I love advances in technology as much as everyone, but sometimes its just the application of technology that makes all the difference. The selling of easy to install relatively low cost solar panels is going to make all the difference in terms of energy production that might make the most hard headed anti-environmental douchebag consider a pair of these.

Costco to Sell Home Solar Panel Kits

Next time you're at your neighborhood Costco, you might consider picking up a home solar energy kit along with your three month supply of toilet paper. The big box store, a favorite of many small business owners and big families, will soon sell solar panels from Eugene, Oregon-based Grape Solar.

Costco will offer 880W, 2300W, 3680W or 5060W ready-to-install kits. A purchase will set you back from between $3,600 to around $18,000, but you will be eligible for tax rebates, depending on where you live. Plus you can feel good about creating your own energy at a time when we need every bit of demand to go down for dirty fuel.

The Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA) reported that solar power in the US was set to double in 2010. SEIA estimated that nearly 1 gigwatt would be installed in all residential, commerical, and utility-scale systems.

From Grape Solar's press release:

In order to make this tremendous undertaking possible, and bring such a complex product to consumers, Grape Solar has established a network of 5000+ installers across the country to provide local customer support. "At first I was concerned that Grape Solar was undercutting us by taking such a direct approach to the end user, but with the increased customer awareness and the steady stream of referrals, our business has been booming," says Ray Baxter, General Manager of Arizona Power-save, an Arizona-area installer.

The Home Solar Power kits are grid-tied systems that include Grape Solar panels, inverters, and racking systems that are ready to install onto a home or other roofed structure. This easy to install kit is designed with the potential for future expansion in mind. The consumer is able to start small, and generate a portion of their own power consumption, or upgrade and make the power company pay them by generating additional power that is sold back onto the utility grid. Users can create larger systems by linking more of the easily connected kits to one another.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/04/costco-solar.php

The Singularity is Near

If any of you are science nerds, then the Singularity should be as familiar to you as the hiding place for your Zombie Apocalypse Survival Kit. But I realized how few people actually know of and understand this idea.

If you have any sort of historical perspective, or perhaps have been alive for more than 20 years or so, you might have noticed the increasingly rapid advances in technology. The idea that advances in technology spur new technology isn't new. It isn't even really that surprising. However, what is surprising is the speed of advancement in our own lifetimes (even if you haven't hit 25).

The Singularity is a point in the future human history in which technological advancement becomes so rapid that prediction on the state of human civilization becomes impossible. This isn't some crazy off the wall theory, either. Many scientists have commented on this and many believe it to be inevitable. The theorized events of singularity include ideas such as the thought that humans will become increasingly in control of our biology to the point where we will be able to merge with machines.

Here is a fascinating article on Time Magazine about this. It is well worth the read.

2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal

On Feb. 15, 1965, a diffident but self-possessed high school student named Raymond Kurzweil appeared as a guest on a game show called I've Got a Secret. He was introduced by the host, Steve Allen, then he played a short musical composition on a piano. The idea was that Kurzweil was hiding an unusual fact and the panelists — they included a comedian and a former Miss America — had to guess what it was.

On the show (see the clip on YouTube), the beauty queen did a good job of grilling Kurzweil, but the comedian got the win: the music was composed by a computer. Kurzweil got $200. 

Kurzweil then demonstrated the computer, which he built himself — a desk-size affair with loudly clacking relays, hooked up to a typewriter. The panelists were pretty blasé about it; they were more impressed by Kurzweil's age than by anything he'd actually done. They were ready to move on to Mrs. Chester Loney of Rough and Ready, Calif., whose secret was that she'd been President Lyndon Johnson's first-grade teacher.

But Kurzweil would spend much of the rest of his career working out what his demonstration meant. Creating a work of art is one of those activities we reserve for humans and humans only. It's an act of self-expression; you're not supposed to be able to do it if you don't have a self. To see creativity, the exclusive domain of humans, usurped by a computer built by a 17-year-old is to watch a line blur that cannot be unblurred, the line between organic intelligence and artificial intelligence.

That was Kurzweil's real secret, and back in 1965 nobody guessed it. Maybe not even him, not yet. But now, 46 years later, Kurzweil believes that we're approaching a moment when computers will become intelligent, and not just intelligent but more intelligent than humans. When that happens, humanity — our bodies, our minds, our civilization — will be completely and irreversibly transformed. He believes that this moment is not only inevitable but imminent. According to his calculations, the end of human civilization as we know it is about 35 years away. 

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Saving Fuel through Kites?

You have got to love innovation. Here is a post from one of my favorite blogs of a company using kites to save on fuel consumption of big container ships.

Imagine that you run a shipping company that owns large container ships or supertankers. Your ships are burning lots of fuel – tens of thousands of gallons per day. The Emma Mærsk shown here burns something like 40,000 gallons per day at full speed

What if you could save 10,000 gallons per day? That is the idea behind Skysails – towing kites that use the wind to cut fuel consumption