This year has been challenging and not just in financial markets. The major mood in the world seems to be one of exhaustion and fear. That is understandable given all that’s happened during 2022.
Some of the more depressing items of the year include: the war in Ukraine, the fall of Afghanistan, the assassination of the former Prime Minister of Japan, the Tonga eruption and tsunami, ongoing mass shootings in the US, the European Energy Crisis, runaway inflation and continuing political discord and upheaval. No wonder that so many people are reporting record levels of stress and anxiety. In a 2022 report by the American Psychology Association, 27% of US adults said that most days they are so stressed they can’t function. Wow!
So, this week, we want to focus on so many of the amazing positive developments we expect to see over the next few decades. The world will be completely transformed—for the better. We are about to witness some amazing changes in the way humans live, driven by developing technology and good ole human ingenuity.
Energy
Access to cheap and abundant energy is the life blood of human existence. It allows us to shift our daily efforts from surviving to thriving. As you may have seen this week, scientists at the US National Ignition Facility (NIF), we able to finally produce a fusion experiment that yielded a net positive energy result. Meaning researchers received more energy than they spent to produce a fusion reaction. Per Nature Magazine:
“The facility used its set of 192 lasers to deliver 2.05 megajoules of energy onto a pea-sized gold cylinder containing a frozen pellet of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium. The pulse of energy caused the capsule to collapse, creating temperatures only seen in stars and thermonuclear weapons, and the hydrogen isotopes fused into helium, releasing additional energy and creating a cascade of fusion reactions. The laboratory’s analysis suggests that the reaction released some 3.15 megajoules of energy — roughly 54% more than the energy that went into the reaction, and more than double the previous record of 1.3 megajoules.”
Granted, we are a long way from commercial implementation of fusion energy, but it appears we are making progress. Teams all over the world are working on designing reactors that may become the future of energy on earth. At ITER, 35 nations are collaborating to build an experimental fusion reactor as a way to test design ideas and eventually make commercially available fusion energy technologies. (https://www.iter.org/sci/Goals)
While fusion energy appears to be the Holy Grail for the future of clean, renewable energy production, other more immediate technologies are reaching a usable stage of development.
Finish engineers are working on a Sand Battery that stores and distributes energy using resistive heating, while researchers at the University of Washington St Louis are developing a process to convert red bricks into supercapacitors using a unique conducting coating. Scientists at Penn State University are in the process of developing a Lithium Ion Battery that overcomes the damage inflicted on these types of batteries from rapid recharge. The new design uses a self-heating and rapid cool down design to allow a full charge in 10 minutes. This could potentially revolutionize the electric vehicle market by allowing for much faster “refueling”.
Geothermal electricity production is about to get a boost from recent advancements in drilling technologies in the Oil & Gas sector. Horizontal drilling technology—critical in fracking—is being applied to reduce the cost of building geothermal power plants. Historically, these clean energy plants have been cost prohibitive due to the huge upfront cost of drilling the heating wells. Now with modern horizontal drilling technology, these costs are falling quickly which could lead to a boom in low cost, renewable and clean geothermal electricity production.
These are just a few of the many new technologies being developed to secure our energy future.
Healthcare
Human life will be dramatically extended with the commercial implementation of Gene-Editing technologies. Gene editing is a group of technologies that give scientists the ability to change an organism’s DNA. These technologies allow genetic material to be added, removed, or altered at particular locations in the genome. This technology could be useful in fighting many types of disease but one of the more interesting is Xenotransplantation—the procedure of transplanting, implementing or infusing a human with cells, tissues or organs from an animal source.
Presently, thousands of people die each year in the US waiting for a donor organ. Using gene editing technologies, scientists are developing processes to harvest animal organs (pigs being the ideal donor), re-writing the genome of the donor organ to a more human friendly code and then surgically implanting these modified organs into humans. AMAZING.
Another leap forward for human quality of life comes from 3D printing. Medical 3D printing has reached a stage of development where companies can create patient specific replacement bones using tricalcium phosphate. After an MRI, the images are used to create a 3D model of the patient’s bone implant and once the design is confirmed by the surgeon, the new bone is printed and implanted. Because the new 3D printed bone is made from tricalcium phosphate, the human body will remodel the implants into vascularized bone!
In 2021, Israeli surgeons implanted the world’s first artificial cornea into a bilaterally blind, 78-year-old man. Once his bandages were removed, he could read and recognize his family members, immediately. We are now in the age of the bionic eye. Belgian scientists have developed an artificial iris fitted to smart contact lenses that correct a number of difficult vision disorders and other scientists are working on wireless brain implants that allow humans to skip their eyes altogether.
During the Covid crisis, we saw firsthand how new mRNA technology allowed companies to rapidly develop vaccinations to a new virus. mRNA is a molecule that contains the instructions or recipe that directs the cells to make a protein using its natural machinery. To enter cells smoothly, mRNA travels within a protective bubble called a Lipid Nanoparticle. Once inside, our cells read the mRNA as a set of instructions, building proteins that match up with parts of the pathogen called antigens. The immune system sees these foreign antigens as invaders—dispatching defenders called antibodies and T-cells—and training the immune system for potential future attacks. So, if and when the real virus comes along, the body might recognize it—sounding the alarm to help defend against infection and illness. Companies are hopeful that further developments in mRNA technology will allow us to combat many forms of disease up to and including certain types of cancer.
We expect a quantum leap in healthcare technology over the next few decades leading to a dramatic increase in the length and quality of human life.
Computers & AI
AI or artificial intelligence refers to the ability of machines to learn and act intelligently meaning make decisions, carry out tasks and predict future outcomes. While we already have Alexa and Siri, advancements in AI have the potential to increase human economic productively exponentially. Granted there will be ethical risks associated with “thinking” machines, but as we are freed from low value activities, economic activity should expand rapidly.
Some companies are trying to develop systems to merge AI with humans. Human-computer interfaces are wearable or implanted devices that improve physical or mental performance in humans. Imagine if your bionic eye were AI enabled and connected to the internet allowing you to immediately access and analyze information. Obviously, this technology isn’t available today, but in the next 20 years we may all be enhanced by onboard computers with AI.
These are just a few of the fun and exciting new technologies that are being developed. Many will change the world and the way we all live.
Most will cause massive shifts in our economy and opportunities to grow our wealth through smart investment. How exciting!
So, what’s the point? Well, the point is that while there may be cause for pessimism and fear will all the crazy things happening in the world, there is just as much cause for huge optimism. We expect great things ahead for humanity.
