Kurzweil bet on hydrogen cars, microbial cells, and sonofusion in 2005. Silicon photovoltaics quietly won everything.
Solar got cheap, space-to-Earth microwave beaming flew in 2023, and glucose fuel cells power pacemakers — but the molecular-nanotechnology vehicles Kurzweil picked all missed.
CATL, the world’s largest battery maker, has 12 US patents on perovskite solar cell fabrication. The manufacturing DNA is nearly identical. A 48,000-paper field is about to meet the factory floor.