big ideas

Solar cells keep getting cheaper.

FOB China prices are now under $0.05/watt for the most popular solar cells in the market. Lower prices open new markets, which drive more volume, which can lower prices further. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for this virtuous cycle! Note […]

tech, startups, internet

The geopolitics of AI: May 2024.

“This sequence of events illustrates how the AI arms race is making geopolitical divides simultaneously more fraught and simpler. In its quest to defend US companies’ IP and prevent China from accessing the most advanced capabilities, the US government is […]

big ideas

The renewable energy disaster far more deadly than Chernobyl.

The point here is pro-nuclear, not anti-renewables. In 1975, China’s Banqiao Dam collapsed, “forming a wall of water six meters high and twelve kilometers wide moving up to fifty kilometers per hour. The towering deluge eventually collapsed 62 more dams, […]

to your health

Why the world is going blind.

The cause: not enough exposure to sunlight. “In China, up to 90 percent of teenagers and young adults are myopic. In the 1950s the figure was as low as 10 percent. A 2012 study in Seoul found that an astonishing […]

tech, startups, internet

How did solar power get cheap?

“Solar went from the most expensive source of electricity in the 1950s to the least expensive source of electricity in the 2020s.” The root cause: hundreds of billions of dollars of both public and private investments. Those investments, first in […]