Thoughts (Rants) on Moonshots

I attended a "moonshot" sprint event in early April sponsored by my employer. The topic was "making impact on climate change", which was something that I care deeply about and had some experience (deeper experience in solar cells and moderate knowledge in other renewable energy and sustainability technologies in general). I was curious what the audience (mostly IT people, product managers, business folks) can do to "solve" climate change.

The day begun with a inspirational talk by the event organizer, making analogies about SpaceX, Tesla, and other "moonshot" companies that aim to change the world. They encourage us to do the same. Then we split into teams of 5-8 to brainstorm ideas about how we can "solve" climate change, develop solutions, and draft a slide deck to talk about our idea and roadmaps, all in the span of a day.

A full day (6-7 hr) later, I walked out feeling pretty... meh. Among the 10-15 people I met (out of ~80 for the entire event), I felt that I may be the most qualified person in this topic, and that's not a good thing. Most of the solutions that team proposed are really out of ignorance - overwhelmingly, the solutions that was being proposed are (1) technologically infeasible, (2) does not solve the right problem, or (3) both. That is primarily due to the fact that most of the attendees have no practical experience in the problem (climate change) that we aim to solve. To be fair, the proposals doesn't need to be technologically feasible (and the people who attended are probably not able to make that call anyway), since we are just encouraged to "think big".

Some examples of the proposed solutions include:

1. > 50% efficient solar cells that is dirt cheap to make. Bonus point is if the solar cell comes as liquid form that can be just painted on the roof
2. Engineered bio-organism that can absorb and store CO2 permanently
3. Drones that suck CO2 out of air, continuously. Bonus point if that said drone can send captured CO2 to space.
4. Perpetual motion machines for electricity ("a box that generate electricity without input energy!" "What are you putting in?" "Nothing! That’s the point!")
5. Drill the core of the earth and use that heat as power!

I am not against the idea of moon shots per se, but moon shots must be validated by people who knows something about the said projects and be able to distinguish practicality from lunacy. A moon-shot without such validation is just people who are getting together and day-dreaming, and get the illusion that they are doing something productive while they are not...

Now I really wish I have that day back! =(