Futurology

Concentrated solar optics (e.g., Fresnel lenses) focus sunlight onto a receiver, converting it into high-temperature heat. That heat is stored in a thermal (heat) battery. Because energy is stored thermally, it avoids many of the degradation issues and material constraints of chemical batteries. When power is needed, the stored heat drives a heat engine (or equivalent conversion) to produce electricity on demand.

They claim electricity production at $0.04 per kWh, which is in the range of existing solar & wind electricity production.

They're a start-up and tying their fortunes to the data center boom. Why pick this instead of existing solar+batteries, though? They say it has advantages over existing solar. It needs simpler materials and doesn't rely on Chinese supply chains.

Exowatt’s ‘next-generation renewable energy’ tech could power data centers faster: - The Miami-based company raised $70 million to commercialize its solar-powered energy system, which can provide round-the-clock power without a grid connection.

"In 2015, Beijing made it a top priority for China to become globally competitive in robotics as part of its Made in China 2025 campaign to import fewer advanced manufactured goods.

Industries received almost unlimited access to loans from state-controlled banks at low interest rates, as well as help in buying foreign competitors, direct infusions of government money, and other assistance. And in 2021, the government issued a detailed national strategy for expanded deployment of robots."

Even if the EU or the US decided to catch up with China on robots, it would take years to replicate China's advantages. It has vast manufacturing supply chains and a huge number of highly experienced senior manufacturing staff. It takes years to build up things like this, and they come from having a real manufacturing base, making real things.

Meanwhile, the EU and the US don't even seem to realize how important this challenge is, let alone do they do anything about it.

Does this make the 2030s the decade China becomes the world's robot superpower, making millions, and then tens of millions of robots a year?

There Are More Robots Working in China Than the Rest of the World Combined

Lenacapavir will still cost $28,000 a year in the US.

Patents should allow the first generic versions of Semaglutide (Ozempic) to appear next year. Again in low income countries, not developed nations.

Are we going to see a future trend of poorer countries bettering developed countries in health outcomes?

Philanthropies Strike a Promising Deal to Turn Back H.I.V.

AheadForm was formed in 2024, and this is at the prototype stage, not yet ready for commercial deployment. Still, it shows the direction of travel. Somewhat realistically human-like humanoid robots may not be too far away.

If many people are already happy with faceless AI "companions," imagine how much they might like this?

VIDEO - Face Robot: AheadForm Origin M1

The crash of the AI stock market bubble seems all but inevitable. If/when that happens, it won't end AI itself, just some of the AI companies. Ironically, the recession it will provoke will probably only accelerate the adoption of AI to replace human workers.

Our politics has yet to catch up to the coming realities of AI and employment, but I wonder how much longer that can last.

Measuring the performance of our models on real-world tasks: We’re introducing GDPval, a new evaluation that measures model performance on economically valuable, real-world tasks across 44 occupations.

Though it isn't getting as much attention, AI is driving rapid advances in robotics. This video illustrates how far robotics is advancing. What is cutting-edge now will be in cheap Chinese mass-produced robots like Unitree's $9,600 G1 in a few short years. Already, these capabilities are moving closer to general-purpose robots capable of most unskilled work; the question is how soon they arrive.

VIDEO - Enabling robots to plan, think and use tools to solve complex tasks with Gemini Robotics 1.5

One of the things that sometimes goes unappreciated about renewables is that they are a technology, not just an energy source. As such, they are subject to the same improvements humans make with technology. Coal and oil long ago reached maximum energy extraction efficiency, and any gains now are minimal.

Hydrogel.

Solar panels lose efficiency as they heat up. The new gel absorbs water from the air at night, and cools by "sweating" it during the day. In tests, this has given a 12% relative boost in power conversion efficiency. The gel may even extend the panel's lifetime. However, there are questions about how this gel will be used over the 20-30-year lifetime of a panel.

Double-Sided Panels.

Tongwei has achieved a record 91.7% bifaciality in their solar panels, meaning the back of their panels is 91.7% as efficient as the front. This is significant because they've done it with cheaper technology that was supposed to be inferior. Most installations see about 10-20% more power from bifacial panels. The exact amount depends heavily on the setup.

Hydrogels keep solar panels cool, efficient, and durable

Tongwei achieves 91.7% bifaciality factor for 722 W TOPCon solar module

I wonder how much of this is down to AI? Maybe not much yet. Concerns about it and employment have only started going mainstream in the 2020s. That suggests there is more decline ahead for people's regard for the worth of college education.

It's striking how much opinions differ according to politics. 39% of Republicans rate college as "Not too important", versus 9% of Democrats who feel the same way. The article wonders if the perceived left-wing bias of colleges is to blame. But if right-wing people desert colleges, won't that just make them more left-wing? The student body certainly will be, and that's where the future staff members come from.

Perceived Importance of College Hits New Low: The percentage of Americans saying college is "very important" has fallen to 35%

This is interesting, but I don't know if it's all that significant. The swing towards right-wing authoritarianism makes a lot of the political questions very predictable to answer. Some relating to weather events, I would expect AI to be best at, as they're data crunching exercises.

Metaculus Cup Summer 2025

British AI startup beats humans in international forecasting competition: ManticAI ranked eighth in the Metaculus Cup, leaving some believing bots’ prediction skills could soon overtake experts

James Reed, chief executive of Reed, told Times Radio that his site advertised around 180,000 graduate jobs three or four years ago, and this is now down to 55,000.

He encouraged aspiring families to encourage their children to look into manual labour jobs as AI increasingly automates aspects of white-collar roles.

"The direction of travel is what worries me. Some people might say, well, that’s your business. But every other business is saying the same thing, that far fewer graduate opportunities are available to young people,” he said.

But guess what's a few years away? Cheap humanoid robots powered by AI. So even the manual labor jobs will start shrinking. Approx 750,000 people in Britain have jobs that are primarily driving vehicles; self-driving vehicles mean their days are numbered, too.

What we aren't seeing yet is these facts seriously impacting politics. When will that happen?

Graduates face ‘white-collar’ recession in jobs market

"Pakistan, which has for years treated gas generation as the backbone of its power network, has been asking suppliers to defer shipments of liquefied natural gas after a surge of solar imports suppressed grid demand. Saudi Arabia is facing one of the fastest declines in petroleum usage anywhere as photovoltaic farms replace fuel oil generators."

Analysts are talking about a supply glut of oil for 2025/26 lowering oil prices. Are we finally at the point oil use is going to start declining? Fingers crossed, let's hope so.

Meanwhile, China is almost single-handedly building the world's replacement.

China’s Marshall Plan is running on batteries: Beijing’s green energy projects are bringing jobs, growth and cheap electricity to the developing world

Social media algorithms are designed to make you angry, and the old media is only interested in sensation or 'if it bleeds, it leads.' So you might be surprised to find there's lots of good news in the world.

Here's some - globally, more and more land is being rewilded and going back to nature, and the trend looks like it's permanent. Decades-long productivity trends mean more and more food is being produced per square kilometer. With lab-grown meat and vertical farming in our future, these rewilding trends might even accelerate. Even if the human population finally peaks at 9 billion or so in a few decades, it won't reverse the trend.

The rewilding milestone Earth has already passed

This is a novel approach to geothermal energy. Existing methods, like industry leader Fervo, rely on drilling into hot rock and interacting directly with underground reservoirs. Rodatherm's method is entirely closed loop. It says that its closed-loop, refrigerant-based approach is 50% more efficient than a typical water-based system. However, it may have higher costs with drilling and installation. It just received $38 million in funding to build a pilot project in Utah to begin testing out its tech.

According to Wood Mackenzie, Fervo’s Cape Station project is demonstrating commercial viability at around US $79 per MWh without subsidies. Though it's working toward a target of US$45/MWh by 2035.

Rodatherm Energy wants to make geothermal more efficient, but will it be cheaper?