The choices we make today shape our world tomorrow.
All the episodes of The Next Billion Seconds – and only the episodes.
Author mpescePosted on We turn to the experts – Jason Calacanis, Sally Dominguez, Ramez Naam, Drew Smith, Mark Jeffrey and Tony Parisi – to learn their predictions for the future of work, sustainable energy, transportation, cryptocurrencies and the metaverse.
Author mpescePosted on At the start of 2021 I made four big predictions for the year about digital currencies, the transition to a sustainable economy, geopolitics and social media. How did I score? (Hint: I got to grade myself.)
Author mpescePosted on A new series, a new podcast production partner – and a new theme: WORLDCHANGING, bringing together amazing talent, tools, and a driving need change the world in this decade! We’re bringing you WORLDCHANGING stories in series 6 of The Next Billion Seconds.
Have a look at Saul Griffith’s amazing new book, The Big Switch: Australia’s electric future
And – if you use Microsoft Windows – you can have a play with that early metaverse software that Tony Parisi and I wrote, nearly 30 years ago – just go here.
Author mpescePosted on We worry that doing ‘the right thing’ for the climate will be hard yards. Three simple, easy changes show us how much we can do – and how empowered we already are to fix this problem.
Here’s the New York Times reporting on the rains in Greenland.
A recent survey of 16-25 year olds reveals the majority feel ‘doomed’ because of climate change.
Our World in Data visualises an ugly truth: Australians emit more carbon per person than almost everyone else.
What to do?
CHOICE shows you how to identify and switch over to a renewable electricity generator. Switching to a renewable electricity generator does more to lower your carbon emissions than any other single act. Let’s do this!
Author mpescePosted on Growing the meat we eat produces a lot of Australia’s carbon emissions. The four innovations explored in this episode – Rob Kinley’s amazing seaweed, George Peppou’s vat-grown meats, Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin’s vertical farms, and Nick Hazell’s plant-based ‘meats’ – show us a path toward an agriculture that can be radically more efficient.
Author mpescePosted on Inventor Saul Griffith has a radical proposal: electrify everything, saving energy, money, and cutting emissions almost to zero. It simultaneouisly transforms the costs of climate change into enormous opportunities. Co-host Sally Dominguez explores three amazing new battery technologies.
A must-read companion to SUSTAIN:
Saul Griffith’s forthcoming book ELECTRIFY is, well, an electrifying read that makes the clear, and obvious case that electrifying everything (coupled with renewable generation) is the win-win solution for the planet and our economy. Pre-order it here.
Sally Dominguez loves sodium-ion batteries, and here’s a report about why they may come to rival the dominant Lithium-ion batteries we use today…
Sally and I both love ‘structural batteries’ – they’ll allow us to store electricity pretty much everywhere, in pretty much everything. Read about them here.
Author mpescePosted on In 2020, renewables became the cheapest source of electricity – and frequent guest Ramez Naam brings us all the stats about this fully underway transition to solar and wind power. But without cheap storage, renewables will never be able to be the entire solution for a world that looks to need a lot more electricity. Australian startup MGA Thermal may have invented the ideal technology to accelerate our transition from coal to solar.
Read this article about how much wind energy the USA added to the grid in 2020 (a record!)
Here’s a Techcrunch article about MGA Thermal getting backed by Australian VCs Main Sequence – and their power station trial in Switzerland.
And finally, here’s a story about the day that solar generation (briefly) eclipsed generation by coal-fired plants in Australia’s winter!
Author mpescePosted on Mercedes goes all in on EVs, with studies now indicating EVs do save 50% of emissions over their lifetime, versus petrol vehicles. Is this enough to keep on course to a low-carbon future? And what about flying cars? Co-host Sally Dominguez and Special Correspondent Drew Smith have some answers.
Mercedes goes all electric by 2030 – read about it here.
Study confirms EV has much lower lifecycle emissions than petrol vehicles – read that here.
Author mpescePosted on The recent UN report on climate change gives us about twelve years to really reign in our carbon emissions. That means it’s time to think clearly and methodically about how to get the most benefit for the least pain. We can do this!
At nearly 4000 pages, the IPCC Sixth Report on the Physical Science of Climate Change isn’t a quick read — but the first hundred or so pages contain the condensed facts. Everything you need to know to make decisions today to keep us on SSP1 – the path toward no more than 1.5ºC warming. Grab it here.
Author mpescePosted on TSMC – Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation – now fabricates the best computer chips available at any price, transforming Taiwan into a prize that China needs in order to continue its rise as an economic and military superpower.
To service the growing demand for semiconductors, South Korea has committed nearly $200 billion.
TSMC is planning on investing at least $100B over the next four years.
Author mpescePosted on For sixty years, Intel made the best chips in the world. As of 2020, they no longer do – and a company you’ve likely never heard of now holds the chip-making crown.
One of the key events reported in this episode concerns the firing of Intel Chief Engineering Officer Murthy Renduchintala after the chip maker announced delays in development of its all-important 7-nanometer semiconductors.
Not long after that, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich stepped down.
Author mpescePosted on More than 60 years ago, integrated circuits created a revolution in electronics that transformed the entire world. How are chips made? And why do we keep getting better at making them?
The ALTAIR 8800 was a landmark in computing – the first ‘microcomputer’, built around Intel’s breakthrough 8080 microprocessor. I remember it from the cover of Popular Electronics:
You could buy the ALTAIR 8800 in kit form, or fully assembled:
All of which led Paul Allen and Bill Gates to write ALTAIR BASIC, and sell it through their new company: MICROSOFT.
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