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Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#971

Post by maverick74 »

colinmhayes wrote: post #258
maverick74 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What amazes me is how little we talk about hydrogen (H2) fuel cell vehicles. Because, unless we get a tremendous breakthrough in the next 5 years, electric battery vehicles will be a very big pain. -Batteries are terribly expensive (and prices are not going down as fast as expected) -Batteries degrade too fast -Batteries take too long to charge -Electricity prices are already going up terribly fast to take advantage…

Big hydrogen subsidies in the climate bill that just passed the senate. Remains to be seen if it’ll build hype.

Yeah, Europe also bets on it.

I have hopes it builds up to the hype.

But it's not a guarantee, naturally.

Let's cross fingers. Lol

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#972

Post by greggeter »

wyager wrote: post #834
sweetheart wrote: post #797

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should eat what requires the fewest resources (water, land), and is completely nutritious for all stages of life: plants, and plants only. It’s mind boggling how tight the Venn diagram is between People Who Are Fearful of Climate Crisis and People Who Refuse to Stop Eating Animals.

When you consider arability constraints and nutritional efficiency, meat is more efficient and less destructive than plants in many cases. Soy production, for example, sufficient to meet global demand requires destroying the Amazon; meat production is much less destructive to land, taking place either on non-arable scrubland or via consuming human-inedible surplus feedstock. (Or on land already depleted by plant farm…

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#973

Post by Kenneth39 »

What about the space program?

No one seems to care about it, except particularly ardent fans. And the government only cares about satellites that benefit them.

However, discoveries and innovations are still happening. The latest one I have in mind is the James Webb Space Telescope. And private companies like SpaceX are still planning a mission to Mars. Lastly, somewhere flashed information about the resumption of the space program, such as flights to the moon.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#974

Post by caleblloyd »

ornornor wrote: post #927
gwbas1c wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and your domestic usage is mostly in appliances which convert back down to DC immediately behind the plug socket (most of us have this) then at some point we're going to start wanting to power our homes like houseboats or camper vans. Most of these appliances use low voltage which travels poorly over long distances. Your car, camper van, and boat all use ultra-thick cables to move 12 volts. This is quite uneconomic…

Isn’t there also a marginal safety advantage for AC in that because it’s an alternating current, you can let go of whatever is live you’ve grabbed and is shocking you? Whereas with DC, your muscles stay contracted and you can’t let go.

Yes, I have heard that higher voltage DC plugs would be designed differently to break arc in a safer manner too, example research: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8566878

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#975

Post by captainmuon »

thfuran wrote: post #674
captainmuon wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's feels a bit weird for me as a left-winger to make this argument, but won't all that be solved by the market? If there are not enough chargers, won't that create an incentive to build more? And yeah, you probably can't build them fast enough, or the grid capacity will not be sufficient, but won't people then just move to places where they can? Or switch to alternative modes of transportation? I think the fallacy…

>And yeah, you probably can't build them fast enough, or the grid capacity will not be sufficient, but won't people then just move to places where they can? Or switch to alternative modes of transportation? This sounds fine to you? Not having enough grid capacity means much higher prices and more frequent blackouts. Not having enough charging infrastructure means many people may be unable to fuel their vehicles. "Sor…

We're not going to have frequent blackouts. At least here in Germany, it is already the case that you have to get permission from the electricity company to install a wallbox for charging, I can imagine it's the same in most places.

What's going to happen is that at some point having a car gets slightly more expensive. Some people will put off buying a car for a little while. And they'll vote for candidates who promise to build more power infrastructure, or public transport. When people are moving the next time, they'll take the infrastructure into account in their decision, and move preferentially to cities with more capacity.

It's not like we are going to put 100 million EVs out there tomorrow. Some places will become marginally shittier, some will become better, and there will be plenty of time for everything to equilibrate.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#976

Post by abetusk »

gregwebs wrote: post #777
abetusk wrote: post #28

Energy? I feel like it's been talked about a lot but maybe not? Solar panels are dropping in cost at an exponential rate [0]. As of this writing, consumer "new" panels are $0.75/W and used are at around $0.30/W right now (I won't give a link as a Google search will do). Battery technology is also dropping at an exponential rate. I believe, with a little effort, one can purchase batteries at about $0.08/Wh. Taken toge…

This is actually talked about on every HN energy thread and it’s now incorrect, particularly about batteries. Solar has supply bottlenecks at the moment that are stopping further price declines- hopefully they will get solved. But there’s a lithium shortage that is already showing up in the price of lithium going up 5x. Analysts predict that by around 2025 lithium will limit the battery market that is trying to grow…

Over the course of 10-15 years, I don't think you're correct. Solar is (in my opinion conservatively) expected to drop by 34% by 2030 [0] and, though I'm having trouble finding anything that spells it outright, demand and production of batteries is projected to increase dramatically that will, in my opinion, most likely allow for production efficiencies to reduce cost.

Even the video you link claims to be 'bullish' on production. I didn't see any claims about price in the future, just production, though I might have missed it.

In my opinion, we're seeing a lot of 'whiplash' effects from the supply chain issues but, as the pandemic recedes, these should resolve in the next couple of years.

[0] https://www.thesolarnerd.com/blog/will-solar-get-cheaper/

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#977

Post by somewhereoutth »

Geee wrote: post #284

General purpose humanoid robots. They're kind of mainstream idea, but very few people talk about them or take them seriously. Humanoid robots will have an absolutely massive impact in very near future. Most people don't realize that with general purpose humanoid robots, labor becomes software. Labor becomes repeateable, testable, simulatable, modular, extensible, verifiable, etc. All things that apply to software wil…

The key point here is that all our current machine interfaces are designed for humans to operate. Thus if you create a robot in human form, you don't need to change any of the interfaces.

Imagine a human form robot that was smart enough to drive a car - it could then drive any car.

The problem is that locomotion of a human form is non-trivial (unlike say a wheeled robot, or even welding the robot into the car itself, like our current self driving attempts). But we seem to be getting there, with Boston Dynamics and friends.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#978

Post by esel2k »

bmitc wrote: post #892
esel2k wrote: post #779

Agricultural revolution. I believe things like food, health and safety will become things not taken for granted anymore. Prices of all of these things will go up and take a major part of the household budgets. I believe one of the first is food, as every nation (rich or poor or sick) will need it and changes in climatic conditions have an impact already today. Next is health industry than defense (this one is scary)…

What's the revolution or solution?

I did a couple of years in agtech and must say I was impressed on the readiness of technology (adoption was a different story). So to me think of crop planning, soil health monitoring, genetically modified crops for specific regions/dryer climates as well as logistics (even water logistics) is something I see getting more important. The revolution we say in two ways: A) customers can track strawberry production from the planting date all the way to the store(check some youtube from china). So your journey and interest in the food will not only start at the stoee but much earlier evtl also creating direction connections and contracts with farms - also resulting in willingness to pay more. B) I can imagine food prices to explode - I mean who can prevent it from happening? If borders close and climate is not your friend anymore: Vertical farms, GMO crops and robotics will become a reality - because the pressure to innovate/ change will be there.

Thats just my assumption after working in agtech for 2 years and living through pandemic and some political instability suddenly impacting critical supply while having a mature technology just needing to be adopted in a underserved area…

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#979

Post by gregwebs »

abetusk wrote: post #976
gregwebs wrote: post #777

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually talked about on every HN energy thread and it’s now incorrect, particularly about batteries. Solar has supply bottlenecks at the moment that are stopping further price declines- hopefully they will get solved. But there’s a lithium shortage that is already showing up in the price of lithium going up 5x. Analysts predict that by around 2025 lithium will limit the battery market that is trying to grow…

Over the course of 10-15 years, I don't think you're correct. Solar is (in my opinion conservatively) expected to drop by 34% by 2030 [0] and, though I'm having trouble finding anything that spells it outright, demand and production of batteries is projected to increase dramatically that will, in my opinion, most likely allow for production efficiencies to reduce cost. Even the video you link claims to be 'bullish' o…

I am quite bullish on long-term battery production as well. But I recognize that we are heading for some pain in the near-term where supply will not keep up with demand.

I like that solar analysis, but I also think it is possible that the high demand for solar and high commodity (energy, etc) costs could continue to stop solar prices from dropping for much of this decade just as we have seen recently.

The temporary whiplash concept for inflation hasn't panned out yet. I follow Lyn Alden's economic analysis closely and she has been predicting this decade to be inflationary. These predictions started over a year ago when the Fed kept saying that inflation was temporary.

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