Ever since we invented machines that could perform at greater levels of speed and precision than human hands, we’ve rapidly increased our capabilities to build advanced systems: jet aircraft, smartphones, supercomputers, satellites and spaceships. And while these capabilities have caused problems, they can derive even greater solutions.
Because of technology, billions have been brought out of poverty, devastating diseases have been eradicated, vast distances have been spanned, veritable wonders have been built, and transformational new ways to process and communicate information have been developed.
Indeed, as you read this, a single smartphone-wielding bartender in Mombasa, Kenya today has instantaneous access to a wealth of information the world’s governments, universities and corporations combined didn’t have when The Simpsons first aired.
Technology made all of this possible. Yet we’ve now reached the point where sophisticated systems – systems which, thirty years ago, took millions of dollars and months to build – can be inexpensively manufactured on automated assembly lines in hours. This capability has been extended to cutting-edge aircraft, advanced electronics, even large-scale infrastructure. But it can now also be extended to energy-generating systems of all forms – small modular power plants, systems for energy transfer, large-scale storage and energy management, mass-produced wind turbines and solar panels – enabling us to generate energy on far higher scales than was ever before possible.
But what if we took things a step further? What if instead of just mass-producing energy technologies, we also built them to work together by design? In the era of the smartphone or smart car, why not have a smart power plant or smart power grid? And, having done that, what happens if we apply all of the technological advancements we’ve recently made within and outside of energy generation, and combine them into one intelligent system for energy and resource production that can be easily scaled and deployed worldwide?
We don’t yet have a system today that can answer these questions. So, we’re going to take the opportunity to build one that can – right here, in this book.
The Next Giant Leap outlines blueprints for a system to solve resource scarcity and climate change. This system is called “Scarcity Zero” and it is an open-source framework of the best energy technologies we have available, designed to work together in a way that makes them greater than the sum of their parts in terms of output, efficiency and flexibility. As a framework, Scarcity Zero is designed to be deployed rapidly on a large scale to turn the tide against the ecological, climate and resource problems of our time. Its goal is to shift the foundations of how we generate energy to in turn shift the foundations for how we acquire and distribute resources – and, in the process, permanently erase the concepts of scarcity and need.
As the underlying conceptual structure for a system, frameworks apply in varied contexts, but their greatest applications are in software. In software, frameworks are virtual tools that enable integrated, cooperative deployments of different technologies in a way can be both flexible, modular and standardized. They’re what made 0’s and 1’s into the interconnected world we live in today. Software can be developed and applied for the ever-better management of data, goods, currency, ecosystems and even people. It can also do the same for energy and resources in a new paradigm of global abundance.
Scarcity Zero’s DNA is software for energy generation and resource production through an indefinitely scalable and replicable method. By heavily leveraging sophisticated mass-production and modular, standardized deployment strategies, this approach allows us to lower the price of energy to the extent where it becomes feasible, for the first time in our history, to synthetically produce critical resources on an effectively unlimited scale. No matter how much energy or resources are consumed, the system can always produce more at a rate higher than that of consumption – a feature by design.
This framework is environmentally friendly.
This framework is affordable.
This framework is sustainably powered.
This framework is built with technologies that can exist today.
And, this framework can be deployed anywhere in the world to functionally end resource scarcity – and do so with finality.
If we can unchain ourselves from the eternal problem of resource scarcity and the untold human potential it consumes, it frees up the immense resources devoted to extinguishing its fires within a scarcity-dominated world. We can then invest those resources in social advancement and ecological healing, powering a perpetually ascendant course. This wouldn’t cost us more, and would ultimately cost us less – not just in terms of money, but also in terms of focus.
If we are no longer forced to surf a never-ending tsunami of social maladies, we can devote greater attention to improving our lives and human civilization as a whole, solving long-vexing problems and addressing humanitarian crises that have plagued us for millennia.
With the technologies behind Scarcity Zero and the framework they power, we can change the world.
And we can build it better, stronger and brighter than before.
