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loup-vaillant comments on Why could you be optimistic that the Singularity is Near? - Less Wrong Discussion
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Nitpick:
More energy is good. On the other hand, fracking has less than ideal consequences (mostly pollution, and depletion of ground water, which goes down the fractures caused by fracking). Until we have the crazy technology required to prevent or undo the damage done by this, this doesn't sound like a good trade-of.
I have much more hope in the exploitation of sunlight.
More importantly, unconventional oil and gas are getting produced in large quantities now in large part because of high prices, high enough to justify expensive and difficult extraction processes. Unless costs fall incredibly massively, fracking will not bring back the cheap oil of the 20th century.
Money is the straw utility function. There lies my hope in sunlight: if prices continue to fall down, it could drive fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas, uranium…) out of business. Geothermal energy looks cool, and nuclear fusion would be cooler still. But they seem more distant than sunlight.