Posts Tagged ‘3d’

Nonviolent Solution for Syria?

Monday, April 9th, 2012

The ongoing Syrian onslaught spilled across two borders today as gun-toting combatants attacked refugees in Turkey and killed a journalist in Lebanon.

As a proponent of world peace and vocal advocate of non-violence, you may be wondering how a Peacenik like myself might address the atrocities taking place in Syria.

Here’s what I would do: (more…)

Solar Energy: Cheaper by the Day

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

San Antonio, Texas – When bids came in for a 50MW solar power plant, officials were so blown away by the attractive prices that they decided to scale the project up 8-fold to 400MW.

HOORAY!

Why are San Antonio’s municipal affairs so exciting? Because it’s another sign that we’re on the verge of seeing renewable energy take over. No more fossil fuels for us. Green energy all the way, baby!

Now, when our world isn’t so dependent on fossil fuels, there will be one less reason to go to war. And we could certainly use less war in our world.

But affordable energy solutions, as transformative as they will be for us in developed nations, will have a far more profound effect on the world’s poorest.

The price will keep dropping and new developments will keep coming, so renewable energy solutions will be at the forefront of eradicating extreme poverty.

Similar to how much of the African continent skipped the whole phone-line infrastructure in lieu of cell phone towers, impoverished nations will be able to forgo a power grid to have households handle their own energy needs.

And with poverty being a root grievance that leads to violence, the less poverty we have in our world, the more peaceful our planet.

Awesome! =D

3D Printing circa 2011

Sunday, July 10th, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZboxMsSz5Aw&feature=player_embedded

Check out the fascinating tool highlighted in the above video. It’s called a 3D printer, and it will soon be a key component in the bid to eradicate extreme poverty.

A single unit alone could be a game changer for anyone who needs tools, and that’s just where the technology is today.

Eventually, say within 10 years, these devices will be capable of producing complex machinery and electronics, like computers, solar panels or even parts to build another 3D printer!

Just imagine what could be built for people in developing nations: irrigation pumps for farmers, net-ready devices for students, parts for a wind-generator.

With a 3D printer, pretty much anything you can dream up, you can make. And if that thought doesn’t fill you with optimism, then perhaps you’re not trying hard enough. =D

Video – 3D Printers

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

One single tool, and we’ll end global poverty forever. Just one incredible machine will help us easily meet the basic needs of every single human.

This amazing device? A 3-D printer.

If you haven’t heard of 3-d printers before, they’re technological marvels that can take in raw materials (like metal and plastic) and build actual 3-dimensional objects. Sounds a bit like star trek, right?

Well, these things already exist! For about a thousand dollars, you can assemble your own from a kit. and make objects out of plastic. But today we have some high end models that can make things out of metals, like titanium.

At the rate we’re progressing, perhaps within a decade, 3-D printers will produce any tool we need: machines, solar panels, computers, you-name-it, anything we want, designed from blueprints we share online and constructed out of two of the most abundant elements on earth – silicon and carbon.

Now, if you consider how 3-D printers can be used to make even more 3-D printers, well, the implications are staggering. With a way to create and power any tool we need, we’ll be able to shift away from today’s centralized system of dependence, to a distributed system of self-reliance where we manufacture goods, grow food and generate energy all on the local scales.

3-d printers are set to make our world one of abundance and equality, which will be awesome. When we are no longer starving or living in squalor, we’ll find it easier to co-exist without murdering each other, at least not on industrial scales like we do with wars today, which may be about as much world peace as we humans can hope for.

So there you have it. Another great reason to be optimistic for the future.