in tech, the ever-increasing availability of computation has widespread effects that haven’t always been easy to predict.
- computation gets used to automate billing in the telecom and finance industries.
- a little bit faster and arcades explode across the globe.
- a little bit faster and CAD transforms how the transportation industry approaches engineering.
- a little bit faster and radio astronomy can correct all the measurement distortions digitally and image everything with greater effective precision.
- a little bit faster and we can simulate more aspects of chemistry or biology and identify beneficial drugs more easily.
energy experiences this same thing: each incremental decrease pushes some latent tech/application past its tipping point and soon enough the landscape looks completely different at $0.10/kWh than at $10.00/kWh. consider in the list above that all the tech advances aren’t just due to the FLOPS of your computing base, but also the cost to operate that computation — which is fundamentally tied to energy prices.
- computation gets used to automate billing in the telecom and finance industries.
- a little bit faster and arcades explode across the globe.
- a little bit faster and CAD transforms how the transportation industry approaches engineering.
- a little bit faster and radio astronomy can correct all the measurement distortions digitally and image everything with greater effective precision.
- a little bit faster and we can simulate more aspects of chemistry or biology and identify beneficial drugs more easily.
energy experiences this same thing: each incremental decrease pushes some latent tech/application past its tipping point and soon enough the landscape looks completely different at $0.10/kWh than at $10.00/kWh. consider in the list above that all the tech advances aren’t just due to the FLOPS of your computing base, but also the cost to operate that computation — which is fundamentally tied to energy prices.