A Futurist’s Take on ‘Exponential’ Energy Shifts

Apr 23, 2019

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It’s taken decades for renewables to compete with fossil fuels. But we’re now entering the third phase of the clean energy transition, when new renewables are beating existing coal and gas plants on price alone.

"We’re on the verge of a new, radically different point in history,” argues futurist and technologist Ramez Naam.

This phase of the energy transition will bring change that is faster and more disruptive than at any point in history.

But will it happen fast enough?

This week, we’ll ask Ramez to outline the optimistic and pessimistic scenarios for our energy future. We’ll look at how the energy transition may unfold, and what we can learn from other tech sectors.

In the second half of the show, we’ll talk about long-duration storage, the system-wide benefits of cheap batteries, the future of small-modular nuclear, and artificial superintelligence.

Ramez is chair of energy & environmental systems at Singularity University. He is a computer scientist who worked at Microsoft developing products like Outlook and Internet Explorer. And he’s also the author of the award-winning science fiction series, “Nexus.”