Dave Stagner
Climate/futurism writer who debunks myths about rare earths and batteries; explains LFP vs NMC/cobalt trade-offs, substitution risks, and materials economics in the energy transition.
AI Will Go Decentralized, Running on Cheap Edge Devices
I believe that over the next 10-20 years, AI will become ubiquitous at about the pace smart phones did. But I don't think the giant AI businesses will survive. Instead, I expect we'll see AI running standalone on inexpensive, low-energy commodity hardware. AI-forward CPU/GPUs designed for standalone devices, running open source AI with little to no cloud dependency. Not subscription-based computation in giant data centers. This is the potential, and the needs, of AI robotics. >
Distributed Solar and EVs Guard Civilization From Energy Collapse
Deploying large amounts of solar power is our best defense against widespread civilizational collapse scenarios. Right now, most paths to collapse run through collapse of fossil fuel production/distribution (the Mad Max scenarios). Our civilization runs on energy. It's needed for...
Trump's Blunder Reveals US Can't Secure Oil, Boosts Iran
I've said for a long time that the cost and risk of using fossil fuels would eventually start driving importing nations to renewable energy and EVs. What I didn't count on was Trump proving decisively that US "world's policeman" military...
AI-Rebuilt Personal Wiki Generates Fresh Insights, Hits Token Limit
Well, that was interesting. I use a personalized variant of Karpathy's Claude/Obsidian wiki, which I find very useful. It mixes my own writing/concepts in with the other sources, so it's a pretty good wiki. I just had Cowork rebuild it using...
AI Policy Must Balance Facts Over Corporate or Populist Extremes
This is good. Public reactions to AI are currently taking ridiculous internet-fueled hardlines. Government needs to take action, but it should be grounded in facts, reason, and public input, not just either corporate puppetry or populist mob rule. I don't...
Even Tech Leaders Fear Life Without Their Jobs
Yesterday, I had lunch with a few of the other senior/lead engineers at my job, very skilled and capable people. One of them is convinced that AI/robots will take 90% of the jobs in the next decade or two. (I...
2025 Marks First Net‑Zero Threshold: Fossil Power Declines
Getting to Net Zero is going to come in layers, in thresholds. In 2025, we passed an early threshold. Ember Energy's annual report showed that fossil fuel use for electricity generation fell slightly, despite 2.8% overall demand growth for electricity....
Tesla's Safety Prompts Can Thwart Simple Cruise Control
Well, that was annoying. We are on a road trip, and my spouse wanted to drive my Tesla for a while. She rarely drives it. She kept trying to start cruise control, but it nagged her to keep her hands...
Even Perfect Sleep Gets Sabotaged by Inevitable Travel
I work really hard on my sleep, and nine nights out of ten, I sleep really well. Why does the lousy night of sleep have to be before I have to drive four hours the next day to a weekend event...
Seeking Viable Voting Rights Strategies Amid Hostile Supreme Court
How do we get back the heart of the Voting Rights Act, while being something that Trump’s stacked Supreme Court won’t just throw out? (Cynical “we can’t win” answers will be ignored.) I’m not even remotely qualified to answer this, but...
Future AI: Tiny, Cheap, Embedded, Not Massive
There's enormous focus on the heavy frontier AI models right now, but I don't think they're the future. The future will be lightweight "good enough" AI that can be embedded on cheap devices. Imagine a weed-killing robot. A tiny little thing,...
Even Top AI Misnames Haldane, Showing Lingering Hallucinations
Got an interesting hallucination yesterday. Using Sonnet 4.6, which is pretty hallucination-resistant normally. Working on some writing about how WWI battle experience drove some intellectuals toward socialism. I brought up the scientist JBS Haldane, a hero of mine, as an...
Free Home Solar, Battery; High Fees for Commercial Users
Let's just put solar on the roof of any residential home, for free. Throw in a battery, too. Use switching equipment that speaks EnergyNet (an open source decentralized grid protocol), for local networks as well as the traditional grid. Subsidize...
Renewables Keep Lights On When Supply Chains Collapse
A world that runs on renewable energy rather than fossil fuel is a world that won't go Mad Max. Solar panels don't stop working just because supply lines fail.
Personal AI Wiki Powered by Claude Shows Promise
Set up my own variant of the Karpathy AI Wiki concept. It also contains my "Kintsugi" fiction and nonfiction writing projects, as well as the usual raw data sources and generated wiki. I'm using Claude Code to maintain the wiki, and...