The Futures - No. 62

Green energy transition accelerating / Surveillance is everywhere / AI dating AI

Jul 02, 2024

In this issue

The Quantumrun team shares actionable trend insights about the accelerating green energy transition, the widespread normalization of surveillance through convenience, AI dating concierges, and China deleting its online history.

Future signals to watch

Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd envisions a future where AI dating concierges could date each other to recommend matches and help users address insecurities and improve communication skills. This concept could “streamline” the dating process by reducing the need for users to interact with numerous potential matches.
New Zealand scientists predict rapid loss of home insurance for high-risk areas in the country, with partial insurance retreat likely within a decade and full retreat within 20 to 25 years for over 10,000 properties in major cities.
University of Chicago researchers developed a new textile that uses radiative cooling to reflect both the sun's heat and ambient heat from urban environments, unlike existing fabrics that only reflect the sun's heat.
Canada’s Regina Food Bank Community Food Hub, opening this summer, will offer a grocery store experience without checkout costs for its clients amidst rising food insecurity in the city.
Diamond demand in China has declined due to falling marriage rates, rising popularity of gold and lab-grown gems, and a post-pandemic shift towards spending on travel experiences.
For US consumers, the Philippines is becoming an outsourcing hub for a new task amidst a prescription shortage: calling US pharmacies to look for stocks of Adderall and weight loss drugs.
The US' Colorado state has established the first comprehensive protocol for measuring, reporting, and verifying methane emissions from oil and gas sites to aid in addressing climate change.
Chinese users are aware of their unique internet landscape, using euphemisms to navigate censorship and living in a parallel online universe. Recently, they are realizing that their collective online memory is vanishing, with a post reporting the disappearance of content from 1995-2005. (The post was promptly censored.)

Forward this email to a friend and help The Futures reach a wider audience :)

Culturally // Trending

YouTube → Nosferatu // X → The new Superman suit debate // Reddit → This heartwarming catch // TikTok → McDonald’s AI drive-thru fail // Instagram → Wayne Enterprise Experience // Spotify → “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”

☀️ Green energy transition is happening faster than we realize

Wind and solar energy are experiencing an unprecedented production surge. According to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), renewables provided nearly all (99.2%) of new US generating capacity in the first four months of 2024, with solar alone accounting for 80.6% of all new generation placed into service.

This shift is part of a larger global trend where spending on renewables is set to eclipse USD $2 trillion in 2024, double the USD $1 trillion spent on fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). This massive investment is driving a rapid expansion of clean energy infrastructure, enabling wind and (especially) solar to become the fastest-growing electricity sources in history.

With major economies hitting peak fossil fuel usage in their power grids, the transition is accelerating beyond just electricity. Electric vehicles (EVs), led by manufacturers like BYD and Tesla, are rapidly eating into the market share of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, reducing annual oil demand growth. Western tariffs will not stop the flood of low-cost electric cars being exported out of China.

Meanwhile, the growing adoption of heat pumps—especially in EU countries facing energy shocks from the Russia-Ukraine war—further cuts fossil fuel consumption. These pumps are three to nine times more energy-efficient than traditional heating methods and utilize local waste energy.

As renewables, EVs (and electric bikes in developing nations), and heat pumps scale from early adopters to the standard choice across nations, we will see a systemic shift that also means a decrease in the energy required to ship fossil fuels domestically and internationally.

The IEA highlights that the current level of clean energy investment is sufficient to achieve two-thirds of the needed capacity to triple renewables by 2030, a goal set at the COP28 UN climate conference. This transition is also proving economically viable; more than 800 coal plants in emerging economies are identified as profitable candidates for conversion to solar power, promising significant returns for investors.

Creativity has also played a crucial role in the rise of renewables production. For example, Spain's "Requiem in Power" project transforms cemeteries in Valencia into solar power hubs, generating 440,000 kilowatts of electricity annually.

Actionable trend insights as solar and wind energy production continues to surge:

For entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs can offer Solar-as-a-Service offerings that include solar panel leasing and maintenance services, lowering the barrier to entry for residential and small business adoption.
They can set up localized energy storage facilities that allow communities to store excess solar and wind energy (e.g., microgrids). A practical example would be creating a network of battery storage units in a suburban area, managed through a subscription model, enabling homeowners to optimize their energy usage and reduce reliance on the grid.

For corporate innovators

Companies with large retail footprints can transform their rooftops into solar farms, and their parking lots to utilize small-scale, underground geothermal installations. They could integrate real-time energy monitoring systems that optimize energy usage across all their locations, reducing operational costs and generating additional revenue from selling energy into the local grid.
Tech companies can build data centers powered by wind and solar energy. An example would be constructing data centers in a region with high wind potential, using wind turbines for primary power and solar panels as a supplementary source, ensuring an increased supply of clean energy for their operations.

For public sector innovators

Federal and state governments can invest in modernizing the electrical grid to support the integration and stability of renewable energy sources.
Likewise, feed-in tariffs—which provide a guaranteed, long-term price for renewable energy at or above current market rates—can further reduce the risk and uncertainty associated with new renewable energy installations, thereby encouraging new producers to make initial investments.
Coastal cities facing water shortages can build solar-powered desalination plants to provide a sustainable water source. A practical use case would be installing a solar desalination plant that utilizes concentrated solar power (CSP) technology to convert seawater into freshwater, addressing water scarcity issues while reducing reliance on fossil fuels.

Trending research reports from the World Wide Web

Record numbers of new businesses are being started, with increasing participation from women and minorities, as over 5 million business applications in the US were filed annually from 2020 to 2023. (Women represent 49% of new business owners.)
Citigroup reports that AI is set to automate 54% of banking jobs and augment 12%, potentially displacing more jobs in banking than in any other sector.
Despite recent events from Microsoft, Google, and Apple, the technology landscape remains largely unchanged, with AI leveraging existing internet and mobile computing advantages, further entrenching tech giants and potentially increasing costs by 20% due to AI expenses.
Extremists in the US are using AI to amplify hate speech, recruit, and radicalize online, with AI-generated content and extremist-infused models producing 3D weapon blueprints and bomb recipes.
Home swapping platform HomeExchange reported a 50% global subscription increase and a 34% rise in US users in 2023.

📹 Convenience normalizing surveillance

Those of you who travel often will have noticed in recent years a dramatic improvement in airport processing times. Shorter lines. Shorter waits. This is a story of digitalization, but more specifically, widespread and normalized facial recognition (FR) systems.

Biometric technology is also transforming airport security and customs processes. At LaGuardia Airport, for example, FR kiosks allow travelers to pass through security without physical IDs. Major airlines and the US Transportation Security Administration are expanding these systems to numerous airports, promising enhanced security and convenience.

This promise of convenience through FR technology has extended to theme parks and the hospitality industry. For example, Carnival Cruise Line has used it for over 3 million passengers to expedite customs processes at nine homeports. Marriott International and Alibaba's joint venture introduced FR check-in at Marriott hotels in China. Likewise, visitors to Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island theme park can create an account on the park’s mobile app, upload a selfie, and link it to their credit card and ticketing system for contactless entry and payments.

The convenience and shorter wait times next-gen surveillance has enabled have made these technologies deeply integrated into daily life, often without widespread resistance or awareness.

This increased comfort with surveillance has been exploited to expand its reach. In San Francisco, the recent passage of Proposition E granted police more freedom to deploy drones and public security cameras with minimal oversight. Mayor London Breed emphasized its role in addressing crime concerns, despite crime rates already being at their lowest in a decade (except for a spike in fentanyl overdoses). This shift highlights how fear of crime can drive public support for increased surveillance, even when the necessity is debatable.

Meanwhile, in Shanghai, the Xuhui District is ramping up its surveillance infrastructure by tripling its facial recognition (FR) cameras to 2,500, capturing an estimated 25.9 million faces daily. This expansion aims to create detailed profiles of residents, tracking their social relationships and activities in real time. The system is designed to detect deviations in behavior and issue early warnings, employing artificial intelligence to scrutinize individual and group patterns. This massive surveillance effort, funded with millions of dollars, also involves substantial data storage and processing capabilities, highlighting a significant investment in monitoring technology.

FR market size, 2020-2030

Actionable trend insights as surveillance becomes widely accepted: