Energy: The driver of innovation
There is one common denominator when looking at what was predicted in the 1960s and what technology exists. The more energy-intensive an invention is, the less progress we have made on it. I would first like to refine this argument. I believe that there is a high degree of correlation there, but it is more related to energy concentration than just the net power total. Why? Well, it boils down to simple economics. Energy is money. An invention that consumes one megawatt of electricity but can only serve one person is much less economically feasible than an invention that consumes the same amount of power and serves five people.
From a market perspective there are then three options to make the first invention profitable on the free market.
- Reduce the cost of energy to the point that the consumer does not care about the increased consumption of technology.
- Increase the practicality of the invention such that the consumer can justify the five times greater expense.
- Find a way to reduce energy consumption such that it is competitive.
As such, I was intrigued by the Henry Adams curve as presented by Dr. Hall. It seems that around the year 1970, in a larger cultural context, rather than opting for options 1 or 2 that the market has pushed innovation in the direction of option 3.
In his video, Dr. Hall mentions the Henry Adams curve. This is the idea that the amount of energy consumed increases exponentially with the development of new technologies. However, we began to diverge from the historical trend and flat line entirely by the early 1970s. Interestingly, this correlates almost exactly with a different curve. Since the 1970s, the real wage growth of American workers has stagnated while their productivity continues to increase. This, coupled with the fact that the energy crisis of the 70’s led to an increase in energy prices and environmental regulations, slowed the rate at which innovations could be made to decrease the cost of energy.
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This meant that if a company was going to produce a product for the market, even if that product had better features, they had better figure out a way to make it cheaper, as consumers' spending power was not increasing. These market pressures are what contributed to the derailment of the Henry Adams curve. Rather than just trying to add new features, efficiency has become a primary concern of many companies.
Nuclear Power
I fully agree with Dr. Hall, since nuclear power is underutilized and should currently be the backbone of the American power grid. Even with the stringent regulatory thresholds that nuclear is subject to, it still manages to be substantially cheaper than coal per kWh. This is also coupled with the fact that, as a whole, nuclear power is much safer from a human life perspective as well. As is shown from the graph below, nuclear power is safer than almost all other forms of energy production, including wind, once all the deaths from pollution and accidents are accounted for. However, I doubt that we will see nuclear power utilized on an individual scale, at least as far as fission is concerned. While extremely safe when done correctly, the stakes of a nuclear accident are extremely high. I am dubious about the safety of having millions of personal nuclear reactors, as the stakes are so high with this form of technology.
We already have Flying Cars
FaceTime
I would argue that we already have what amounts to flying cars with a series of innovations that were not as anticipated in the 1960s. The development of the internet has eliminated the need for some forms of travel, especially regarding business. As it stands today, we can virtually travel and meet face to face almost anywhere in the world with an unbeatable travel speed: the speed of light. The cost for such travel is extremely low, on the order of cents per hour. It is almost impossible to have a physical means of transportation that moves faster and cheaper than that.
High-Speed Rail
We may not have “flying cars” but we do have trains with “anti-gravity”. High-speed rail lines have been instituted in many nations with great success and safety. These rail lines travel faster than many small personal planes, with the current highest achieved speed of a prototype at 375 mph. While high-speed rail is relatively commonplace across Europe and Asia, one of the primary issues it faces is achieving profitability due to initial capital requirements. However, these trains run on electricity, and if nuclear fusion were unlocked could become significantly more cost-effective. Furthermore, the safety and reliability of these systems have already been tested.
Helicopters
If you are wealthy enough, you can currently get a helicopter. Helicopters are the closest thing to flying cars that have received widespread implementation. There is nothing stopping someone from getting one except the high costs involved.
Fiscally, they don’t make sense
The average American covers 30-40 miles a day throughout four trips. That averages out to between 7.5 to 10 miles per trip. This amounts to about 5-10 dollars in fuel a day. Some estimates put a helicopter at getting around 8 mpg. Assuming that Avgas is twice the cost of pump gas, that results in a vehicle that is four times more expensive to operate from fuel costs alone when compared to a motor vehicle. This does not take into account the maintenance costs that would be orders of magnitude higher as well. The long and the short of it is that, regardless of what regulations are in place, unless flying cars are made significantly more affordable than what is currently offered, the average American will simply be unable to afford them.