Sunny side up

Imagine a world in which there was a constant supply of cheap and renewable energy and the world was no longer reliant on oil. Well such a situation may soon be at hand. The Guardian reports on a meeting of futurologists in Boston yesterday where the prospects of being able to harness the sun’s energy was one of the main points of discussion. Considering that the sun covers the earth with “more energy each hour than the planet’s population consumes in a year” once you have worked out how to tap that resource you have solved the problem; as Ray Kurzweil, a futurist, told the meeting, “We only need to capture one part in 10,000 of the sunlight that falls on the Earth to meet 100% of our energy needs”.  He predicts that this will soon become possible through nano-engineered solar panels and fuel cells. If he is right, then the world will soon be transformed for the better.