🔮 Energy & democracy; CRISPR; exponential workers; space, AI music ++ #381

Hi, I’m Azeem Azhar. I convene Exponential View to help us understand how our societies and political economy will change under the force of rapidly accelerating technologies. (To level up on my thesis rapidly, pick up my book. It is now available in paperback.)

The near future

🌞 (Solar) power and new democracy
One beauty of solar power is that it allows energy generators of all scales (from industrial to residential) to participate in the market. As I’ve previously discussed, bottom-up investments in rooftop solar have transformed South Australia’s renewable credentials. Such home solar was responsible for the first gigawatt-scale negative demand events in the world.

Decentralised renewables also allow for a change in the structure of power delivery, giving way to localised capacity, generation and storage, which is where we run into bottlenecks. This is particularly important in most of the non-Western world. (Take South Africa, for example.)

Of course, if such investments are being mad…