Yes. Molecular manufacturing nanotechnology could do this easily. A quick summary of the idea : molecular manufacturing posits a machine capable of creating an arbitrary 3d structure that is atomically precise. It also posits that the machine itself is only composed of a few million atoms per subunit, so the machine could be used to replicate itself.

With self replication over a reasonable timescale (say a few weeks), you get incredibly rapid exponential growth. So you'd start with 1 machine, and within a few years have warehouses full of these things taking up the land area of entire states, all these machines busily converting matter into useful products or more of themselves. Please note that these machines are macroscale : they are housed inside stainless steel vacuum chambers, and an assembled machine is quite large and eats a lot of power. They would get their power from either solar or cheaply printed nuclear reactors. (right now, a nuclear reactor costs billions of dollars. If you could print out the parts for one in a way that was atomically perfect, they would be much cheaper. )

Anyways, you have these machines print devices that are a solar panel on the top side, and an array of nanoscale gas pumps on the underside. They selectively grab CO2 from the atmosphere, combine it with water to produce some type of plastic that is long term stable. The resulting pellets of plastic are buried in the ocean or vast landfills. You deploy these things over the ocean or something. It would take about 10 years, but you could completely collect all of the CO2 that humanity has added since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Right. A war isn't a negative sum game when you have an unbeatable technological advantage over the other group. With a big enough tech advantage, you can fight and easily win with few losses yourself.

In the examples you gave, not only did the Europeans have guns, they had the written word. That alone made all the difference. (because text language lets you coordinate groups over large distances and record knowledge for the future)

Uhh...no. Warfare is a negative-sum game. Both parties in a war usually lose far more than they gain. A successful race will have the technological and military tools needed to make sure that any potential foes face a serious deterrent against attacking, but said race will not initiate an attack themselves unless it is one of the rare scenarios where fighting yields more benefits than trading.

Everything we know now about technology and technological progress says that SETI is a total waste of time. Unless our understanding of the universe is fundamentally flawed, there is nothing we will be able to find. This is why :

1. As radio technology advances, the signals become closer and closer to noise. Already, most digital radios today would be totally indistinguishable from noise when observed from lightyears away. Also, as the radios get better, the signals become more and more directional. It is reasonable to expect that in 50 years, all the radios used in most applications will use frequency hopping, very low power, ultra wide band, and will steer their signals to the locations of other nodes in a mesh network. 50 years is probably a pessimistic estimate for this.

2. If our theories about the Singularity are true, by the time our light reaches other stars, within another 1000 years or so we'll be roaring in on starships, running self replicating machinery that systematically converts all matter into more useful products. The presence of post-singularity humanity will be completely impossible to miss. Thus, the reason we cannot see other civilizations doing the same thing is because we are the first one in our region of space.

Obviously, your "1 penny per month" is pure ignorance. Your opinions and misreading of your utility bill (you have to compare it to EXACTLY the same load for everything else in your house...meaning you need to measure what everything is is drawing) does not change the laws of physics. Those bulbs do draw 1/5 the power of what you had before. End of message.

As for premature failures : try a better brand, maybe look up a review? Get the ecosmarts from Home Depot, those have the best reviews by far. They are less than 2 bucks a bulb. I've never had one burn out on me in 5 years.

Human beings have only 2 ears. Most of the sound comes in through the ear canal. Thus, the way you perceive direction has both to do with having 2 ears, and also the ability to move your head.

Stereo sound gives you directionality for the first bit, but not the second. Wouldn't a pair of very high quality headphones with a head position sensor allow you to hear movies in the full 62.2 format without needing $50,000 worth of equipment? Very high quality headphones with a good sensor might cost $100-$200 a pair, and obviously you'd need a monstrous rack of audio processing equipment to keep up.

How many Soyuz launches have killed their crew because the rocket failed? Zero.

And if the death rate is the same, would you rather spend more money or less?

You want a practical route? Buy a car or convert one to run on natural gas. There's tons and tons of it being pumped, for dirt cheap, and this will continue for decades until the easy to frack reservoirs are drained. One way or another all that methane is going to be used, you might as well burn it when it is cheap.

1. That's what I am saying. For the system as a whole, LESS resources are used if you do some skilled labor for someone and trade that labor for solar cells than if you were doing hard labor in your own backyard. Sure, people USED to do everything on their own lands, but the population has been too high for this to be possible for centuries now.

2. I'm saying that anyone BUT a hillbilly with no education or capital will get more usable energy, faster with solar cells than wasting time with ethanol.

3. The thermoelectric effect is useless for energy production of any noticeable quantity. Go take a few math and physics classes. http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/

Yes, but you can't grow nearly everything else needed for you to survive in your back field, either.

The point is that in the long run, cheap solar cells will be produced that need very little in the way of resources to make (whether it be skilled labor, materials, or energy). The fact that China can make a profit (albeit yes with some cheating such as a deflated currency, and no OSHA standards) selling them this cheap means that the resources in them are already down to moderate levels.

Silicon is pretty darn common an element. The rare earths aren't, but some solar cells types need very little of those.

Infinite states? Doesn't the universe have a finite resolution?

Also, doesn't quantum uncertainty and noise mean that regardless of the large number of states the transistor is capable of, only a far smaller number of states are actually distinguishable or matter in a working system.

When I'm launching my rockets full of explorers from the planet Kerth, we don't do aborts! If the engines are still attached to the ship, I'm punching the throttle and hitting the stage selection control! We're going to the Mun (or at least leaving the ground) no matter what!

Also, I don't do any pansy ass "test flights" guided by computer to some orbiting tin can! Every one of my flights is crewed by red blooded, beer chugging, motorcycle riding Kerbals who LOVE it even when it all goes wrong.

SpaceX and NASA could learn a lot from my experiences...

Not revolutionary - just problematic to achieve a working plant. Certain forms of fusion release almost exclusively beta particles, which are pure electrons.

What's you're really doing is using photosynthesis, a form of solar energy, to produce your fuel. Fun fact : most crops are between 1-2% efficient at converting sunlight to chemical energy. Then, you're going to lose at least half of that energy converting the crops to ethanol, then you'll lose 2/3 of the energy in the ethanol when you burn it for motive power.

Also, those crops need water and fertilizer, generally, costing you energy. If you use the good fertilizer, you won't even gain energy doing this.

Or you could use cheap Chinese made solar cells (less than $1 a watt) and use it to charge batteries. Commercial solar cells are 7-14% efficient, and the battery charging is around 80% efficient or better. When you drive the car on those batteries, another 80% or more of that power actually propels the car.

Do the math. The problem today are the high technology items needed to make all this work have high manufacturing costs (that are falling rapidly). However, in the long run, it seems pretty obvious where this is heading.

The story was NOT finished, and does end on a cliffhanger. Don't listen to the AC.