By Dhruv Mandalia
“Sooner or later, we must expand life beyond our little blue mud ball–or go extinct” – Elon Musk
Elon Musk, the person who is Man of the year 2016, after Donald Trump of course, by his innovative ideas in storing and consuming solar energy, making electric cars which are eco-friendly and expanding the human civilization by colonizing Mars.
He had also introduced the concept of Hyperloop, which is a high-speed transportation system and OpenAI which is a non-profit Artificial Intelligence company to develop superior AI to benefit humanity and obstruct the AI from going bad, like the Terminator.
With an estimated net worth of $11.5 billion now, Elon Musk started his business adventure with co-founding Zip2(originally named Global Link Information Network) with his brother, borrowing $28,000 from his father. Musk then went on to co-found X.com (now PayPal) in 1999, which allowed users to make payments through emails; it was eventually sold to eBay. Musk then was responsible for co-founding SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity, the three key pillars of Musk which remodelled the world we live in.
SpaceX (or Space Exploration Technologies Corporation) whose main mission is better interstellar travel and Colonization of Mars (which sounds a lot like the plot of a movie but isn’t, this is real life). SpaceX has introduced a system where rockets can be reused more than once, which is one step closer for Space travel to be an ordinary thing for humanity.
Tesla Motors made affordable Electric cars possible (so we can stop complaining about rising oil prices), selling more than 1,64,000 electric cars worldwide and also made the Tesla Powerwall, which is a huge battery which stores electricity and it is reported that the prototypes managed to save 20% of the electricity bill of consumers.
SolarCity is all about solar energy by providing solar panels to homeowners and making their houses self-sufficient and also electric vehicle charging stations, by acquiring the SolSource Energy business of Clean Fuel Connections, Inc, in 2009, available for free for Tesla car owners and other electric cars. Their latest product is solar roofs, which are cheaper than regular roofs, which plants solar panels through roof tiles. Electric cars have become somewhat popular among the people, but solar panels on house roofs are still left to be maximized by us. A wise engineer once said, “There is a lot of free energy in that yellow ball out there, we need to find a way to capitalize it, convert it and sell it to the masses.”
A few weeks ago, Tesla shareholders have approved the acquisition of SolarCity for $2.6 billion. What does this mean for Elon Musk, who owns 20% of both of the companies and is the CEO of Tesla? (Well he is going to be richer in the coming years).
Elon Musk now has the power to make humanity go completely green through solar energy and electric cars which do not pollute the air.
But will HE? SolarCity started to have problems in the state of Nevada (USA) which is mostly covered with desert and it is perfect for harvesting solar energy and more and more citizens are going green by installing solar panels on their roofs and have stopped paying their electric service providers. In fact, there is so much solar energy being collected that people are helping out their non-solar neighbours in reducing their electricity bill. This has made the Nevada Public Utilities Commission charge more for solar energy to the populace who uses it.
Would we progress as a species if we stopped putting short-term profits and benefits before long-term consequences, which when ignored would only lead to disasters?
Would the oil lobbies stop their dying agenda and do something which is beneficial for society?
In an ideal world, the above questions would have been answered yes. But unfortunately, we don’t live in that world. As temperatures are rising we are doing little to nothing to prevent it. It is high time to wake up from our ignorant slumber and start supporting people like Elon Musk in creating a better future for humanity.