Elon Musk wants to send settlers to colonize Mars.
He said theyll ultimately have to terraform the planet, but first, theyll live in glass domes.
He also said he hoped to populate Mars with 1 million people in just 30 years.
Now, Ive never been one to trivialize big ideas. Particularly from Musk.
What hes done in terms of launching a transition away from the outdated internal combustion engine is truly amazing.
And his reusable rocket?
The implications of that technology will absolutely change the world.
But when it comes to Musks big plans for Mars, I have to call bullshit.
And also
As reported in The Independent, terraforming in this instance is a process that is believed would make Mars more habitable for human life:
This involves blasting the planet with nuclear weapons at its poles to cause the ice caps to melt and induce accelerated warming to make it comfortable for humans to live there.
Musk said, Eventually you can transform Mars into an Earth-like planet. Theres a fast way and a slow way. The fast way is to drop thermonuclear weapons over the poles.
He also suggested"a system of giant mirrors could be placed in orbit around Mars in order to reflect sunlight onto the surface."
No one has a price tag for any of this, by the way, but we do know that, according to Musk, it will cost $500,000 to send a single person to Mars.
And if Musk is trying to get 1 million humans to the red planet, youre looking at $500 billion.
And for what?
Why would we spend a half-trillion dollars to send people to Mars?
Well, according to Musk, we must colonize Mars to preserve our species after a third world war.
Seriously?
I dont know about you, but that seems like an awful lot of money to spend to preserve a species that put itself in this precarious situation to begin with.
Perhaps we should really ask ourselves if our species is even worth preserving at all...
And if it is, maybe we should table the Mars colonization thing for a bit while we figure out how to ensure our survival on this planet. Its not that we dont have the tools, intelligence, and resources to make that happen.
I imagine that with a half-trillion dollars to spend, we could make some pretty meaningful inroads into ensuring our survival for a very long time right here on Earth.
Certainly the ROI would be a lot higher.
Look, Im not trying to trivialize the value of Musks ability to make the impossible, well, possible.
What he did with Tesla and SpaceX is truly inspirational and has made a lot of people very, very rich.
But I would never invest in some fakakta plan to put a million people on Mars. Its stupid and a giant waste of money and resources.
What isnt stupid, however, is something Musk recently mentioned about a new energy technology that he says will be much bigger than anything hes accomplished with electric cars.
And thats a pretty bold statement to make when you consider Tesla is solely responsible for launching the electric car revolution.
Today, nearly every major automaker has dozens of new electric cars in development or on the roads. And that all started after Musk showed that electric cars didnt have to be glorified golf carts and, of course, people would buy them.
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But this new technology hes talking about has nothing to do with electric cars. In fact, Musk said this technology will not only dwarf what weve seen with the electric car, but the market will grow much, much faster.
So what is it?
And why is he so bullish on it?
Well, it is pretty incredible.
Its a new energy technology that can power the 90 million-plus buildings and homes in the U.S. alone and do it more cheaply than any fossil fuel or other renewable energy technology currently on the market.
So cheap, in fact, it can do it for virtually nothing 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Apple already has $3 billion invested in a version of this technology, and Facebook is ponying up $416 million.
Bottom line: Unless you hate money, you need to learn everything you can about this technology now, and that includes the name of the company producing it and, of course, its stock symbol.
You can get access to all this information in this recent investor note.
Theres also a special report that outlines this technology, who invented it, and how much its worth. That report can be downloaded here.
I know its Thanksgiving, and not a lot of folks are thinking about investing right now.
But I am.
And given the potential of this new technology that Elon Musk is salivating over, Id be a fool not to.
Click here to learn more.
To a new way of life and a new generation of wealth...
Jeff Siegel
@JeffSiegel on Twitter
Jeff is the founder and managing editor of Green Chip Stocks, a private investment community that capitalizes on opportunities in alternative energy, organic food markets, legal cannabis, and socially responsible investing. He has been a featured guest on Fox, CNBC, and Bloomberg Asia, and is the author of the best-selling book, Investing in Renewable Energy: Making Money on Green Chip Stocks. For more on Jeff, go to his editor's page.
Trillions will be spent to secure the world's energy supply over the next two decades...and all sources are on the table. Oil, natural gas, solar, wind. There will be money made. Follow the money trail. Sign up for Energy and Capital now - it's entirely free!
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