Energy
How
can growing energy demands be met safely and efficiently? [Challenge
13]
Science and Technology
How
can scientific and technological breakthroughs be accelarated to improve
the human condition? [Challenge 14]
In 2002, there were more Internet users in Asia and the Pacific than in the United States and Canada (187 million to 183 million). By the end of 2003, China could have 120 million users. Fifteen years ago few people had even heard of the Internet. Today it is the most powerful force in history for globalization, democratization, economic growth, education, international management of everything from controlling the spread of SARS to accelerating scientific collaboration, and new organizational forms that are changing the nature of governance. Fifteen years from now the majority of the world may be connected to the “planetary nervous system,” making cyberspace an unprecedented medium for civilization. This new distribution of the means of production in the knowledge economy is cutting through old hierarchical controls in politics, economics, and finance. It is becoming a self-organizing mechanism for an emerging and collective computer-human intelligence.
Mobile phones outnumbered fixed ones for the first time in 2003. With the merger of Internet capabilities and mobile phones, swarms of people can quickly form and disband, coordinate actions, and share information from stock market tips to meme epidemics.
International Data Corp. (IDC) expects that in 2007, Internet users will have access to, download, and share information that is equivalent to the entire Library of Congress more than 64,000 times over, every day. Xerox PARC estimates that a $100 computer in 2022 will have the capability of 500,000 MIPS (million instructions/sec) (today’s NASA and Central Intelligence Agency combined), 1 terabyte of RAM, and 2 terabytes of disk (equivalent of the entire World Wide Web today).
eMarketer predicts that business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce will almost double over the next year from $1.4 trillion to $2.7 trillion in 2004, while Forrester forecasts that global e-commerce will reach $6.9 trillion by 2004. The Economist estimates global information technology services will be $1 trillion by 2008. Unfortunately, the Internet is also a new medium for the worst of human motives and makes encrypted communications available to terrorists and criminals. Threats of information warfare, cyber-terrorism, financial market vulnerability, fraud, loss of cultural diversity, and knowledge gaps all have to be addressed. The year 2003 has become the worst ever for verified overt digital attacks—with 91,088 attacks against online servers through June compared with 87,525 for the whole of 2002, according to mi2g Ltd. IDC estimates that the intrusion-detection market will quadruple to $2 billion in 2005.
Meanwhile, the digital divide between the industrial and developing
worlds is closing rapidly, falling from 40 to 1 in 1995 to 17 to 1 in 2001.
Nielsen//NetRatings estimates that 20 nations accounted for more than 90%
of active Internet users in 2002. Open Source software is a low-cost option
to replace proprietary software and create alternatives to market monopolies,
increasing competition in the market, and computers that use Linux operating
systems cost less.
We could make Internet access a right of citizens; provide cheap computers
with nonproprietary software in public places; encourage global collaboratories;
end national telecommunication monopolies; invent incentives to provide
training for all; create low-cost Internet devices with direct satellite
access; develop solar robot antennas that hover at high altitudes above
the weather instead of a proliferation of microwave towers on land; use
existing software to block offensive materials; and use tele-volunteers
to help poorer regions.
-- Brief overview --
To meet the world’s energy demands over the next 30 years, the International
Energy Agency says investments have to triple compared with the last 30
years. The lack of clean and abundant energy has contributed to military
conflicts, environmental problems, and poverty. Some 1.6 billion people
have no access to electricity, and some 2.4 billion rely on traditional
biomass for cooking and heating. A Millennium Project international panel
rated abundant clean energy among the most important, inspiring, politically
acceptable, and achievable goals by 2050.
Annual energy consumption is expected to increase nearly 60% by 2020
and to double or triple by 2050. The cumulative consumption of fossil fuels
is expected to triple over the next 60 years compared with the last 60
years. Unless significant progress is made on carbon sequestration, the
environmental movement may try to close down the fossil fuel industries,
just as they stopped atomic energy growth 30 years ago. Developing countries
are expected to pass industrial ones in total carbon emissions by 2015.
Wind energy is the now the world’s fastest-growing power source, tripling worldwide since 1998. The hydrogen fuel cell R&D competition between the EU, Japan, and the United States may speed development of this alternative to petroleum for transportation, yet fossil fuels and nuclear are expected to be used to help make the hydrogen.
Renewable energy production is expected to grow at 12% annually for 20 years. Nevertheless, alternative sources such as photovoltaic cells, solar thermal energy, geothermal energy, hydrogen, wind power, tidal energy, biomass, ocean thermal differential, fusion, and solar power satellites are not progressing fast enough to meet future demand, let alone replace fossil fuels.
Political leaders should declare “abundant clean energy” as a global goal and commit the resources needed. A key objective should be energy for transportation in developing countries. R&D priority should be given to concepts that are scientifically sound, not already being pursued, and too distant to attract venture capital. While seeking alternative energy solutions, “carbon sequestration” could be developed for carbon capture, separation and storage, or reuse. New projects should also pursue portable sources, energy storage systems, and the safe management of nuclear waste. States should eliminate energy subsidies and tax incentives that perpetuate the status quo and stifle development alternatives. Agreement on scientific measurements will be necessary for energy pricing policies to reflect the external and environmental impacts of energy production and use. All this may require the creation of a World Energy Organization for the coordination of energy research, development, and assistance in implementing policies.
-- Brief overview --
Most people do not appreciate how fast science and technology will change over the next 25 years. The synergies and confluence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science (NBIC) is a particularly important new merger of science and engineering supported by both government and venture capitalists. NBIC tools will dramatically increase individual and group performance and the support systems of civilization. NBIC products will range from biometrics to counter-terrorism systems, from restoring brain functioning and eyesight to increased longevity.
The factors that caused previous changes—such as computer chips, telecommunications bandwidth, new materials, genomics and biotechnology, computational sciences, international standards, and collaborative software—are themselves changing at accelerating rates, with no end in sight. People are surprised to learn that we can see proteins embedded in a cell’s membrane tens of billionths of a meter across, that organic transistors with a single-molecule channel length have been developed, and that light has been stopped by a yttrium-silica crystal and then released and has been slowed in gas and then accelerated, promising vast improvements in computer capacity. Robot surgery has begun clinical trials, rats’ movements have been controlled by remote devices communicating with the animals’ brains, and more than 10% of humanity is online.
Over the next 25 years NBIC approaches will integrate sciences, engineering, medicine, and business to change the very nature of R&D. They will accelerate efficiency, create better medicines and more nutritious foods using less land and water, and improve learning and mental health. Artificial intelligence with quantum computing will increase collective intelligence, and space sciences will open new technological and social frontiers.
Meanwhile, the risks of some new technologies and scientific developments are enormous, unprecedented, and, many argue, unpredictable. The risks are associated with unanticipated consequences of frontier research or applications and with new weapons applications. Chapter 3 presents 2025 global science and technology scenarios that explore management and policy options for the risks and opportunities of S&T.
We need some kind of international S&T organization to bring together the world’s knowledge in a more organized, user-friendly fashion, consisting of data banks of many organizations. Such an organization could illustrate risks, opportunities, and a range of speculation on items on an accumulative basis. International scientific assessments of biotech and molecular nanotechnology should be conducted, and whatever is found feasible and desirable should be developed on a fast-tracked international basis. Global “collaboratories” via Internet2 should be fostered for NBIC, and transcultural research should be focused on how to improve the human condition. Basic research and development of new theoretical principals must be supported to provide the growing pool of knowledge from which applied science draws its insights.
Note: Elements of this challenge that relate to sustainable development, water, information, disease, energy science, and technologies can be found in challenges 1, 2, 6, 8, and 13 respectively. Also, see the 2025 Science & Technology management Policy Scenarios.
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