TMP 2.0

If you have read the original book and were inspired in any way by it, there is very good news. Eric Hunting has begun a new The Millennial Project 2.0 Wiki. It won't be the same as the original book, as the information within it, and the medium upon which it will be hosted will be updated using cutting edge science, technology, and ideas. A lot has happened in those 15 years since the original book was written, and the vision and plan need to be updated for the 21st century.

http://tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

The Fab Revolution Has Begun!!

Some time ago, I wrote a series of blog entries about new revolutions in manufacturing. There have been three entries this far. The first one introduces the concept of fabbers. The second entry talks about how they can advance many of the goals of the LUF, and also talks more about how it can the open source movement can help with the development of fabbers, and the products they produce. In the third blog entry, I wrote about exponential fabrication, and how we can use it to easily fabricate megastructures (and soon, gigastructures and terrastructures).

Of course, such machines seem very futuristic to lots of people. In TMP, which was written in 1992, the universal fabricator is introduced, but as a 23rd century technology that is used by pioneers settling the Asteroid Belt. Gershenfeld shocked the world by building fab labs at MIT and around the world. Now, it seemed closer than ever. But it still seemed at least a decade off. But suddenly, in late 2006, the first fabber targeted for home use appeared. Introducing Fab@Home. On that website are the instructions for building your own fabber. In historic time, this is equivalent to the release of the first personal computers in the 1970s and the release of open source Unix clones in the 1990s. From here and on, we should expect fabbers and the products created by fabbers to continuously improve.

OTEC on a roll

The renewable power system called Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC), which was suggested in The Millennial Project as part of our future renewable energy systems, may have rediscovered the traction in the mind and market which it lost in the mid 80s. According to several recent news articles contracts for OTEC plants have been signed to be built in Hawaii (1.2 MW gross/800 kW net), Grand Cayman (10 MW?) and for the U.S. military (13 MW gross), possibly located at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The 13-megawatt military plant will produce a net of 8.2 megawatts plus 1.25 million gallons of fresh water a day.

Beyond this, authorities in Saipan, Taiwan, Mauritius, India, Antigua & Barbuda and Japan are all looking to OTEC for some of their future renewable energy. To find out more check out OTECnews.