“Qnetic was founded to do a fundamental good. In 2021, after a three-month, six-thousand-kilometre bike trip from Shanghai to Shangri-La, we sat on a 12-hour train journey back to Shanghai, and debated all possible answers to this question: when we are old, forty years from now and looking back on our lives, what did we do to make a positive difference in the world?

 

We discussed solving all sorts of problems, from housing to food, and often our discussions would lead us back to the issue of where our energy comes from.

 

Historically, each time humanity has unlocked a new kind of fuel, it has resulted in a proportional acceleration of progress. Once we had mastered fire, we could extract massively more energy from our food and there was a step-change in our evolution.

 

We existed like this for millennia until the industrial revolution. Suddenly we could use heat-engines burning hydrocarbons to perform physical labour or to create electricity, and the progress in civilisation has been phenomenal.

 

Now we must urgently stop burning hydrocarbons. In the near future, civilisation will transition to an electricity system where there is no fuel, there is only capital equipment through which we have perpetual access to practically unlimited, practically free, renewable energy. We are on the brink of the next great acceleration, and we intend Qnetic to help enable it.”

 

—Michael Pratt and Loïc Bastard, co-founders

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