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wedrifid comments on Why could you be optimistic that the Singularity is Near? - Less Wrong Discussion

22 Post author: gwern 14 July 2012 11:33PM

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Comment author: wedrifid 15 July 2012 05:49:31AM 5 points [-]

The continuation of the solar cell and battery cost curves are pretty darn impressive. Costs halving about once a decade, for several decades, is pretty darn impressive. One more decade until solar is cheaper than coal is today, and then it gets cheaper (vast areas of equatorial desert could produce thousands of times current electricity production and export in the form of computation, the products of electricity-intensive manufacturing, high-voltage lines, electrolysis to make hydrogen and hydrocarbons, etc). These trends may end before that, but the outside view looks good.

That sounds promising for us (Australia). We have almost as much desert as we do coal!