The methods section outlines how the plan will achieve the vision. The common theme throughout this essay is that STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) are key to enabling the vision. The main areas of focus are:
Evidence, Experiments, Experts
- How to move decision making for national issues that have long time frames and large uncertainties in how they should be solved away politicians to experts that use evidence and experiment as the key tools to success.
- This plan focuses on using this methodology for energy, but it could be applied to other long term issues that we need to solve.
- The modern world was built on fossil fuels. The human health and environmental issues from using this energy mean that we cannot continue to rely on fossil fuels without causing very real destruction.
- The Energy Revolution is squarely concerned with ending fossil fuel use, a project of epic proportions.
- The Internet, cloud computing, big data, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence are likely to be key elements of human development in the coming decades.
- Reducing land use and removing animals from our food production is key to achieving reduced environmental impact.
- It is now possible to also see the end to using animals as a source of food.
- With the focus on STEM we need to have national objectives that push the boundaries of STEM. This will ensure that we create the right environment for people to flourish in STEM careers.
- If history is any guide, unintended discoveries will feedback into the overall STEM output and capability.
Notes on classification used in this document:
- Science fiction
- Based in science
- Strong basis in well understood science
- Experiments have not been done or have been done and failed
- Experiments have been run and results are promising
- Experiments clearly show that the concept works
- Barriers currently exist that make scaling this hard and uncertain
- Scale has not been proven however the barriers to scale are reasonably well understood
- Scale has been proven