Singularity University Lectures: Mark Jacobson on Powering the World with Wind, Water and Sunlight

by Socrates on July 14, 2011

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Last Friday Mark Jacobson came to speak to Singularity University on Powering the World with Wind, Water and Sun.

I have to admit that even though his presentation was very technical I enjoyed it immensely. The reason is not only the topic itself but the fact that in the space of an hour Mark managed to make such a powerful argument about the importance and feasibility of wind, water and solar power that he completely changed my views on the rationale behind and necessity of nuclear energy.

It is for this reason that I asked Prof. Jacobson to let me post his lecture on singularity podcast and he not only agreed but even supplied copies of his presentation slides.

Here are Mark`s slides as a .pdf file in 2 parts:

Mark Jacobson - Powering the World Part 1

Mark Jacobson - Powering the World Part 2

After seeing the presentation in person I did sought other interesting videos of Mark`s and found this interesting 2010 TED video. The clip is a debate betweeen Mark Jacobson and Stewart Brand on the pros and cons of nuclear energy:

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Finally, I want to share with you how Mark Jacobson not only talks the talk but also walks the walk. He is not only a brilliant scientist but also a really nice guy. During lunch a bunch of us asked him to give us a ride in his Tesla and Mark spent about half an hour in taking a dozen SingularityU students for a ride around campus.

Mark was very nice to take me for a spin in his perfectly quiet Tesla. Wow!...

Pavlo Rudenko - one of my brilliant SU classmates examines the car batteries.

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Tagged as: Mark Jacobson, singularity university

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Julie-Danaylov/679575645 Julie Danaylov

    Mark’s presentation is great - I wonder why SU tried to cram his keynote into a short one hour time slot? There were several areas which could have used further embellishment and explanation!

    A few days ago on CBC’s The National there was a long-form report on the rise in the world population and the subsequent effects on many key indicators including, of course, environment. When you consider that it took until 1804 for our human population to reach 1 billion people, and then only about 100 more years to reach three billion people (1900), and only a little over 100 more years to reach 7 billion people (2011), [which just happened last week], and we’re on track to hit 9 billion in only a few more decades - our earth is facing a catastrophic resource/energy deficit if we don’t develop and implement the usage of the technologies Mark is describing here. There should have been more information in this presentation on not just the technologies themselves but the IMPLEMENTATION. How do you mobilize entrepreneurs, leaders in the energy industry, government representatives, legislators and grass route community groups to jump on board the wws train?

    Eric’s question at the end was entertaining (the first question you could actually hear because he used a microphone).

    I think that keynote presenters of all sorts should adopt the practise of repeating back the questions which people ask throughout their presentation. It is just good speaking etiquette. Surely out of the 80 plus people present in that room not everyone could make out all of the questions being asked by their peers?

    Loving Marks car. Looking forward to the day it comes onto the market at a price affordable to the average person.

    Thanks for posting Socrates :)

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  • Anonymous

    Ironically if we had just discovered petroleum as a previously unknown mineral and a source of energy, and if uneducated but mechanically inclined guys could drill to gushers of the stuff with simple equipment the way oil men did a century ago, we would hail petroleum as ‘free energy.”

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