Microsoft Word Kurzweil, Ray The Singularity Is Near doc

Rhodoferax ferrireducens
bacterium), boasts a remarkable 81 percent efficiency and 
uses almost no energy in its idling mode. The bacteria produce electricity directly from glucose with no unstable 
intermediary by-products. The bacteria also use the sugar fuel to reproduce, thereby replenishing themselves, resulting 
in stable and continuous production of electrical energy. Experiments with other types of sugars such as fructose, 
sucrose, and xylose were equally successful. Fuel cells based on this research could utilize the actual bacteria or, 
alternatively, directly apply the chemical reactions that the bacteria facilitate. In addition to powering nanobots in 
sugar-rich blood, these devices have the potential to produce energy from industrial and agricultural waste products. 
Nanotubes have also demonstrated the promise of storing energy as nanoscale batteries, which may compete with 
nanoengineered fuel cells.
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This extends further the remarkable versatility of nanotubes, which have already revealed 
their prowess in providing extremely efficient computation, communication of information, and transmission of 
electrical power, as well as in creating extremely strong structural materials. 
The most promising approach to nanomaterials-enabled energy is from solar power, which has the potential to 
provide the bulk of our future energy needs in a completely renewable, emission-free, and distributed manner. The 
sunlight input to a solar panel is free. At about 10
17
watts, or about ten thousand times more energy than the 10
13
watts 
currently consumed by human civilization, the total energy from sunlight falling on the Earth is more than sufficient to 
provide for our needs.
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As mentioned above, despite the enormous increases in computation and communication over 

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the next quarter century and the resulting economic growth, the far greater energy efficiencies of nanotechnology 
imply that energy requirements will increase only modestly to around thirty trillion watts (3 
°
10
13
) by 2030.Wecould 
meet this entire energy need with solar power alone if we captured only 0.0003 (three ten-thousandths) of the sun's 
energy as it hits the Earth. 
It's interesting to compare these figures to the total metabolic energy output of all humans, estimated by Robert 
Freitas at 10
12
watts, and that of all vegetation on Earth, at 10
14
watts. Freitas also estimates that the amount of energy 
we could produce and use without disrupting the global energy balance required to maintain current biological ecology 
(referred to by climatologists as the "hypsithermal limit") is around 10
15
watts. This would allow a very substantial 
number of nanobots per person for intelligence enhancement and medical purposes, as well as other applications, such 
as providing energy and cleaning up the environment. Estimating a global population of around ten billion (10
10
) 
humans, Freitas estimates around 10
16
(ten thousand trillion) nanobots for each human would be acceptable within this 
limit.
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We would need only 10
11
nanobots (ten millionths of this limit) per person to place one in every neuron. 
By the time we have technology of this scale, we will also be able to apply nanotechnology to recycle energy by 
capturing at least a significant portion of the heat generated by nanobots and other nanomachinery and converting that 
heat back into energy. The most effective way to do this would probably be to build the energy recycling into the 
nanobot itself.
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This is similar to the idea of reversible logic gates in computation, in which each logic gate 
essentially immediately recycles the energy it used for its last computation. 
We could also pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to provide the carbon for nanomachinery, which would 
reverse
the increase in carbon dioxide resulting from our current industrial-era technologies. We might, however, want 
to be particularly cautious about doing more than reversing the increase over the past several decades, lest we replace 
global warming with global cooling. 
Solar panels have to date been relatively inefficient and expensive, but the technology is rapidly improving. The 
efficiency of converting solar energy to electricity has steadily advanced for silicon photovoltaic cells from around 4 
percent in 1952 to 24 percent in 1992.
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Current multilayer cells now provide around 34 percent efficiency. A recent 
analysis of applying nanocrystals to solar-energy conversion indicates that efficiencies above 60 percent appear to be 
feasible.
135
Today solar power costs an estimated $2.75 per watt.
136
Several companies are developing nanoscale solar cells 
and hope to bring the cost of solar power below that of other energy sources. Industry sources indicate that once solar 
power falls below $1.00 per watt, it will be competitive for directly supplying electricity to the nation's power grid. 
Nanosolar has a design based on titanium oxide nanoparticles that can be mass-produced on very thin flexible films. 
CEO Martin Roscheisen estimates that his technology has the potential to bring down solar-power costs to around fifty 
cents per watt by 2006, lower than that of natural gas.
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Competitors Nanosys and Konarka have similar projections. 
Whether or not these business plans pan out, once we have MNT (molecular nanotechnology)-based manufacturing, 
we will be able to produce solar panels (and almost everything else) extremely inexpensively, essentially at the cost of 
raw materials, of which inexpensive carbon is the primary one. At an estimated thickness of several microns, solar 
panels could ultimately be as inexpensive as a penny per square meter. We could place efficient solar panels on the 
majority of human-made surfaces, such as buildings and vehicles, and even incorporate them into clothing for 
powering mobile devices. A 0.0003 conversion rate for solar energy should be quite feasible, therefore, and relatively 
inexpensive. 
Terrestrial surfaces could be augmented by huge solar panels in space. A Space Solar Power satellite already 
designed by NASA could convert sunlight in I space to electricity and beam it to Earth by microwave. Each such 
satellite could provide billions of watts of electricity, enough for tens of thousands of homes.
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With circa-2029 MNT 
manufacturing, we could produce solar panels of vast size directly in orbit around the Earth, requiring only the 
shipment of the raw materials to space stations, possibly via the planned Space Elevator, a thin ribbon, extending from 
a shipborne anchor to a counterweight well beyond geosynchronous orbit, made out of a material called carbon 
nanotube composite.
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Desktop fusion also remains a possibility. Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory used ultrasonic sound 
waves to shake a liquid solvent, causing gas bubbles to become so compressed they achieved temperatures of millions 
of degrees, resulting in the nuclear fusion of hydrogen atoms and the creation of energy.
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Despite the broad 
skepticism over the original reports of cold fusion in 1989, this ultrasonic method has been warmly received by some 
peer reviewers.
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However, not enough is known about the practicality of the technique, so its future role in energy 
production remains a matter of speculation.