Upcoming unambiguously good tech possibilities? (Like eg indoor plumbing)
6Dagon
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Cancer (and other) vaccines seem pretty cool.
2
[epistemic status: just what I've read in popular-ish press, no actual knowledge nor expertise]
Two main mechanisms that I know of:
- Some cancers are caused (or enabled, or activated, or something) by viruses, and there's been immense progress in tailoring vaccines for specific viruses.
- Some cancers seem to be susceptible to targeted immune response (tailored antibodies). Vaccines for these cancers enable one's body to reduce or eliminate spread of the cancer.
Deep geothermal energy production via microwave drilling to 20km. If we can geothermal wells to those depths, we can pump down water and get back superheated steam. This can then be turned to electricity using a standard power plant turbine. In particular, it can be turned to electricity using existing turbines at coal- and oil- fired power plants, allowing those plants to continue to run but "defueled". Abundant power, no CO2 or other emissions, no additional land usage, no intermittency, no additional grid connections required, no additional earthquake risks (it's drilling, but not fracking), no geographic restrictions (if you drill anywhere it's hot enough) which also means reduced geopolitical conflict. If you feel like it, you can use some of the waste water for wicked-awesome artificial hot springs like they do in Iceland. The trick is that drilling to that depth is difficult with standard drills, so the idea is to use high-powered microwaves to essentially vaporize the hole down to the necessary depth. The microwave generators necessary were designed for fusion research. They stay on the surface, while the microwaves are shot down a wave guide (a conductive pipe, essentially). Quaise Energy is hoping to have a test well this year, and to be defueling existing power plants by 2018. If there's a downside to any of this, I haven't heard of it.
1I have never heard of this!! This could have upside/downside ratio even greater than that of the bidet.
I skimmed through some of Quaise's videos, but I didn't see any actual drilling. Might it be a scam?
Oh I thought of one possible downside. Could you set off volcanoes with this? Create new volcanoes? Or would it be impossible to drill deep enough? Or would the magma solidify before it made it up the narrow hole?
Would be quite the new x-risk category lmao. Malicious volcano actors.
Edit: this 2012 slate article explains drilling eruption risk fairly well. Basically, you only have to worry about reservoirs of magma near the surface. Simply far too much rock in the way and too narrow a hole to let much magma out otherwise.
I assume that the dirt gets warm near a magma chamber and you can detect that and stop drilling. Or maybe you can use sonar or something too.
I have no idea how common or high-pressure magma reservoirs away from volcanoes are. (I guess nobody knows.)
Anyway this idea still kicks ass.
How do you remove the dirt from the hole though?
Also, apparently "practical" microwave lasers were invented in 2012¿ I wonder what the limits of that are. Seems like a big deal for warfare potentially.
