When I was a little kid, I loved the 1966-1967 television show “Time Tunnel,” where the stars traveled into the future and saw things that were going to happen, and back in time to witness famous historical events like the siege of Troy, the sinking of the Titanic, the Wild West and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The actors are trapped in this Time Tunnel, and in each episode the scientists who invented it try desperately to bring them back to the present time.
Like many kids growing up in that age of the Apollo moon launches, I always enjoyed thinking about inventions that would change the future of the world. And as a kid with newspaper route, I dreamed about finding a stack of newspapers from the future, with the scores of the next year’s World Series games and results of the 1972 Presidential Election a few years down the road.
I had that same interest in the future during my earliest days as an editor for Electrical Wholesaling, and back in 1985 I wrote an article for this magazine entitled “A Walk Through the Office of the Future,” in which I sketched out how video conferencing, programmable dimming systems, local area networks, task lighting in cubicles, super-efficient fluorescent lighting, snow-melting systems for pathways and parking lots, and other cutting-edge technology of that time would one day dramatically change how we all lived and worked.
Fast forward 28 years and I see now that many of these technologies actually did pan out, although reading that article again, I probably oversold undercarpet cabling and satellite broadcasts of videoconferences just a wee bit.
I still have that child-like enthusiasm for new inventions and have tried to channel it into my responsibilities as an editor for this publication to inform readers about technology “just over the next hill” that could possibly offer new business opportunities. In this month’s Electrical Wholesaling cover story, “FutureView,” (p. 18), I make some picks for technologies currently under development that could have the most impact on the electrical wholesaling industry. These technologies include OLEDs, the merger of lighting and HVAC systems in commercial buildings, energy storage systems for renewable energy and electric vehicles, 3D printers, cost-competitive PV cells and the smart grid.
What would happen if these technologies all became cost-effective realities? You would drive up to your office in an electric vehicle and plug it into one of the dozens of charging stations in the parking lot. The EV charger would top off your car’s battery in five minutes, no longer than it used to take to pump a full tank of gas into your car.
As you walk across the parking lot, you might admire the photovoltaic (PV) cells integrated into the entire building envelope — windows, roof and the rest of the exterior walls. One of the nice things about this system is that if your building generates more electrical power from these PV cells than it needs on this sunny day, the building manager can either store it in an on-site battery or sell it back to the electric utility on a smart electrical grid that senses down to the micro-second which other users on the grid need additional power and what they are willing to pay for your electricity.
When you step inside your office, the integrated lighting/HVAC system senses your presence and tunes the lighting and air-conditioning to the time of day and your pre-programmed climate and lighting desires. And yes, your office of the future does have solid-state lighting. But LEDs are a thing of the past because someone figured out how to manufacture OLEDs cost effectively and now they are painted onto walls and ceilings and illuminate the facility at a ridiculously low cost.
Perhaps you are in a rush that morning and forgot to bring along a muffin or bagel. No problem — you tap in the food design program for muffins that you store in your 3D printer for just such emergencies and it prints out a blueberry muffin just in time for your 10 a.m. coffee break.
Will this all happen? Perhaps. Check back with us in the pages of Electrical Wholesaling in 15 years. In the meanwhile, I will keep looking for that stack of newspapers from the future. I am dying to find out who wins the World Series in 2030.
