Experimental Blog #172

Quotations from "The Infinite Resource - The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet" by Ramez Naam

" ... the most valuable resource we have and that we have ever had is the sum of our human knowledge .. " ".. the continual accumulation of new ideas, new inventions, and new knowledge about the world."

"Worldwide extreme poverty has plunged from more than 35 percent of the world population{ in 1970} to around 5 percent."{in 2005}
"Mobile phones have saturated the developed world, and now reach three quarters of the developing world as well."

" ...our stockpile of knowledge is the one natural resource that has grown over time rather than depleting < > knowledge increases our wealth < > Innovation increases our wealth."
"The physical resources matter. But the change in our knowledge resources - our science, our technology, our continual generation of new useful ideas - has made far more impact over the course of history. Knowledge acts as a multiplier of physical resources, allowing us to extract more value .."

"Farms in the United States use half the energy as they did in 1948, per unit of food produced."
"The energy needed to desalinate seawater has been reduced by nearly a factor of 9 over the last 40 years."{1970 to 2010}
"The limiting factors in mining are innovation and energy, not raw materials."
" .. the vast quantity of raw materials we possess, combined with their nearly infinite reusability, makes the value we can extract from that finite resource nearly limitless."
"To collect enough energy to provide for all of humanity's current needs, using current consumer-grade solar technology, it would take only 0.6 percent of the Earth's land area."
"We could meet the water needs of nine billion people with roughly .001 percent of the energy the sun delivers to our planet."

"China is now the world's leader in renewable energy."
" .. China is acting more aggressively against climate than we are, even though the problem is one of our making."

"Per terawatt hour of energy produced, coal kills an estimated 161 people worldwide. Nuclear, even after adding up all the potential future deaths attributed to every nuclear accident that has ever occurred, comes in at less than one-tenth of a death per terawatt hour."

" .. GM{genetically modified} crops have already reduced insecticide usage, reduced insecticide poisoning, encouraged soil conservation, reduced usage of the most dangerous herbicides like atrazine, reduced pollution of drinking water with herbicides, increased profits for developing world farmers trying to pull themselves out of poverty, and moderately increased yields."

"The average resident of the United States used one-third less oil in 2011 than in 1972."