Notes from Ray Kurzweil on Glen Beck's show from July 2008.

We will totally switch from fossil to renewable fuels within the next 20 years.

We are doubling the amount of solar engergy we are producing every 2 years.

We have 10,000 times more sunlight than we need.

Billions of $ of venture capital are going into a new technology: Nano engineered solar panels. These will be ready in 5 or 6 years.

We are 5 years away from a tipping point where the cost per watt from solar energy will become less than the cost per watt from fossil fuels. Then the economic incentives will make us switch over from fossil to solar energy.

Exponential growth of technology - 2, 4, 8, 16

Humans think linearly - step 1, step 2, etc.

Exponential growth is explosive. You double 1% seven more times and you get 100%

We are now at 1% on renewable energy (solar and wind) technology. It is doubling every 2 years, so we are only 14 years away from 100%.

We also need storage technologies which use nano technology and hydrogen.

Other stuff

Virtual reality: a student's mother talking to him in the doorway, is just another window like the other 4 that are open on his screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfbOyw3CT6A&feature=related

Solar power in 20 years ?

Flexible organic solar cells

Solar power generation

Organic solar cells break down faster?

http://www.nanosolar.com/