This is a work in progress...
What is The Commons?
As explained in Jeremy Rifkin's website for The Zero Marginal Cost Society, the emerging Internet of Things is speeding us to an era of nearly free goods and services, precipitating the meteoric rise of a global "Collaborative Commons" and the eclipse of capitalism. Rifkin expanded on these ideas at the RSA in April 2014 (see video).
(The plummeting of marginal costs is spawning a hybrid economy—part capitalist market and part Collaborative Commons—with far reaching implications for society, according to Rifkin. Hundreds of millions of people are already transferring parts of their economic lives to the global Collaborative Commons. Prosumers are plugging into the fledgling IoT and making and sharing their own information, entertainment, green energy, and 3D-printed products at near zero marginal cost. They are also sharing cars, homes, clothes and other items via social media sites, rentals, redistribution clubs, and cooperatives at low or near zero marginal cost. Meanwhile, students are enrolling in free massive open online courses (MOOCs) that operate at near zero marginal cost. Social entrepreneurs are even bypassing the banking establishment and using crowdfunding to finance startup businesses as well as creating alternative currencies in the fledgling sharing economy. In this new world, social capital is as important as financial capital, access trumps ownership, sustainability supersedes consumerism, cooperation ousts competition, and “exchange value” in the capitalist marketplace is increasingly replaced by “sharable value” on the Collaborative Commons.
Rifkin concludes that capitalism will remain with us, albeit in an increasingly streamlined role, primarily as an aggregator of network services and solutions, allowing it to flourish as a powerful niche player in the coming era. We are, however, says Rifkin, entering a world beyond markets where we are learning how to live together in an increasingly interdependent global Collaborative Commons.
THE SUPERINTERNET
The Energy Internet
Demand for energy continues to grow. Global energy consumption doubled from 4,000 million tonnes of energy in 1971 to just over 8,000 million tonnes in 2010. It is set to grow by another 40 percent by 2035. Fossil fuels count for 80 percent of primary energy (Oil 32.4 percent, Coal 27.3 percent and Gas 21.4 percent). The remainder is provided by nuclear (5.7 percent), hydro (2.3 percent), biofuels and waste (10 percent). Geothermal, solar, wind and heat make up 0.9 percent. Fossil fuels will continue to provide 75 percent of our energy in 2035, the proportion of nuclear remains the same and renewables are expected to grow rapidly.
See also:
Electricity grids of the future – smart grids – will integrate and enhance new grid technologies with renewable energy generation, storage, increased customer participation, better communication, sensors, meters and computation. They will provide for the two-way flow of electricity and information, where consumers can also become producers of electricity. They will deliver real-time information that will allow for real-time automated balancing of supply with demand. Distributed sources of electricity generation will also utilise the heat produced from the production of electricity to heat and cool buildings locally. Smart grids will ensure better security, quality and reliability of power.
Inequality
In 2014, almost two-thirds of UK voters, including half of Conservative supporters, wanted the next government to be tougher with big business, amid widespread concern over high executive pay and ethics.
Internet of Things
The revenues of makers of 3D-printing equipment and supplies grew by almost 40% last year in 2013.