Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

This information invalidates some of the discussion below in :

http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2008/08/now_globalization_incentivizes.html

Long before ten-thousand solar villages bloom, a new breed of cargo ship will conquer global shipping. This technology plus smart sails and new hulls drops the price of shipping over water once again. In a race between smart solar/fuel-cell vehicles and new age housing developments, my money will be on the shippers. They have the capital and the imperative to make a return, where as Joe and Jane homeowner have lost their former buying power and face less short term risk from standing still. Shipping cost will recover it's lows and distant cheap labor will retain it's allure.

Not so fast: First you'd have to either retrofit the existing Merchant fleets of the world with technologies radically different from present or scrounge up enough money to design and build new completely new ship classes. You also have to remember that a vehicle is harder to fit with solar cells than a house or building (weight restrictions, surface area restrictions, dimensional restrictions are all more rigorous).

As a general rule, it takes about ten years to get a process from the research lab to industry.

That is assuming that there is not some technical or economic reason that precludes it being adapted. Sometimes you can speed that up in extraordinary circumstances like war time or perhaps today's high energy prices but there are some things that just take time and can't be made faster.

Sounds like a great thing if it can be made to work. It could give the whole world American 1960s type prosperity.