So from your comment I assume you would like to see a prize associated with manufacturing technologies both biomolecular and 3D.

And maybe the X-prize foundation can play a role in this.

It would be premature to create an X-prize for molecular manufacturing itself, because no team would be interested because it’s too long-term a goal. But what about, let’s say, the creation of a game based upon the “NanoEngineer” software for nanoscale design and simulation. Such a game could, when played and if possible to begin with, fill out the engineering gaps in the foresight nanofactory roadmap, yes, gamification of drexlerian molecular design. And this is computer-based and doesn’t have to be so long-term.

I have no idea if such kind of sofware is “gamifiable” and if so, as succesful as Stanford’s Foldit in attracting large numbers of players.

3-D printing is a great technology and it might well be that ultimately it will prove to be so efficient that it obviates the need for molecular manufacturing, but the thing is that one shouldn’t bet on one horse only. People should consider “plan B’s”. Ray Kurzweil for instance, seems to find it necessary to invest money into the brute-force bioltechnology solution to defeat aging like the one the SENS foundation is working on. These are brilliant people, but they are so surrealisticly sure about the infallibility of their own vision that the question “what if not” never crosses their mind. Ray is already in his sixties, he must really look broader in order not to fail to get across the “mathusalaritarian event horizon”.

If this was a stupid question, sorry for your time, I’m not an expert by any means.

Well, GE/Hitachi should soon get the NRC answer that will determine if Gen IV is going to happen. No nuclear engineer thinks it is possible to generate heat with Gen IV designs as cheaply as with water-cooled designs. The pressures are higher, the temperatures are higher, the alloys are more expensive, the vessels, pumps, piping, valves, etc, are more costly, and more fuel enrichment is needed to achieve a critical mass in a smaller space. Silex might possibly drop enrichment costs enough to make small gas-cooled reactors practical, but the NRC might not allow it. If Silex works in the US, it would soon work in rogue nations. All the preliminary reports on the Silex process suggest enrichment over 20% is possible at costs perhaps as little as 10% of centrifuges. If you have uranium hexafloride already enriched to over 20% as feedstock, you don’t need many thousands of centrifuges to enrich to 90%+ weapons grade. I just don’t see much positive in Gen IV, unless Silex proves out at commercial scale. But make no mistake; one of the costs of Silex enrichment would be increased risk of weapons proliferation.

I suppose if enrichment were cheap enough, as might be possible with Silex, the well-proven standard compact sealed naval reactor designs operated in warships by the US Navy might be safe and competitive if implemented for commercial power production. Bill Gates has it right; if we are going to do better with fission reactors it will likely be with traveling wave or thorium cycle designs.

Generation IV fission reactors need to be introduced into the power equation. They are passively safe. They can burn spent fuel from older reactors. They can be small (no bigger than a small factory in footprint) and they can run without maintenance. Check out TerraPower and their backyard nuclear reactors. When they become furnace sized I will want one for my house and I will want to be off the grid.

Fusion, as always, still seems 93 million miles and 50-years away (with the possible exception of Bussard’s polywell concept, which is marginally funded by the US Navy and which has maybe a 10% chance of proving out within the next decade.) All of the X-prizes you suggest seem worthwhile, but in terms of overall benefit to humanity, only significant improvements in the economics of energy production and distribution could affect the greatest good for the greatest number.

The physical concentration of 80% of hominid population into 50 impersonal mega-cities is wrong headed in principle. Cheap and widely distributed energy coupled with global community electronic communication and AI mind-meld would allow the world’s population to become much more happy, secure, and self-sufficient, by diffusion into millions of sustainable and environmentally sound small communities. Talk about waste and pollution; to live a cramped and crowded degenerate middle class lifestyle in any of the stinky air mega-cities costs about $10,000 per month. Thousands of small towns all across America actually provide a better quality of life for about $2500 per month. In most of the world, $1,000 per month would pay for a great quality of life in small towns. Here in South Texas, $3,000 per month buys 5-10 acres of rural land with municipal water, independent septic system, DSL, grid electricity, and 3,000 square feet of modern residence under roof. A good residential water well that makes over 500-gallons per hour costs about $10,000. Major shopping and hospitals are 15-minutes away by road. I’m thinking it’s mainly crazy masochists that are living in cities.