A couple of years ago, I was transfixed by the research from Leslie Dewan and Mark Massie highlighted in their TedX video on the future of nuclear power. [youtube=http://youtu.be/AAFWeIp8JT0] A recent IEEE Spectrum article highlights what Dewan and Massie have been up to since then, which is founding a startup called Transatomic Power in …
Building, and Commercializing, a Better Nuclear Reactor Read More »
Jill Lepore, a professor of history at Harvard and writer for the New Yorker, has written a critique of Clayton Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation that is worth thinking through. Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma (the dilemma is for firms to continue making the same decisions that made them successful, which will lead to their downfall) …
Last Monday I was scheduled to participate in the Utility Industry of the Future Symposium at the NYU Law School. Risk aversion about getting back for Tuesday classes in the face of a forecast 7″ snowfall in New York kept me from attending (and the snow never materialized, which makes the cost even more bitter!), …
Permissionless Innovation in Electricity: the Benefits of Experimentation Read More »
Were you surprised to hear of Google’s acquisition of Nest? Probably not; nor was I. Google has long been interested in energy monitoring technologies and the effect that access to energy information can have on individual consumption decisions. In 2009 they introduced Power Meter, which was an energy monitoring and visualization tool; I wrote about …
Here’s an important tradeoff I never really considered until reading this article: rooftop solar panels can be hazardous for firefighters. It’s an interesting example of how wide and varied the adaptations are to innovation. In this case the potential lethal electrocution from the traditional means of venting a roof on a burning building (creating holes …
Adapting to Technological Change: Solar Power and Fire Read More »
My friend and colleague Joel Mokyr talked recently with Russ Roberts in an EconTalk podcast that I cannot recommend highly enough (and the links on the show notes are great too). The general topic is this back-and-forth that’s been going on over the past year involving Joel, Bob Gordon, Tyler Cowen, and Erik Brynjolfsson, among …
Joel Mokyr on Growth, Stagnation, and Technological Progress Read More »
Thus reads the headlines on David Meyer’s Gigaom post on news that the Satis toilet, manufactured by the Japanese firm Lixii, comes with a smartphone app that can be used to control any Satis toilet (see also this BBC news article). You may wonder why a toilet needs an app, which is a valid question; …
“If Your Toilet’s So Smart, How Come I Can Hack It?” Read More »
Today’s new revelations from Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing show that the NSA can, and does, use a program that surveils our Internet behavior in a general, blanket way (much in the nature of the “general warrants” that were the whole reason the authors of the Bill of Rights put the Fourth Amendment in there in the …
Nsa Surveillance Imperils the Internet As an Economic Platform Read More »
My department is currently a focal point in the debates over the future of innovation and economic growth. Technopessimist arguments from my colleague Bob Gordon (as profiled in this New York Magazine article from the weekend) join those in Tyler Cowen’s The Great Stagnation to suggest that the increase in living standards and the growth …
Over the weekend the New York Times ran a good story about how rooftop solar and regulatory rules allowing net metering are putting pressure on the regulated distribution utility business model: The struggle over the California incentives is only the most recent and visible dust-up as many utilities cling to their established business, and its …
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