation will take our jobs:
https://www.technologyreview.c...

Maybe they are wrong, but one thing is correct, technology can cause a lot of change and it probably will. Maybe even accelerate.

When talking about that, you'd always keep in mind what Voltaire said: Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need.

Then you look at what people in some governments are trying to do:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

From a US perspective you'd think it's some kind of socialist system, but a lot of the ideas behind that came from the US from people like: Friedrich Hayek, Richard Nixon and Milton Friedman. Or as Andrew McAfee likes to say with a big smile: frothing-at-the-mouth socialists ;-)

In Europe we now have a bunch of organisations, countries and cities looking seriously into this and testing it in real life again.

From a pure technology perspective, I can see technology solving the need problem.

If energy prices do really keep falling like they have with capturing the energy from wind and solar light and heat then it will get easier (=cheaper). Take for example the Sahara Forest Project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Energy storage is also still improving too: http://rameznaam.com/2013/09/2...

They seem to be on a Moore's Law like trajectory.

They might claim to be the first:
http://inhabitat.com/worlds-fi...

But automatic milking also has been doing very well for how long ? over 10 years now ?

If you combine: cheap energy, cheap clean water, cheap electronics/communication, cheap energy storage, cheap food production
you get a very potent mix to solve a large part of the problem of need that Voltaire talked about. In the documentary I linked they also talk about cheap health care (I hope so). Those are some very positive trends.

Cheap technology also seems to create a more decentralized future, so maybe in that sense Bitcoin/OpenBazaar and solar panels are similar.

I'm from Europe, I personally don't see the state as my enemy like some people in the US or some in Bitcoin do. For example I think of the government as the biggest VC funder/risk taker of them all. Who would spend more than 10 years on fundamental research with a high amount of risk of failure and then give it away for free (simple example: Internet, funded by ARPA now called DARPA. I don't know if it was considered a risky endeavour at the time, but it's an ex

If a solar sail works, a windmill type design like this might work.
http://inhabitat.com/city-windmills-enable-clean-energy-and-unique-advertising-opportunites/city-windmill/?extend=1
The vanes rotate to flatten for maximum surface area when being pushed then rotate to go thin edge first through resisting winds. Given that light will be pushing it, some thermal reacting spring might help the vanes pivot on the dark side of the revolution and then snap back to "full sail" when they hit the sunlight again.
Interesting to think about but there are better ways to get power out there... I would like to try temperature difference using sunlight and shade to vaporize and condense a volatile liquid, passing it through a turbine in the middle, then flip the rig over (sunny -> shady side) to repeat. Wonder what kind of metal fatigue issues would arise transitioning between full sun and shade...

How much of the Burj Dubai is even occupied?

Dude, Dubai is so primitive that the Burj Dubai (and many other big towers) isn't even connected to the sewer system:

http://inhabitat.com/the-incre...
http://gizmodo.com/5857475/wit...

Yes, I can document NASA's task change.

Under the auspices of the White House OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy), the NTSC (National Science and Technology Council) created CENRS (Committee on Environment, Natural Resources, and Sustainability) as a response to a presidential mandate in 1989 (in case you were wondering, this was under president George H.W. Bush).

The CENRS created as part of itself the SGCR (Subcommittee on Global Change Research), which is the steering committee for the USGCRP (U.S. Global Change Research Program), which consists of 13 organizations:

- Department of Health and Human Services
- U.S. Agency for International Development
- Department of the Interior
- Department of Commerce
- Department of Defense (Acting)
- Smithsonian Institution
- Department of Agriculture
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration http://www.globalchange.gov/ab...
From their web site.

As part of this, as a result of a presidential budgetary mandate by President Obama that an additional $1.8B (for a total of $2.4B) be earmarked for the Earth Observation Satellites (effectively canceling the asteroid capture mission - this i a redirection of existing budget, not an increase of funds):

http://www.nasa.gov/about/obam...
Obama's April 15th 2010 speech at Kennedy:

"We will increase Earth-based observation to improve our understanding of our climate and our world -- science that will garner tangible benefits, helping us to protect our environment for future generations."

http://inhabitat.com/obama-giv...

"NASA’s about to lend a heavier hand in the fight against climate change. The news that President Obama would be rearranging NASA’s budget to focus more on what can be done to stop global warming was met with some opposition, but we’re elated that he’s bringing some of that cash down to Earth."

See also:

http://inhabitat.com/obama-giv...
http://spectator.org/blog/5978...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-...
http://inhabitat.com/new-nasa-...

Meanwhile, actual NASA budgets have remained flat, so these monies have come from actual space and aeronautics programs, rather than new budget:

http://www.behindmyback.org/20...
"NASA’s investment in the 13-AGENCY CCSP is 58% of the total amount of the President’s 2009 Budget Request for CCSP."
= most of the money is coming from NASA.

See also this report, which indicates that 37% of the 2014 NASA budget went to the Earth science program, supporting climate change research - and NOT space or aeronautics research:
http://www.law.umaryland.edu/m...

But you know... feel free to argue with the congressional record, newspapers, NASA itself, and President Obama's speech at Kennedy.

Yes, I can document NASA's task change.

Under the auspices of the White House OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy), the NTSC (National Science and Technology Council) created CENRS (Committee on Environment, Natural Resources, and Sustainability) as a response to a presidential mandate in 1989 (in case you were wondering, this was under president George H.W. Bush).

The CENRS created as part of itself the SGCR (Subcommittee on Global Change Research), which is the steering committee for the USGCRP (U.S. Global Change Research Program), which consists of 13 organizations:

- Department of Health and Human Services
- U.S. Agency for International Development
- Department of the Interior
- Department of Commerce
- Department of Defense (Acting)
- Smithsonian Institution
- Department of Agriculture
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration http://www.globalchange.gov/ab...
From their web site.

As part of this, as a result of a presidential budgetary mandate by President Obama that an additional $1.8B (for a total of $2.4B) be earmarked for the Earth Observation Satellites (effectively canceling the asteroid capture mission - this i a redirection of existing budget, not an increase of funds):

http://www.nasa.gov/about/obam...
Obama's April 15th 2010 speech at Kennedy:

"We will increase Earth-based observation to improve our understanding of our climate and our world -- science that will garner tangible benefits, helping us to protect our environment for future generations."

http://inhabitat.com/obama-giv...

"NASA’s about to lend a heavier hand in the fight against climate change. The news that President Obama would be rearranging NASA’s budget to focus more on what can be done to stop global warming was met with some opposition, but we’re elated that he’s bringing some of that cash down to Earth."

See also:

http://inhabitat.com/obama-giv...
http://spectator.org/blog/5978...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-...
http://inhabitat.com/new-nasa-...

Meanwhile, actual NASA budgets have remained flat, so these monies have come from actual space and aeronautics programs, rather than new budget:

http://www.behindmyback.org/20...
"NASA’s investment in the 13-AGENCY CCSP is 58% of the total amount of the President’s 2009 Budget Request for CCSP."
= most of the money is coming from NASA.

See also this report, which indicates that 37% of the 2014 NASA budget went to the Earth science program, supporting climate change research - and NOT space or aeronautics research:
http://www.law.umaryland.edu/m...

But you know... feel free to argue with the congressional record, newspapers, NASA itself, and President Obama's speech at Kennedy.

Yes, I can document NASA's task change.

Under the auspices of the White House OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy), the NTSC (National Science and Technology Council) created CENRS (Committee on Environment, Natural Resources, and Sustainability) as a response to a presidential mandate in 1989 (in case you were wondering, this was under president George H.W. Bush).

The CENRS created as part of itself the SGCR (Subcommittee on Global Change Research), which is the steering committee for the USGCRP (U.S. Global Change Research Program), which consists of 13 organizations:

- Department of Health and Human Services
- U.S. Agency for International Development
- Department of the Interior
- Department of Commerce
- Department of Defense (Acting)
- Smithsonian Institution
- Department of Agriculture
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration http://www.globalchange.gov/ab...
From their web site.

As part of this, as a result of a presidential budgetary mandate by President Obama that an additional $1.8B (for a total of $2.4B) be earmarked for the Earth Observation Satellites (effectively canceling the asteroid capture mission - this i a redirection of existing budget, not an increase of funds):

http://www.nasa.gov/about/obam...
Obama's April 15th 2010 speech at Kennedy:

"We will increase Earth-based observation to improve our understanding of our climate and our world -- science that will garner tangible benefits, helping us to protect our environment for future generations."

http://inhabitat.com/obama-giv...

"NASA’s about to lend a heavier hand in the fight against climate change. The news that President Obama would be rearranging NASA’s budget to focus more on what can be done to stop global warming was met with some opposition, but we’re elated that he’s bringing some of that cash down to Earth."

See also:

http://inhabitat.com/obama-giv...
http://spectator.org/blog/5978...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-...
http://inhabitat.com/new-nasa-...

Meanwhile, actual NASA budgets have remained flat, so these monies have come from actual space and aeronautics programs, rather than new budget:

http://www.behindmyback.org/20...
"NASA’s investment in the 13-AGENCY CCSP is 58% of the total amount of the President’s 2009 Budget Request for CCSP."
= most of the money is coming from NASA.

See also this report, which indicates that 37% of the 2014 NASA budget went to the Earth science program, supporting climate change research - and NOT space or aeronautics research:
http://www.law.umaryland.edu/m...

But you know... feel free to argue with the congressional record, newspapers, NASA itself, and President Obama's speech at Kennedy.

You're vastly underestimating the difficulties of material science.

"Why don't we just create a material that does the work itself" is the perfect idea of theorycrafting without any idea of what you're talking about.

Well, take a look at this,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

http://inhabitat.com/mit-resea...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Many buildings now have self-cleaning windows. It's not "science fiction" anymore. And TiO2 is not the only type of coating available.

http://www.windowstoday.co.uk/...

Uh. You do realize that you can use more than ONE panel? You know? Generate as much power as you need, limited only by the area you can spare?
Initial installation is the only major cost. With no fuel being consumed and near negligible operations/maintenance cost, you can easily break even in 8-12 years.

For all your arguments, the model seems to have worked exceptionally well for Germany etc. where they are actually producing more than they can consume. Perhaps you might want to investigate how that "miracle" works, despite your "mathematics".

http://www.treehugger.com/sola...
http://inhabitat.com/germany-q...

For the record, Germany gets very limited amount of sunlight. And they still produce enough to start considering selling excess power to other nations.

Oh, Solar and Wind look ugly.
  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/PS20andPS10.jpg
  http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/files/2010/07/wind-farms-1.jpg

I'm glad coal and nuclear are so beautiful then.
  http://assets.inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2011/08/coal-regulations-537x331.jpg
  http://assets.inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2011/05/RatcliffePowerPlantBlackAndWhite-537x384.jpg

Oh, Solar and Wind look ugly.
  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/PS20andPS10.jpg
  http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/files/2010/07/wind-farms-1.jpg

I'm glad coal and nuclear are so beautiful then.
  http://assets.inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2011/08/coal-regulations-537x331.jpg
  http://assets.inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2011/05/RatcliffePowerPlantBlackAndWhite-537x384.jpg

While that may seem slow, people in remote areas may have few alternatives.

Try this or this as alternatives.

Okay, technically, they're trash compactors, so that they don't have to go and empty them as often:

http://www.cityofboston.gov/pu...

That seems to make more sense to me than a 'solar powered bench' which looks to me to be two seats as the whole middle of it's taken up by a box. (which might be the point -- it'd be less comfortable for a homeless person to sleep on it)

I've seen other solar "urban furniture" that made more sense to me -- things like bus stops w/ solar panels in the roof (to power lighting, up-to-date bus info ... and sometimes advertising).

I've seen other 'solar phone charging stations' that make more sense to me than having it take up 1/4 of a bench:

http://inhabitat.com/nyc/solar...

http://www.gizmag.com/street-c...

http://bostinno.streetwise.co/...

Snark aside, he could 3D print these.

In the Sahara, using sand and solar power.

No more hurricanes?

While I totally agree with this, I think it misses the point.

Assuming that plastic is provided for free (cities or landfills are already pulling plastic out via a separation step) then enough energy can be *recovered* from the plastic to power the recovery process with a net gain. The goal is not energy independence... it's prevention of non-biodegradable items making it into the landfill.

There was a story a few months ago about an MIT project to float a collector out into the ocean to pick up plastic... maybe these two teams should get together.

A 3d desert printing project was posted in the past which was able to make a glass bowl from available sand. The same concept could be used on a much larger scale to keep construction costs low. The idea should be a lot better than the typical ones that money is chasing now.

Are you going to build a house out of Corn?

http://inhabitat.com/corn-waste-transformed-into-versatile-building-material/

santa IS a white guy. He is St Nicholas, he was from turkey, and yes, he is white. Deal with it

Here are your search terms: siberian. mushroom. shaman. In case your google-fu is weak, which is clearly the case if you're still spouting that bullshit, no.

I guess this is why there are no new wind farms in Hawaii.... Oh wait!

It looks like there were two small installations (totalling about 11MW) that were shut down, but there are over 200MW currently in production and more on the way.

Remember that the early, small turbines that had very high blade speeds were extremely problematic.

I don't know if there are any viable products that you can buy right now, but there are several outfits attempting to do so [1] [2]. A home-sized fuel cell, operated off of natural gas, could provide combined heat and power (i.e., co-generation) for a home at modest cost and reduced emissions compared to many conventional alternatives. The tough part is the upfront cost - $20k - 40k - which makes it hard to recoup the investment in a reasonable timeframe.

here are links to some articles i found on the first page of google: http://inhabitat.com/nyc/new-york-citys-bureaucracy-slowing-down-construction-of-residential-solar-panels/ http://www.thestate.com/2012/10/14/2480345/why-solar-power-rarely-shines.html http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/solar-at-home/2009/06/04/what-you-really-need-to-install-solar-a-cpa/

from the first page of google : http://inhabitat.com/nyc/new-york-citys-bureaucracy-slowing-down-construction-of-residential-solar-panels/ http://www.thestate.com/2012/10/14/2480345/why-solar-power-rarely-shines.html http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/solar-at-home/2009/06/04/what-you-really-need-to-install-solar-a-cpa/

BS. 99.999% of cars don't go offroad for more than 75% of the time. these cars can have a small battery and be charged via either overhead cables or induction http://inhabitat.com/wireless-induction-charging-for-electric-vehicles-to-be-tested-on-german-buses/

Doesn't everybody remember last year, when multiple reports came out from sociologists saying that food prices cause riots, and that food prices worldwide were expected to peak in the summer of 2013? Headlines like 'We have until August 2013 before riots sweep the globe', and 'We have one year before everything explodes' -- that doesn't ring a bell for anyone else?

Social unrest is correlated to the price of necessary commodities. When the poor cannot afford basic necessities, they have no choice but to get violent. Because of crop failures last year, this year is primed for social unrest EVERYWHERE.

The Arxiv paper demonstrating the correlation, based on data from the 2008 food riots.
An article warning us from last year. And another. And another.

Sociologists have known this was coming. Governments should have known this was coming. It's going to be a brutal, bloody summer. Get ready.

The Fine Article is a full year old. On October 17 2012 the very same source reported that the firm revised its plans, pointing to a more reasonable (but still very short) 210 days construction time. http://inhabitat.com/worlds-tallest-skyscraper-to-be-built-in-210-days-instead-of-90-as-originally-planned/

So were the scientists at the chemical companies right or were the 3 million people who signed a petition right? Did an emotional outcry of ignorance just stop the use of something harmless? Guess we'll know in a couple of years... maybe.

Good question. The consequence of delay in allowing the use of Neonicotinoid chemicals in this case is minimal. It seems the prudent thing to do.

There is good science behind this ban. A Harvard study showed that these Neonicotinoids leak through the production chain of corn syrup, which beekeepers are using to winter their colonies. As soon as that news was out, many, if not most US beekeepers immediately switched back to Cane Sugar syrup, or leaving more Honey in the hives for the bees instead of selling it off. The trend to feed bees corn syrup is not something that had been going on for all that long - since the 70s. But the addition of Neonicotinoid chemicals is fairly new.

The pesticides are not actually used on or near crops normally pollinated by bees. It was found to be creeping in through the corn syrup. These pesticides are not harmful to humans (as far as we know) so the regulations governing their presence in industrial corn syrup were simply too lax. It remains to be seen if they can be refined out of corn syrup.

Instead Monsanto sues the shit out of Farmer Brown because his field is next to a field full of GMO crops, and cross pollination happens... http://inhabitat.com/monsanto-has-sued-hundreds-of-small-farmers-heads-to-the-supreme-court/

What waste?

Here are a few hits from the 1st page of a Google search...
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Introduction/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle-Overview/#.UVsb1FeOCF8
http://www.nei.org/keyissues/nuclearwastedisposal/recyclingusednuclearfuel/
http://inhabitat.com/china-finds-way-to-reuse-nuclear-fuel-60-times-longer/
http://larouchepac.com/node/14720

Germany has advanced its clean energy capacity because it has maintained a clear and consistent policy of incentivizing it for over a decade. It is paying off. Last year they set a record by generating half of weekend electricity demand with solar. Denmark has managed something similar with wind power, getting 24% of its electricity that way.

Of course, Germany and Denmark have strong green constituencies who support those policies, but there are realpolitik concerns at work too. A few years back Russia shut down the natural gas pipeline that ran through the Ukraine to Germany and central Europe because they wanted to play politics with the Ukrainians. Natural gas prices spiked in Europe overnight and put a serious crimp in its economy. The Germans, Danes, and many others got the wake up call and have been driving toward energy independence hard.

There are longer term benefits for those economies who move their energy base off fossil fuels: predictable energy costs. In economic terms, when you increase the predictability and stability of key inputs businesses can better plan and grow, in the same way that low inflation means businesses can better know what their borrowing costs and real revenues will be.

You probably never read about 3D printing sand. For example, see http://inhabitat.com/the-solar-powered-sinter-3d-printer-turns-desert-sand-into-glass/